Understanding and designing appropriation infrastructures [Elektronische Ressource] : artifacts as boundary objects in the continuous software development / von Gunnar Stevens

Understanding and Designing Appropriation Infrastructures: Artifacts as boundary objects in the continuous software development Dissertation von Gunnar Stevens zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades Dr. rer. pol. am Fachbereichs 5 Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht der Universität Siegen Abstract Co-production among product communities has turned out to be a major challenge for the software industry. There is a growing need for evolutionary development strategies sup-plemented by means of interweaving software production and software use more efficiently. In this scenario, the Internet offers a ubiquitous transportation infrastructure for digital prod-ucts, and impacts the communication culture. However, opportunities to mediate between consumption and production (needs and solutions respectively) within software communi-ties are under-investigated, empirically, theoretically and in terms of design methodologies. Framing the design issue to enable new forms of co-production, I investigate in the first part of my thesis the corresponding theoretical problem of mediating innovation development. From a Marxian understanding of appropriation, I show how philosophical, sociological, and technological aspects of mediation are related to each other in the case of innovation de-velopment.