Knowledge which links dietary fat and cholesterol to coronary heart disease (CHD) has been controversial for more than forty years. While policies advocating fat and cholesterol restriction are now deeply ingrained in affluent western societies, the scientific 'facts' on which they are supposedly based are highly contested. Applying concepts from actor-network theory and the symbolic interactionist social worlds approach, I argue that knowledge and dietary recommendations relating to cholesterol, fat and CHD are the outcome of complex social negotiations which can only be understood in their cultural, commercial and political contexts. Policies were framed in the 1960s before 'proof' of their efficacy was available. Since then, ambiguous experimental results have been shaped to support the policies. I argue that, despite its many attractive features, actor-network theory cannot adequately deal with protracted controversies. Social worlds theory provides a much more useful framework for investigating long debates in which the 'facts' remain elusive.

The digitalisation of patient health data to provide national electronic health record systems (NEHRS) is a major objective of many governments. Proponents claim that NEHRS will streamline care, reduce mistakes and cut costs. However, building these systems has proved highly problematic. Using recent developments in Australia as an example, we argue that a hitherto unexamined source of difficulty concerns the way NEHRS disrupt the moral orders governing the production, ownership, use of and responsibility for health records. Policies that pursue digitalisation as a self-evident 'solution' to problems in healthcare without due regard to these disruptions risk alienating key stakeholders. We propose a more emergent approach to the development and implementation of NEHRS that supports moral re-ordering around rights and responsibilities appropriate to the intentions of those involved in healthcare relationships.

In this article, we apply concepts from symbolic interactionism -a well-established tradition of interpretivist sociology -to investigate the social and political processes involved in a sociotechnical intervention. The intervention was designed to elicit operator involvement in an experimental trial of an advanced manufacturing system at an industrial site in Australia. The interactionist concepts of social worlds, boundary objects and trajectories are used to explore the interrelationships among the theoretical, practical and contextual elements of intervention. We believe that these concepts are flexible intellectual resources that can extend and enrich our understanding of the politics involved in the shaping of work and technology. Such an understanding is necessary if the fields of user participation and sociotechnical design are to move beyond the production of normative discourses and methods into effective interventions in the complex social environments in which technical decisions are made. Karin Garrety and Richard Badham AbstractIn this article, we apply concepts from symbolic interactionism -a well-established tradition of interpretivist sociology -to investigate the social and political processes involved in a socio-technical intervention. The intervention was designed to elicit operator involvement in an experimental trial of an advanced manufacturing system at an industrial site in Australia. The interactionist concepts of social worlds, boundary objects and trajectories are used to explore the interrelationships among the theoretical, practical and contextual elements on intervention. We believe that these concepts are flexible intellectual resources that can extend and enrich our understanding of the politics involved in the shaping of work and technology. Such an understanding is necessary if the fields of user participation and sociotechnical design are to move beyond the production of normative discourses and methods into effective interventions in the complex social environments in which technical decisions are made. IntroductionMany managers, consultants and academic researchers have argued that, in order to be both competitive and humane, workplaces need to be organised in ways that optimally integrate human and technological resources. Sociotechnical systems theories have been developed as one means of addressing this problem. As Gareth Morgan has pointed out, these theories have traditionally drawn strongly on organicist metaphors of organisations as 'open' sociotechnical systems. Some of the most important assumptions underlying these normative expert-based sociotechnical theories and practices are:

This article is based on a study of an organizational change program that sought to alter employees’ self-perceptions, emotions and behavior through the use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a popular personality-typing tool. The program affords an opportunity to explore the various ways in which discourses advocating personal and organizational change work through employees’ subjectivity. We argue that theoretical approaches that view the targets of such programs as passive - as either ‘colonized’ or constructed by discourses - fail to capture the complex and contradictory nature of organizational control, and subjects’ changing positions within it. Drawing on symbolic interactionism, we argue that the power of discourses is mediated through an active, reflexive, and often emotional engagement on the part of individuals. Through their involvement, employees variously reproduce, resist or reconfigure power relationships which, during organizational change, are themselves unstable and inconsistent.

Technology development projects usually benefit when knowledge and expertise are drawn from a variety of sources, including potential users. Orchestrating the involvement of people from disparate groups is a crucial task for project managers. It requires finding a balance between differentiation, when teams work in isolation, and integration, when groups come together to exchange knowledge. This article argues that a "community of practice" perspective can help project managers to achieve this balance, by drawing attention to the assumptions, interests, skills, and formal and tacit knowledge of the different groups involved. Successful integration can be achieved by ensuring that the developing technology is comprehensible to all the groups concerned, and making sure that it satisfies their various interests. AbstractDevelopment projects usually benefit when expertise is drawn from diverse sources, including potential users. Orchestrating the involvement of disparate groups requires finding a balance between differentiation, when teams work separately , and integration, when groups meet to exchange knowledge. This article argues that a "community of practice" perspective can help project managers achieve this balance, by drawing attention to the assumptions, interests, skills, and formal and tacit knowledge of the different groups involved. Using a case study as illustration, weshow that integration can be achieved by ensuring that the developing technology is comprehensible to all groups concerned, and that it satisfies their various interests.