Mobility Work: The Spatial Dimension of Collaboration at a Hospital

TY - JOUR

T1 - Mobility Work

T2 - The Spatial Dimension of Collaboration at a Hospital

AU - Bardram, Jakob Eyvind

AU - Bossen, Claus

PY - 2005

Y1 - 2005

N2 - We posit the concept of Mobility Work to describe efforts of moving about people and things as part of accomplishing tasks. Mobility work can be seen as a spatial parallel to the concept of articulation work proposed by the sociologist Anselm Strauss. Articulation work describes efforts of coordination necessary in cooperative work, but focuses, we argue, mainly on the temporal aspects of cooperative work. As a supplement, the concept of mobility work focuses on the spatial aspects of cooperative work. Whereas actors seek to diminish the amount of articulation work needed in collaboration by constructing Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs), actors minimise mobility work by constructing Standard Operation Configurations (SOCs). We apply the concept of mobility work to the ethnography of hospital work, and argue that mobility arises because of the need to get access to people, places, knowledge and/or resources. To accomplish their work, actors have to make the right configuration of these four aspects emerge.

AB - We posit the concept of Mobility Work to describe efforts of moving about people and things as part of accomplishing tasks. Mobility work can be seen as a spatial parallel to the concept of articulation work proposed by the sociologist Anselm Strauss. Articulation work describes efforts of coordination necessary in cooperative work, but focuses, we argue, mainly on the temporal aspects of cooperative work. As a supplement, the concept of mobility work focuses on the spatial aspects of cooperative work. Whereas actors seek to diminish the amount of articulation work needed in collaboration by constructing Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs), actors minimise mobility work by constructing Standard Operation Configurations (SOCs). We apply the concept of mobility work to the ethnography of hospital work, and argue that mobility arises because of the need to get access to people, places, knowledge and/or resources. To accomplish their work, actors have to make the right configuration of these four aspects emerge.

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0925-9724

VL - 14

SP - 131

EP - 160

JO - Computer Supported Cooperative Work

JF - Computer Supported Cooperative Work

IS - 2

ER -