Different Parts for Different Smarts: Partonomies and the Organization of Work

This paper proposes an approach to analyzing the structure of common information spaces. The approach rests on three ideas. First, information spaces can usefully be described in terms of abstract relations used by participants to organize their work and interaction with one another. Here, I focus on part-whole relations as an example. Second, coordination mechanisms (in the sense of Schmidt and Simone 1996) are the devices and practices which realize connections among the different parts of information spaces. They thus form a natural focus for CSCW. Third, the relations among actors and their activities can be analyzed in terms of commitments and alliances among them.