Improving medical care: the use of simulation technology
Simulation and Gaming - Symposium on medical and healthcare simulation Part I
Option pricing: simulation in financial engineering
Proceedings of the 33nd conference on Winter simulation
Workflow Automation: Overview and Research Issues
Information Systems Frontiers
From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog (History of Computing Series): A History of the Software Industry
Information Systems Research
Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams
Management Science
Innovation and Attention to Detail in the Quality Improvement Paradigm
Management Science
Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions
Human-Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions
Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective
Organization Science
Learning to Implement Enterprise Systems: An Exploratory Study of the Dialectics of Change
Journal of Management Information Systems
Semantic interoperability in building design: Methods and tools
Computer-Aided Design
On the adoption of computing and IT by industry: the case for integration in early building design
EG-ICE'06 Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Intelligent Computing in Engineering and Architecture
An industrial view of electronic design automation
IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
IEEE Design & Test
Organization Science
Proceedings of the 17th ACM international conference on Supporting group work
Beyond the computer: Changing medium from digital to physical
Information and Organization
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In this paper, we broaden the concept of interdependence beyond its focus on task to include technology, defining technology interdependence as technologies' interaction with and dependence on one another in the course of carrying out work. With technologies increasingly aiding knowledge work, understanding technology interdependence may be as important as understanding task interdependence for theories of organizing, but the literature has yet to develop ways of thinking about technology interdependence or its impact on the social dynamics of work. We define a technology gap as the space in a workflow between two technologies wherein the output of the first technology is meant to be the input to the second one. Using data from an inductive study of two engineering occupations (hardware engineering and structural engineering), we analyzed engineers' gap encounters (episodes in which a technology gap appeared in the course of action) and found striking differences in how engineers minded the gaps. Hardware engineers minded the gaps by coordinating technologies via “bridges” that automated data transfers between technologies. Structural engineers, in contrast, allowed technology gaps to persist even though traversing gaps consumed significant time and effort. Our findings highlight a difference between task and technology in the degree of coordination necessary for success. Managers in our study designed policies around technology interdependence and coordination not to manage technology most efficiently, but to manage work and workers in a manner consistent with occupational structures and industry constraints. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of organizing work.