Analyzing due process in the workplace

  • Authors:

  • Elihu M. Gerson;Susan Leigh Star

  • Affiliations:

  • Tremont Research Institute, 458 29th Street, San Francisco, CA;Tremont Research Institute, 458 29th Street, San Francisco, CA

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS) - Special issue: selected papers from the conference on office information systems
  • Year:
  • 1986

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Abstract

Every office is an open system, and the products of office work are the result of decentralized negotiations. Changing patterns of task organization and alliance inevitably give rise to inconsistent knowledge bases and procedures. This implies that there are no globally correct answers to problems addressed by OISs. Rather, systems must deal with multiple competing, possibly irreconcilable, solutions. Articulating alternative solutions is the problem of due process. This problem and its consequences are illustrated by a case study of a rate-setting group in a large health insurance firm.There is no formal solution to the problem of due process. But it must be solved in practice if distributed intelligent OISs are to be developed. We propose an alternative approach based on the work of social scientists concerned with analyzing analogous problems in human organization. Solution of the due process problem hinges on developing local closures to the problem faced by an organization. This means analyzing (a) local, tacit knowledge and its transfer ability; (b) articulation work, that is, reconciling incommensurate assumptions and procedures.