ABSTRACT
This chapter draws from the dissatisfaction with the ways in which the design of information technology applications been conceptualised in early science and technology studies (STS) writings and in related work from what people might call 'socially-oriented computer science'. The critical accounts of 'technocratic' approaches had emphasised the shortcomings of the traditional engineering viewpoint underpinning established systems design methods and their failure to understand the actual needs of the organisations that would adopt them and particularly those of end users. The vast majority of empirical research into enterprise systems involves studies not of their design, however, but of their implementation. Software packages are designed around a basic organisational functionality, what is sometimes described as the 'generic kernel'. The idea is to paint the organisational reality of adopters onto this kernel by developing numerous "templates", which users can then choose between and tailor to meet their local conditions.
