TRULS ERIK JOHNSEN and PER HELMERSEN
This paper is based on fieldwork in Pakistan and Malawi and focuses on the importance of communicating contextualizing stories to HQ and business developer teams. By means of an explorative approach—even in highly structured commercial projects with formalized needs—we’ve uncovered findings and generated understandings that would be hard to pinpoint from a desktop-based pre-study or demand driven fieldwork. These findings in turn have proven to be important tools for said business developers in spite of the fact that they were not included in the initial fieldwork specification. Since our respondents are seen, heard and understood as far as possible within their own framework of values, priorities and aspirations, we, as researchers, are in a position to communicate a well-grounded and more refined picture of their daily lives rather than merely communicating the measurable hard facts back to corporate business developers....
information & communications technology
Intelligences
Now You See It and Now You Don’t: Consequences of Veiling Relational Work
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LISA KREEGER and ELIZABETH HOLLOWAY
This paper offers findings from a study of relationship formation in Information Technology (I.T.) outsourcing services and explores the conditions in which relational practices are veiled by the work designs, tools, business lingo, and even media representations of Information Technology outsourcing services. Veiling describes the way the language and focus of these elements have taken over and permeated organizations to levels where the aspects of relational work are obscured. As a result, relational skills are delegitimized, work is slowed down, conflict results from incorrect assumptions, and inefficient technology is tolerated. We identify intended and unintended consequences, on individuals and organizations, of relational veiling as a strategy that emerges in response to the everyday realities of the workplace....