Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Organising alignment
T2 - a case of bridge-building.
AU - Suchman, L.
PY - 2000
Y1 - 2000
N2 - The project of building a bridge is a canonical example of what John Law (1987) has termed `heterogeneous engineering', involving the arrangement of human and nonhuman elements into a stable artifact. This paper reports ethnographic research on the work of civil engineers engaged in designing a bridge scheduled for completion by the year 2004. My emphasis is on a view of bridge-building as persuasive performances that both rely upon and reflexively constitute the elements to be aligned. The work of designing a bridge, on this view, is as much a matter of story-telling as of analysis, calculation, and work with concrete and steel.
AB - The project of building a bridge is a canonical example of what John Law (1987) has termed `heterogeneous engineering', involving the arrangement of human and nonhuman elements into a stable artifact. This paper reports ethnographic research on the work of civil engineers engaged in designing a bridge scheduled for completion by the year 2004. My emphasis is on a view of bridge-building as persuasive performances that both rely upon and reflexively constitute the elements to be aligned. The work of designing a bridge, on this view, is as much a matter of story-telling as of analysis, calculation, and work with concrete and steel.
KW - heterogeneous engineering
KW - ordering
KW - organizational ethnography
KW - performance
KW - planning
U2 - 10.1177/135050840072007
DO - 10.1177/135050840072007
M3 - Journal article
VL - 7
SP - 311
EP - 327
JO - Organization
JF - Organization
SN - 1350-5084
IS - 2
ER -