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Organization Studies
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The Question of Technology, or How Organizations Inscribe the World

Bernward Joerges

Wissenschaftszent- rum Berlin, Germany

Barbara Czamiawska

Gothenburg Research Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

This article relates technology studies to organization research and examines the technology-as-text metaphor. The study of organization is incomplete as long as tangible technology remains in its blind spot. Linguistic metaphors and analogies, while capturing and indeed amplifying much of received understandings of technology, succeed only partially in repairing the situation. The image of the palimpsest is used to highlight this critique and to visualize ways out. Thus, while the main concern of the paper is to re-situate technology to the study of organization, an argument is also put forward for a specific approach to the study of technology.

Key Words: technology • organizations • institutionalization • technical norms • social norms • inscriptions

Organization Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3, 363-385 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/017084069801900301
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