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Making Sense of Enterprise Apps in Everyday Work Practices

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Abstract

This paper draws attention to the growing adoption of web and mobile apps in the enterprise, typically supported by digital storage in the cloud. While these developments offer several advantages, they also pose challenges for workers who must make sense of increasingly complex software configurations – with apps accessible from multiple devices (typically supporting different features or capabilities) and used alongside legacy enterprise software. We investigate how workers navigate these environments through a qualitative study of the work practices of employees in an app-enhanced organization. Our findings focus on two sets of practices. The first involves appraising what software programs and software/device combos offer what features, what we refer to as software calculus. The second involves orienting towards data formats and database structures that underlie specific software programs and their interactions with specific devices, what we label data thinking. Building on prior work on the role of materiality in CSCW, our findings set out a call for further attention to the material and lively dimensions of software and the emergent challenges they pose for contemporary work practices.

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Notes

  1. Enterprise apps are designed specifically with organizational needs in mind, often developed “in house” to support and transform specific workflows.

  2. https://www.bettercloud.com/monitor/state-of-the-saas-powered-workplace-report/

  3. http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/how-big-data-analytics-are-reinventing-it-application-management

  4. https://www.convergetechmedia.com/getting-a-hold-on-app-sprawl/

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to our participants, who generously shared their experiences and insights with us. Also thank you to Paul Dourish and Roderic Crooks for comments on earlier drafts and to the anonymous peer reviewers. This work was partially completed while the first author was a graduate student in the Dept. of Informatics, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, and was supported, in part, by fellowship funds from Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Orange County Chapter, the IBM PhD Fellowship Program, and the US Dept of Education. All opinions expressed herein are our own and do not reflect any institutional endorsement.

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    Christine T. Wolf & Jeanette L. Blomberg

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Wolf, C.T., Blomberg, J.L. Making Sense of Enterprise Apps in Everyday Work Practices. Comput Supported Coop Work 29, 1–27 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-019-09363-y

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