NB: If you need assistance (and who doesn’t?), I would highly recommend the University Application Institute.

Program of Study

SOFTWARE production and control: history and evaluation of computer assisted software production in corporate environments 

Until the 1970s software programmers were an assorted bunch—one popular account describes “a successful team of computer specialists [which] included an ex-farmer, a former tabulating machine operator, an ex-key punch operator, a girl who had done secretarial work, a musician and a graduate in mathematics.” In the 1950s and ‘60s human resources and operations management struggled to control software production, plagued by a “software crisis”. By the late 1970s software production had become consistent and controlled, and the field of software engineering brought a range of analytical methods and tools to meet the demands of managers.

Research Questions

What techniques of control brought about this shift to efficient modes of production? As mechanisms for controlling production and labour, what are effective Computer Assisted Software Engineering (CASE) tools and management strategies? What are the negative impacts of these forms of control?

During the tenure of this award I will research:

a) the history of control within software engineering, and

b) the contemporary use of CASE tools and management techniques as applied to the labour required for the production of software.

Methodology

This research builds on data collected during my yearlong case study at a Canadian software company (sponsored by Enhanced MITACS Accelerate PhD Fellowship). The case study used ethnographic methods to understand how software programmers interact with their tools, and how management seeks to increase productivity. Expanding on this case study, I will widen participant recruitment and add historical research. I have selected a mixed–method of ethnography and history because software production, like most socio–technical activities, draws path–dependent historical traces. Subjectification and resistance, additionally, are vividly portrayed through ethnographic study.

During the tenure of this award I will include participants from outside enterprise settings, but for reasons of scope limiting, only within work settings (i.e., excluding hobbyist production, but including small companies). Recent scholarship has complicated the dichotomy of work and play, which is especially true in software production, but I accept the need for a (perhaps fuzzy) boundary to ensure participant recruitment is practical and adheres to my approved Office of Research Ethics proposal (2011–2014). I will use exponential discriminative snowball sampling for participant recruitment (Goodman, 1961). I will continue to use ethnographic methods (e.g., Spradley, 1979, 1980), building on hundreds of hours of experience with semi–structured interviews and job shadowing. Ethnographic methods are chosen to re–vision and re–evaluate the power relationship between researcher and participant, and question deep–seated notions about scholarly privilege and the control of knowledge production.

The history of software engineering will be explored through a practical application of Michel Foucault’s “genealogical” method, using documents located in Canadian and American archives and museums. The genealogical method employs traditional historical techniques but does not attempt to construct grand epochal schemes of progressive history. Instead, genealogy builds on archaeological methods set out in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) that uncover unconscious formations of thought and knowledge which define conceptual possibilities and the boundaries of conduct for a given time. The genealogical method searches for “petty origins” and mundane, inglorious contingencies to construct an historical narrative.

As Foucault (2002) remarked at the close of The Order of Things, genealogy and ethnography fit together well as both are “anti–sciences” used to uncover unconscious social processes that make discourse significant, and give coherence and necessity to the rules and norms of life. I will focus on the Foucauldian concepts of subjectification and panopticism (e.g., Foucault 1969, 1979, 2001, 2008).

This research will commence September 2012, as my MITACS fellowship concludes. Through September to December 2012 I will conduct approximately twenty interviews across five software companies in Vancouver (2), Los Angeles (2), and New York. Thus, while my research will focus on Toronto and Canada, the results are internationally valid. Through January to May 2013 I will conduct historical research using online and physical archives in Toronto (University of Toronto), Cambridge MA (MIT), Somers NY (IBM), and Mountain View CA (Computer History Museum). Through June to December 2013 I will begin writing my dissertation. Through January to April 2014 I will complete my dissertation and begin revisions. Through May to August 2014 I will complete my revisions and defend my dissertation, concluding my PhD studies in August 2014.

Background

Although Foucault’s theories are now widely applied across the academy, research on the production of software instead tends towards functionalism. The dominant critical researchers of post–Fordist technology follow the Marxist tradition (e.g., Braverman 1974, Zuboff 1988, and Kraft 1977). While these authors bring historically informed, analytic research, their work is difficult to operationalize. Foucault’s conceptual axes of power-subjectification-resistance offer a rich framework for critically evaluating software production, and offer potential for operationalizing the results. The history of software is a small, but important and growing field; my research builds on this historical and sociological work (e.g., Mahoney 2011, 2008, 2005, 2004, 2002, 1990, 1988, 1980, Haigh 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2006, 2004a, 2004b, 2002, Aspray 2011, 2000, 1986, 1984, and Campbell–Kelly 2007, 2004, 1995). The broader themes of my research draw on the recent “empirical turn” in the philosophy of technology (e.g., Feenberg 1999), bringing historical and subjective traces into circuit with science and technology studies (STS). STS authors are fellow travellers—in terms of approach, theoretical presuppositions, and methodology (e.g., Mackenzie 2005, 1996 and Latour 1986, 1988, 1993).

Knowledge production

This research is intended to be practical and critical, and to speak simultaneously to the Canadian software industry and the academy. Like my current research, my previous experience as a Senior Information Specialist drew on my background in Philosophy (BA, MA) and Information Science (MLIS), where I was able to translate scholarly research into practical, actionable strategy for a global enterprise. Throughout 2012 I will further my industry–focused research skills by attending the MITACS Step program, ensuring that I am well prepared to conduct this research and cogently disseminate the results. As a deeply interdisciplinary research institution, the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto is well suited to bridging the traditional gap between business and academia. My advisor, Brian Cantwell Smith has considerable corporate research experience, having worked at XEROX Palo Alto Research Center and possesses a deep understanding of the relevant philosophical issues. My committee member, Yuri Takhteyev, is very experienced in the sociology of work and methodologies for conducting ethnographic studies of software production. I am seeking a third committee member with further technical experience and a science and technology studies background. All committee members, like myself, will be personally experienced with software production.

Coffee is always politically problematic

Not quite an Internet mogul, but very complicated indeed. Turns out, Green Beanery is a non-profit organization, that supposedly supports small coffee farmers. So far, so good. But, all of the profit goes to Energy Probe, an environmental NGO—still good. The founder of Green Beanery is Lawrence Solomon, a co-founder of Energy Probe. This is where things get complicated. Lawrence Solomon is a global warming denier, opposed to the expansion of Canadian nuclear power, in favour of transit privatization (especially the TTC), and calls for a “reform” of foreign aid. Energy Probe board members include Margret Wente, Andrew Coyne, and Clifford Orwin, all staunch pro-market, neo-conservatives (Wikipedia even going as far to call Orwin as a Straussian!). Energy Probe is described as being “ecocapitalist” and was adopted by Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario under Mike Harris.

While we’re at it, Ducks Unlimited saves wetlands so hunters can blast more ducks. Complicated indeed.