From tailoring to appropriation support: Negotiating groupware usage
Volkmar Pipek · 2005
This thesis contributes to the field of collaborative information systems and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). It extends the notion of technological support for design use beyond providing the flexibility to tailor collaborative software, to provide means to support the process of these tools in their application fields. Two long-term studies on the evolution of usages of collaborative software in a German authority and in a network of freelancers in the field of consulting form the foundation of this work. Based on the experience there, it was possible to identify user that drive the process and to establish a perspective on the of a Groupware as a social process. Appropriation can be described as a collaborative effort of end users, who perform appropriation activities to make sense of the software in their work context. Besides to configure the software to fit into the technological, organisational and individual work context of the users ('Tailoring'), there is a larger area of technology-related communication, demonstration and negotiation aimed at establishing a shared understanding of how a software artefact works and what it can contribute to the shared work context. The mutual shaping of the technology and organisational contexts resemble an ongoing design process that end users perform largely without any involvement of professional