Is it the soul of a new/lost machine?

This paper is a throwback to The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder (Kidder, 1981b). Bruno Latour 1987, upon examining Tracy Kidder's story, observes that the heroic tale of engineers who worked on Eagle, a 32-bit minicomputer, was actually inspired by a machine! Over the years, however, this Latourian viewpoint seems to have been ignored. This paper thus examines how Kidder's story was received over the past three decades by the academic and non-academic communities. It exposes how various reviews of the story reinforce one's assumptions about how one approaches narratives about technology. A total of 228 reviews/analyses/commentaries about the story were analysed in a qualitative undertaking that also led the enquiry into a detailed analyses of the story's historico-cultural agency. The findings indicate that non-academic reviews focused largely on heroism, whereas in the academy, the story was approached in light of the prevailing academic discourses in management theory per any given decade of the book's journey; the story then became The Soul of a Lost Machine

Learning in technology-enhanced medical simulation : locations and knowings

The use of simulators has become a common teaching strategy in medical education. It is seen as offering opportunities to address the needs for training interprofessional collaboration by focusing on communication, situation awareness, decision making and coping with stress. While there is a large body of quantitative effect studies supporting the use of technology-enhanced simulations in medical training [3], there is a lack of rigorous, theory-based, qualitative studies to clarify how and when to effectively use simulations to train health care professionals. This qualitative study aims to investigate simulation-based medical training situations, focusing on performance, material arrangements and production of forms of knowing/learning

Blockchain Adoption Framework Using Innovation Translation Approach - The preliminary study

Given the rapid move of organisations towards blockchain adoption, this paper focuses on the niche area associated with blockchain technology adoption. Literature is scarce around the explorative view of the blockchain adoption process and a need to identify the interplay of human and non-human elements at several points that influence the actions and ultimately the decision to adopt a blockchain application. This study investigates the blockchain adoption process from an explorative view and determines yet uncovered aspects to be considered before and while adopting blockchain. For this purpose, the study employed an Innovation Translation approach informed by Actor-Network Theory to identify the interactions among actors at each moment of blockchain adoption. The results of the study are crucial for blockchain literature as it fills gaps of empirically investigated, explorative and dynamic insight into the process and assists potential adopters in realising the interactions required before and during successful adoption process

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HOSPITAL SECURE MESSAGING AND COMMUNICATION PLATFORM: A CONCEPTUALIZATION

Pagers and phone conversations have been the stalwarts of hospital communication. With good reason, they are simple, reliable and relatively inexpensive. However, with the increasing complexity of patient care, the need for greater speed and the general inexorable progress of health technology, hospital communication systems appear to be increasingly inefficient, non-secure, and inadequate. It is unsurprising then, that methods other than pagers and phone-calls, are often utilized; be it residents communicating with other residents, nurses seeking consultant feedback, or patients seeking advice from their clinicians. Thus, this study seeks to develop a conceptual framework for the theoretical underpinning for a larger study and to answer the key research question: How can ICT (information communication technology) solutions ameliorate the current challenges regarding communication inefficiencies within healthcare? To answer this question, this study has served to develop a theoretical research framework by integrating two socio-technical theories namely Actor-network theory and Activity Theory to investigate the possibility of designing a bespoke ICT solution for a specific context at one of the largest private hospital in Australia

WEHST: Wearable Engine for Human-Mediated Telepresence

This dissertation reports on the industrial design of a wearable computational device created to enable better emergency medical intervention for situations where electronic remote assistance is necessary. The design created for this doctoral project, which assists practices by paramedics with mandates for search-and-rescue (SAR) in hazardous environments, contributes to the field of human-mediated teleparamedicine (HMTPM). Ethnographic and industrial design aspects of this research considered the intricate relationships at play in search-and-rescue operations, which lead to the design of the system created for this project known as WEHST: Wearable Engine for Human-Mediated Telepresence. Three case studies of different teams were carried out, each focusing on making improvements to the practices of teams of paramedics and search-and-rescue technicians who use combinations of ambulance, airplane, and helicopter transport in specific chemical, biological, radioactive, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) scenarios. The three paramedicine groups included are the Canadian Air Force 442 Rescue Squadron, Nelson Search and Rescue, and the British Columbia Ambulance Service Infant Transport Team. Data was gathered over a seven-year period through a variety of methods including observation, interviews, examination of documents, and industrial design. The data collected included physiological, social, technical, and ecological information about the rescuers. Actor-network theory guided the research design, data analysis, and design synthesis. All of this leads to the creation of the WEHST system. As identified, the WEHST design created in this dissertation project addresses the difficulty case-study participants found in using their radios in hazardous settings. As the research identified, a means of controlling these radios without depending on hands, voice, or speech would greatly improve communication, as would wearing sensors and other computing resources better linking operators, radios, and environments. WEHST responds to this need. WEHST is an instance of industrial design for a wearable “engine” for human-situated telepresence that includes eight interoperable families of wearable electronic modules and accompanying textiles. These make up a platform technology for modular, scalable and adaptable toolsets for field practice, pedagogy, or research. This document details the considerations that went into the creation of the WEHST design

The Role of Actors in Blockchain Adoption Decisions – An Innovation Translation Perspective

An overview of challenges around blockchain adoption has revealed that there is little understanding of the process of blockchain adoption decisions, including who needs to be involved and consulted at various stages. When systems are designed to intentionally protect privacy or to obscure actors, such as blockchain platforms, it can be challenging to identify them and to understand their roles. To do this we used an Innovation Translation approach from Actor-Network Theory (Latour, 2007) which looks at the roles of both human and non-human actors. To understand the interactions among the actors involved, multiple rounds of interviews were conducted with Blockchain experts, utilising the qualitative Delphi method. The findings of this study propose a framework that provides insight into the decision-process by exploring the actors involved and their roles as they implement strategies to adopt blockchain and to convince other actors. The outcomes will assist blockchain practitioners and researchers to have an understanding of pre-adoption decisions and stakeholder involvement. Organisations considering implementing blockchain will benefit from this research as they will know where to start, who to engage, and which stakeholders are needed during the decision-making process

Networks in the Social Sciences: Comparing Actor-Network Theory and Social Network Analysis

While the subject of networks has been an issue in the social sciences for decades, it can still be regarded as one of the concepts significant enough to excite the imagination of both theorists and empirical researchers. Because of this interest, many different types of approaches to networks have been developed. In many cases these theoretical and analytical developments have occurred relatively independently from each other, using different vocabularies and research styles. This paper presents two prominent network approaches—namely, Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Social Network Analysis (SNA)—in order to highlight the similarities and differences between the two. Besides providing a comparison, the paper discusses the potentially fruitful convergence of these two theories. We argue that ANT researchers could benefit from using certain SNA methods (such as visualization techniques and quantitative measures), whilst SNA researchers would benefit from developing new theoretical and empirical ideas about how to introduce non-human actors into networks that also contain humans

Socio-Organisational Approach to Online Banking Transaction Risk Communication inside Banks in Jordan

This study aims to investigate the innovation of Online Banking Transaction (OBT) risk communication issues inside banks in Jordan from the socioorganisational point-of-view through studying the effects of national and organisational cultures on the risk communication process. Although risk communication issue has been approved to be one of the success reasons of Online Banking (OB) usage, the risk communication approaches that have been developed during past years tend to offer narrow technically oriented solutions, and they have not paid enough attention to the social aspects of risks and the informal structures of organizations. Using the previous research findings, this study presents a socioorganisational approach to the OBT risk communication innovation process inside banks in Jordan, which enrich the in depth understanding for practical projects and empirical research contexts