From Specifications to Specific Vagueness: How Enterprise Software Mediates Relations in Engineering Practices

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

Relying on an ethnography of software demonstrations given by members of the product development and sales division of a system engineering company to various industrial design engineers at different sites, the article identifies patterns of specific vagueness with reference to a software graphic modeling tool. A statement is vague to the extent that it has aspects that resist inquiries. In our fieldwork on software demonstrations, sales system engineers resisted inquiries specifically concerning (i) the amount of software functions, (ii) their range, and (iii) their degree of integration. The article discusses the role of software-specific vagueness in the transition of system engineering services to the international market of enterprise architecture. Contrary to expectations concerning engineering when it is viewed as a matter of logic, in the context of the enterprise architecture software market the establishment of a common ground of reference between sales system engineers and various sorts of design engineers does not rely on solving manufacturing problems. Rather, it relies on making problems specifically vague in order to allow both the specific use of the system for the purpose at hand in a particular industrial context and the vague solution that responds to the enterprise architecture market's logic.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)221-243
Number of pages23
JournalEngineering Studies
Volume2
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2010

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • specific vagueness
  • software
  • ethnomethodology
  • enterprise modeling
  • enterprise architecture

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