Existing research on technologies-in-use has overlooked how contemporary technology developers can shape the effects of workplace technologies, including their potential for control versus enrichment. In a qualitative study of a digital manufacturing monitoring technology, I examine how third-party developers pursued ongoing acceptance from high-powered manufacturing managers while attempting to include the interests of low-powered manufacturing workers across their client base. I found that, throughout the development process, developers faced two underlying sources of divergent user preferences that required skillful navigation. In response to cross-occupational differences between managers and workers within firms, developers used alignment moves to pursue interest alignment while encoding workers’ preferences into design prototypes. When facing cross-firm differences due to pushback by managers in some contexts, such as firms with less progressive organizational cultures, developers used buffering moves to limit the influence of these managers and release new features. As a complement to examining local variation in technology implementation and use, I suggest that future research on workplace technologies should focus on understanding developers’ capacity to disrupt managerial control across different clients and user groups. Because they enact jurisdiction over ongoing design and development, developers are an important professional group to consider in studies of contemporary workplace technologies.
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- Article