Crafting Moral Infrastructures: How Nonprofits Use Facebook to Survive

We present findings from interviews with 23 individuals affiliated with non-profit organizations (NPOs) to understand how they deploy information and communication technologies (ICTs) in civic engagement efforts. Existing research about NPO ICT use is largely critical, but we did not find evidence that NPOs fail to use tools effectively. Rather, we detail how various ICT use on the part of NPOs intersects with unique affordance perceptions and adoption causes. Overall, we find that existing theories about technology choice (e.g., task-technology fit, uses and gratifications) do not explain the assemblages NPOs describe. We argue that NPOs fashion infrastructures in accordance with their moral economy frameworks rather than selecting tools based on utility. Together, the rhetorics of infrastructure and moral economies capture the motivations and constraints our participants expressed and challenge how prevailing theories of ICT usage describe the non-profit landscape.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1822228.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145477/1/Hemphill-Million-Erickson-Crafting-moral-infrastructures.pdf56Description of Hemphill-Million-Erickson-Crafting-moral-infrastructures.pdf : Main articl

Unfolding the future: Prototypes as epistemic objects in innovation and collaboration work

Prototypes are objects that approximate the features of a product or service. In design practice, prototypes are known as objects that can facilitate collaboration across heterogeneous groups, thereby instantiating changes that can foster innovation. Powerful as this function may be, the focus on prototypes’ boundary properties has obscured their own endemic dynamism as objects, making it difficult to capture the ongoing dynamic of prototypes within the practices that they mediate. We use the notion of epistemic objects to capture how prototypes highlight what is absent, raise questions, and unfold indefinitely over time. Drawing on participant observation and interview data from a 6-week university invention accelerator, we show that prototypes mediate collaboration practices as well as unfold dynamically over time. Our conceptualization of prototypes as epistemic objects captures both the nature and function of artifacts as they facilitate dynamic practices

Crafting Moral Infrastructures: How Nonprofits Use Facebook to Survive

We present findings from interviews with 23 individuals affiliated with non-profit organizations (NPOs) to understand how they deploy information and communication technologies (ICTs) in civic engagement efforts. Existing research about NPO ICT use is largely critical, but we did not find evidence that NPOs fail to use tools effectively. Rather, we detail how various ICT use on the part of NPOs intersects with unique affordance perceptions and adoption causes. Overall, we find that existing theories about technology choice (e.g., task-technology fit, uses and gratifications) do not explain the assemblages NPOs describe. We argue that NPOs fashion infrastructures in accordance with their moral economy frameworks rather than selecting tools based on utility. Together, the rhetorics of infrastructure and moral economies capture the motivations and constraints our participants expressed and challenge how prevailing theories of ICT usage describe the non-profit landscape

Digital assemblages, information infrastructures, and mobile knowledge work

We theorize mobile knowledge workers’ uses of digital and material resources in support of their working practices. We do so to advance current conceptualizations of both “information infrastructures” and “digital assemblages” as elements of contemporary knowledge work. We focus on mobile knowledge workers as they are (increasingly) self-employed (e.g., as freelancers, entrepreneurs, temporary workers, and contractors), competing for work, and collaborating with others: one likely future of work that we can study empirically. To pursue their work, mobile knowledge workers draw together collections of commodity digital technologies or digital assemblages (e.g., laptops, phones, public WiFi, cloud storage, and apps), relying on a reservoir of knowledge about new and emergent means to navigate this professional terrain. We find that digital assemblages are created and repurposed by workers in their infrastructuring practices and in response to mobility demands and technological environments. In their constitution, they are generative to both collaborative and organizational goals. Building from this, we theorize that digital assemblages, as individuated forms of information infrastructure, sustain stability and internal cohesion even as they allow for openness and generativity

Impacto de la gestión en obra utilizando la programación de la cadena crítica en la construcción civil “Residencial Mostacero” en el distrito de Trujillo, ciudad de Trujillo, departamento La Libertad

Esta Tesis tiene como propósito fundamental de ayudar a mejorar la gestión de obras civiles elaborando una propuesta de mejora de costos, recursos y tiempo de la empresa COAM CONTRATISTAS SAC. A partir de la toma de datos en obra realizadas en la obra “Residencial Mostacero”, se recolectó los datos necesarios para determinar el proceso operativo que realizaba la empresa antes mencionada, también se realizó una entrevista con el ingeniero encargado de la obra antes mencionada, en la que se pudo observar el proceso constructivo que realiza la empresa. Para el desarrollo de la tesis se programó mediante cadena crítica la obra civil de 3 pisos, para luego elaborar los cuadros de restricciones y cuadros de costos de las actividades; teniendo como base la programación de la empresa (ruta crítica) y sus costos; se elaboraron los cuadros comparativos de tiempos y costos, con los que se puede saber las ganancias de tiempo y costos en la empresa y evitar el incremento de los costos y tiempo. Con la implementación de una adecuada gestión, se garantiza un mejor control, y la disminución de los costos operativos de la empresa COAM CONTRATISTAS SAC, la cual tendrá mayores beneficios, generando así una ventaja competitiva.This thesis has as main purpose to help improve the management of civil works drafting a proposal to improve costs, resources and time of the company COAM CONTRACTORS SAC. From the collection of data on work performed in the play "Residential Mostacero", the necessary data was collected to determine the operational process performing the aforementioned company, an interview with the engineer in charge of the work above was also performed in which we observed the construction process performed by the company. For the development of the thesis was programmed using critical chain civil engineering 3 story, then draw boxes and boxes restrictions activity costs; programming on the basis of the company (critical path) and their cost; Comparative costs and time frames were developed, with which you can know the time and cost gains in the company and avoid increasing costs and time. With the implementation and proper management ensures better control, and lower operating costs of the company COAM CONTRACTORS SAC, which will have higher profits, thus creating a competitive advantage.Tesi

Igniting talk on digital literacy

New technologies and developments in media are transforming the way that individuals, groups and societies communicate, learn, work and govern. This new socio-technical reality requires participants to possess not only skills and abilities related to the use of technological tools, but also knowledge regarding the norms and practices of appropriate usage. To be ‘digitally literate’ in this way encompasses issues of cognitive authority, safety and privacy, creative, ethical, and responsible use and reuse of digital media, among other topics (Meyers, 2009; Arnone, et al., 2011). A lack of digital literacy increasingly implicates one’s full potential of being a competent student, an empowered employee, or an engaged citizen. Digital literacy is often considered a school-based competency, but it is introduced and developed in informal learning contexts such as libraries, museums, social groups, affinity spaces online, not to mention the home environment. This community-building event will recognize and connect the ways and places we conceptualize and realize digital literacy.10.9776/13413published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Values as Generative Forces in Design

Abstract How do values inspire, energize, and politicize the design process? In turn, how does the process of design influence and inform our understanding of values? This workshop will explore the relationships between and amongst values, design, and creativity through a series of interactive activities, creative inquiry into the varied roles of values in the design process and design in the process of understanding values.ye

Workshop: Work in the Age of Intelligent Machines

This all-day workshop aims to promote convergence among its participants on research related to working with intelligent machines. We define intelligent machines as both material (e.g., robots) and immaterial (e.g., algorithms) computing technologies that can be characterized by autonomy, the ability to learn, and the ability to interact with other systems and with humans. The workshop has three goals: identifying specific research problems around work and intelligent machines, developing a common language base that can facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, and identifying information and cyber-infrastructure needs to support convergent research. Workshop activities will facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue and strive to generate high-impact research ideas to advance each of these goals.NSF 17-45463Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138939/1/Erickson et al. 2018.pdfDescription of Erickson et al. 2018.pdf : Main articl

Beyond the Buzz: Scholarly Approaches to the Study of Work

The place of work in organization studies and management has waxed and waned. Yet, today, social and technological developments have raised again interest in the study of work and this curated discussion brings together experts in key approaches to this topic. Seven contributions have been selected to provide a panorama of what we know about work while pointing to some uncharted territories worthy of future exploration. The contributions outline the principles behind and value of systemic, contextualized, or holistic view of work and report insights on how changes in some work components reverberate in its broader ecology. We hope this curated discussion will make us more aware of the collective journey scholars have charted so far while posing new questions and opening or re-directing new avenues of inquiry