Genre Combinations: A Window into Dynamic Communication Practices.

Author List: Østerlund, Carsten;
Journal of Management Information Systems, 2007, Volume 23, Issue 4, Page 81-108.
The notion of a genre system typically connotes sequences of interrelated communicative genres. This paper suggests that we can find other types of relationships among genres. Data from a field study in a large emergency room illustrate how doctors, nurses, and clerical staff routinely combine document genres not only in sequences but also in various accumulations achieved through proximity and movement. The combinations of genres add flexibility to the emergency room staff's genre use and allow them to employ individual genres for several purposes. The data allow us to explore how organizational members manage the tension between a need for continuity in communicative practices and a need for flexibility in managing a jumble of paper-based and digital information systems. In addition, it demonstrates how end users often tinker with genres' media and form in the process of altering combinations among specific genres.
Keywords: boundary objects; COMMUNICATION GENRES; documenting work; genre combinations; medical informatics; practice theory; qualitative methods
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#137 0.386 phase study analysis business early large types phases support provided development practice effectively genres associated different sensemaking including form technologies
#237 0.108 boundary practices capacity new boundaries use practice absorptive organizational technology work field multiple study objects actors actor theory practical spanning
#203 0.104 communication media computer-mediated e-mail richness electronic cmc mail medium message performance convergence used communications messages face-to-face findings participants results work
#26 0.095 business large organizations using work changing rapidly make today's available designed need increasingly recent manage years activity important allow achieve
#126 0.075 data database administration important dictionary organizations activities record increasingly method collection records considered perturbation requirements special level efforts administrators analyzed
#196 0.059 health healthcare medical care patient patients hospital hospitals hit health-care telemedicine systems records clinical practices physician electronic physicians longitudinal outcomes