Technology — Enabling Capabilities

Abstract

Understanding mobile information technology in the context of work requires a perspective on technology. Throughout the past decades several governing metaphors have been forwarded that characterise computer technology in general as a tool (Ehn and Kyng, 1985), a medium (Andersen et al., 1993), language actions (Winograd and Flores, 1986), intelligent agency (Maes, 1991 and 1994), infrastructure (Ciborra and Associates, 2000) or embodied interactivity (Dourish, 2001). Each metaphor reflects a particular debate and contemporary use of mobile information technology can be viewed as representing all of these perspectives.