Two papers on CSCW

I've posted two papers on computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), which can be downloaded from the "Working papers and reprints" list in the left-hand column. The first paper, Reach, bracket and the limits of rationalized coordination was prepared for a forthcoming volume on Resources, Co-Evolution, and Artifacts: Theory in CSCW, edited by Mark S. Ackerman, Christine Halverson, Thomas Erickson, and Wendy A. Kellogg. The second paper, The organization of reconciliation in distributed work, is for a workshop on Distributed Collective Practices to be held at the ACM's CSCW conference in Chicago on November 6. The "Reconciliation" paper is an elaboration of some points made in the "Reach, bracket" paper.``

"Reach, bracket" is a theoretical paper concerned with coordinating tasks in highly distributed work. This problem has been gaining increasing importance as the development of information technology has made it common to cooperate across organizational, territorial, cultural, and other boundaries. The paper argues that we need to distinguish between problems of coordination across different circumstances, and problems of coordination in each set of local circumstances. The first class of coordination problems is largely, but not entirely, accomplished through the use of abstract standards (protocols); the second is accomplished by customizing arrangements and by reconciling incommensurable requirements.

How are such requirements reconciled? Often, there is a common system of arrangements which can impose a solution; for example, a dispute within a firm can be resolved by a management policy decision. But what happens when there is no centralized means for making and enforcing such decisions? The second paper (summarizing and extending a section of the first) discusses several different organizational mechanisms for reconciling differences in the absence of a centralized mechanism: exactly the situation that arises when there are disagreements in a task that cuts across organizational, territorial (i.e., legal and political) and cultural boundaries.