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Aesthetics, performativity and resistance in the
narratives of a computer programming community
Peter Case and Erik PiñeiroPresented by Freddy Liu
Articles
Case, P., & Erik Piñeiro. (2006).
Aesthetics, performativity and resistance in the
narratives of a computer programming community.
Human Relations, 59(6), 753-782.
Jemielniak, D. (2008). Software engineers or artists?
programmers identity choices. Tamara Journal of
Critical Organisation Inquiry, 7(1), 21-37.
Barrett, R. (2004). Working at Webboyz: An Analysis
of Control Over the Software Development Labour
Process. Sociology, 38(4), 777-794. doi:
10.1177/0038038504045864
Issues of interest – Case and Piñeiro
1. The face work that programmers do in their
narrative exchanges.
2. The themes of programmer and commercial
performativity in the online exchanges.
3. The articulation of resistance and subversive
intent among the online community of
programmers.
4. The studied participants consisted of
programmers, assumed to be non-managerial
employees.
Issues of interest – Jemielniak
1. The perception and assignment of programmers as belonging to the field of engineering and the resultant tension between programmers and managers.
2. The metaphor of programming as art that emerged from the views expressed by interview participants.
3. The organisational reluctance to the aesthetical vocabulary of programmers.
4. The studied participants consisted of employees and employers of software development companies.
Issues of interest – Barrett
1. General lack of understanding about the process
of developing software and how management
constructs strategies to control the labour process.
2. How managers exercise technical autonomy, time
autonomy and direct control towards
programmers.
3. The recognition of employment trade-offs from
both management and programmers.
4. The studied participants consisted of employees
and employers of a software development
company.
Theories – Case and Piñeiro
1. There is a significant amount of face work that
programmers undertake when participating in the
online community of Slashdot.
2. Programmer narratives simultaneously enact
technical, ethical and aesthetic motives.
3. By expressing and conforming to a „hacker ethic‟
in the programmer narratives, there is resistance
and subversive intent expressed toward
representatives of employers and employing
organisations.
Theories – Jemielniak
1. There are conflicting occupational identities preferred by managers of programmers and the programmers themselves.
2. The artist identity enacted by the programmers was due to the role of creativity in writing software and when describing the characteristics of a good programmer.
3. The engineering identity enacted by management serves a crucial managerial function to allow for easier control. By calling software creators engineers, organizations justify their inter-changeability and imply standardization of this occupation.
Theories – Barrett
1. That control of the labour process in software
development required management to balance
employee autonomy and getting profitable work
done by the deadline.
2. For programmers, their identity needs conflict with
the necessity of profitability by management and
that autonomy was limited to the use of their skills
and their time.
3. There is an interdependent nature of balancing
management‟s need for control and programmers‟
need for intrinsically valuable work.
Data Description – Case and PiñeiroSecondary data (only used to establish the context): US: 2004 Computerworld Survey 15 non-managerial IT jobs, average salary $40.3k to $91k USD
UK: 2003 Computer Economics Survey & National Computing Centre Survey 15/10 non-managerial IT jobs, average salary £17.3k to £40.1k
GBP
Primary Data: Narrative data collected from 12-month observation of
Slashdot, approximately 200 participants.
Limitations: Covert netnography does not reveal any specific
information about participants.
Used cyberculture literature to validate observations.
Region: Participants assumed to be from US, specific
demographics not known.
Data Description – JemielniakPrimary data:
Open-ended, unstructured interviews.
Each interview 40-50 minutes.
Conducted in 3 Polish and 2 US IT companies.
Total of 56 programmers and 4 managers participated.
Limitations:
Interviews very dependent on the interviewees.
No standard questions were asked, so no demographic or
occupational data collected.
Region:
Poland and US, all the companies developed software for
the corporate market (banks, airports, etc.)
Data Description – Barrett Primary data:
Semi-structured interviews, presented as case study.
13 interviews with programmers and managers.
Australian software company “Webboyz”.
Core questions were concerned with employee backgrounds, their work, expectations and management.
Managers were asked more specific questions regarding their management area.
6 programmers, 1 project manager, MD, GM, FM, CEO. (CEO was interviewed 3 times)
Limitations:
Instability of the firm at the time of research (Dec 1998, height of the dot-com bubble).
Just downsized from 50 employees, previously from 130.
Region:
Australia, company was listed on the ASX at the time.
Analytical Method – Case and Piñeiro Narrative analysis procedure of observation, content analysis &
interpretation.
First observation:
Amount of face work participants undergo.
Analysed with cyberculture theories by Turkle (1995), possible for
users to create several online identities („postmodernist simulation
aesthetic‟).
First observation not consistent with theory as participants were
unlikely to form an artificial identity, but provided context for
analysis of „hacker ethic‟ since participants had a clear motive to
develop a „techie‟ identity.
Analytical Method – Case and Piñeiro (cont.) Second observation:
Programmers exhibited an interest in the art of programming that
transcends the simple functionality of the software projects they
work on.
Lead to frequent articulation of resistance and subversive intent
expressed toward representatives of employers and employing
organisations. Programmers were aware of organisation control
and demands and felt this compromised their artistic endeavours.
Analysed according to notions of „performativity‟, defined as
situations where „saying something was doing something‟, rather
than simply reporting on or describing reality. (Austin, 1976;
Butler, 1990, 1993; Derrida, 1977; Searle, 1977)
Analytical Method – Case and Piñeiro (cont.) Resistance toward representatives of employers and
employing organisations was interpreted according to
performativity in the commercial context.
Lyotard (1984) emphasised that in post-industrial societies
advanced by information-driven technologies, the search for
„truth‟ is replaced by the search for „efficient‟. This was termed
as the „Principle of Optimal Performance‟ where more output
for less input is emphasised.
Both observations were reinforced with Himanen‟s (2001)
studies of „hacker ethics‟
Analytical Method – Jemielniak Informal, open-ended and unstructured interviews were used
with emphasis on storytelling and narratives of organisational
life.
First observed theme consistent with Case and Piñeiro, where
programmers often describing their work using the vocabulary
and metaphors of art, not that of engineering which was the
commonly accepted perception.
Second observed theme was how the artistic identity of
programmers was affected by the engineering identity imposed
by managers.
One on occasion, a manager said,
“You know, I don’t really want to have people who go into
a creative trance and come out with a piece of excellent
code nobody else can understand.”
Analytical Method – Jemielniak (cont.) Jemielniak interpreted both observed themes using literature
on art and management theories to evaluate the proposition of
programming as art and to explain the conflicting identities.
Artist identity was valid using Osborne‟s (1981) literature:
“whatever among artefacts is capable of arousing and
sustaining aesthetic experience in suitably prepared
subjects we call a work of art”.
Commonly accepted perception of the „engineering‟ label used
by managers compared with Boje & Winsor‟s (1993)
studies, where TQM was criticised and the interests of workers
trivialised in relation to the commercial performativity
requirements of the firm. (Lyotard, 1984)
Analytical Method – Barrett The firm‟s history and strategic changes used to establish the
context of study.
Webboyz started in 1994 with sole purpose of producing
software for individuals, strategic shift took place in 1997 to sell
e-commerce software for business. (Common for most
software companies in the midst of the dot-com bubble)
Changes saw recruitment of senior managers, the internet-
related social identity created by general media was perceived
as positive for programmers.
Main observation was that one of the firm‟s most successful
products were developed using the same hacker ethic
described by Case and Piñeiro. These were primary products
(word processing packages, operating systems, etc.) and the
development process is artistic.
Analytical Method – Barrett (cont.) The products were developed by not only the programmers at
Webboyz, but were also tested on the internet by other hackers. Hackers that tested the software could make suggestions and was rewarded with t-shirt, acknowledgment, and free copy of the software. Programmers at Webboyz would be rewarded with an age-appropriate electronic toy (eg. PlayStation).
Practice conformed with „hacker ethics‟ of information sharing, but caused organisational chaos as too many programmers were doing their own thing. This lead to analysis of how management constructed control by comparing managers‟ interviews with theories of job autonomy.
Management exercised technical autonomy, time autonomy and direct autonomy, using previous studies, Barrett asserts that such strategies were enabled by the employee‟s social and work identity.
Used by management to justify their ability to pay low wages.Interviews with programmers also showed that the appeal for many, if not all the programmers at the firm, was the lifestyle and work-environment factors, not the salary.
Key Findings – Case and Piñeiro Case and Piñeiro‟s findings were interconnected with issues of
aesthetics, resistance, and identity.
Programmers interacting online in the Slashdot community were
found to be engaging in performative acts with their
interactions, these interactions were classified as performative
acts or enacted narratives.
The discussions about coding on part of the programmers
enable them to enact identity and membership to a social
group, through expressions of aesthetic preference and
espousals of resistance and subversion.
Programmers frequently expressed an interest in and personally
valued the aesthetics of their work. While utility of code is a
public or commercial demand, the beauty of the code is a
personal preoccupation that found a voice in the highly social
context of online exchanges.
Key Findings – Case and Piñeiro (cont.) The resistance was found to be a fundamental conflict between
programmers and their managers. Commercial performativity
inevitably constrained the pursuit of programming art because
the instrumental value of meeting project deadlines and staying
within budget is the primary concern for management.
This finding was briefly compared to notions of deskilling the
programming labour and the employment relationship within
capitalist organisations, where knowledge is assessed
economically according to its exchange-value,
Narratives exhibited by programmers through the pursuit of
maintaining a hacker ethic were ideological in nature, and is the
equivalent of Terry Eagleton‟s (2003) notion that because
literature and art have no obvious material payoff, they tend to
attract those who look askance at capitalist notions of utility.
Key Findings – Jemielniak The findings were related to the issues of management and
occupational identity.
Significant number of interviewees did some programming at home.
They did this at home for the mere satisfaction of creation and
fun, something they could not do at work because the creations would
not be seen as useful in the organisational context.
This is quite common in artistic vocations therefore Jemielniak
suggests that this finding of „hobbyist programming‟ made the
perception of software creation in terms of being an artist more viable.
By labelling programmers as engineers by the managers involved in
the interview, could be interpreted as the personification of
administrative power. Consistent with Bauman (1992/98): Individuality
is inevitably the primary enemy for any organisation.
Key Findings – Jemielniak (cont.)
Taylorism, Foucault (1977): in manual labour, the strict observation of
physical movements suffices to achieve satisfactory results, implying
that a person is but a substitute for a machine, but in this case, the
disciplinary power of the organisation over its employees goes well
beyond just the control of the body to the mind.
Terry Eagleton‟s (2003) notion that because literature and art have no
obvious material payoff, they tend to attract those who look askance at
capitalist notions of utility.
Philip Kraft (1977):
“in some cases, managers use the engineering professionalization
ethos to impose their own created standards of work on the
programmers and increase control over them.
Denying the artistic role of the programmers and identifying them with
standard-educated engineers further makes them believe that they are
more easily replaceable.”
Key Findings – Barrett Management used direct control, programmers were still able to manage
their time. Storey‟s (1985) layers of control were also evident as
developers incorporated user suggestions into product wherever possible.
Use of direct control was counter-productive where creativity was
required, as is the case for Webboyz as primary software products were
more similar to art.
Time autonomy was also implemented, programmers were allowed to
allocate how they used their working time, they were allowed to work from
home or arrive late. This was found to be effective as it appealed to
programmers.
Combination of direct control and time/task autonomy was preferred by
management and programmers, while management could‟ve increased
profitability, programmer would have left.
Management and employees were aware of the low salary (approx $45k
AUD). Employees valued intrinsically interesting work more than pay and
management‟s different control strategies will vary over time and that there
is no „one best way‟.
Common Features All articles were concerned with computer programmers, analysis was from
different perspectives. (Programmer, organisation, or both)
Case and Piñeiro: insight into cyberculture, identified most common themes in
narratives: aesthetics and managerial resistance. Article focused solely on
programmers, not much is known about the actual participants.
Jemielniak: similar observations, context was under an organisational
setting, management identified programmers as „engineers‟, programmers
identified themselves as „artists‟. Narratives from both were compared to
management literature to understand the cause of conflict.
Barrett: more emphasis was placed on management balancing getting work
done and managing autonomy. Intrinsically challenging and artistic nature of
programming mean a combination of control and autonomies had to be used.
Focus on Programmer
Case, P. & Piñeiro, E.
(2006)
Focus on organisation
Barrett, R.
Focus on both
Jemielniak, D.
Case, P. & Piñeiro, E.
(2009)
Questions
1. From what you‟ve seen during this
presentation, which of the 3 articles did you
feel helped your understanding of
programming as a profession? And did the
methodology of that article affect your choice?
2. All 3 articles used qualitative data that was
compared to various literature, would
quantitative data be of any use?