Chapter 2: The Politics of Knowledge Work in A Software Development Group¹

This paper describes the knowledge work of a group of software programmers and how that work is shaped by the ongoing social context of the work and the organization. Over time the knowledge of the organization, as captured in the written programs and the experiences of the programmers, evolves in subtle yet distinct directions. Evidence from an in-depth field study of this software group reveals three politicized activities—help-giving, helpseeking, and sanctioning—which enabled and directed this evolution. We first describe how the knowledge of this software group evolves across people and programs and the obstacles to sharing knowledge inherent in this work; we then explicate the role of help-seeking, help-giving, and sanctioning in this evolutionary process.