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This introductory chapter surveys institutional experimentation that has emerged internationally in response to the contraction of the traditional model of employment protection. Various initiatives are discussed according to the particular challenges they are designed to address: the emergence of non-standard employment contracts; increasing sources of labour supply engaging in non-standard work; intensification of exogenous pressures on the employment relationship; the growth of intermediaries that separate the management from the control of labour; and the emergence of entities that subvert the employment relationship entirely. Whereas post-war industrial relations scholars characterised the traditional regulatory model as a ‘web of rules’, we argue that nascent institutional experimentation is indicative of an emergent ‘patchwork of rules’. The identification of such experimentation is instructive for scholars, policymakers, workers’ representatives and employers seeking solutions to the contraction of the traditional regulatory model.

This paper is intended to pay tribute to the inspiration provided by Rob Kling by showing how his ideas about social informatics in general and the use of web models in particular, have helped us to formulate and develop our own work in the field of information systems development methods.

A conceptual discussion and approach are taken.

Illustrates how Kling's advocacy of the need for a more holistic form of explanation of the behaviour of what he (and Walt Scacchi) termed “computer resources” gave shape to ideas emerging from others' action research studies at that time, and how his attempts to set the agenda for the emerging field of Social Informatics have informed subsequent developments in work in the area of methodological inquiry.

Provides an evaluation of Kling's pioneering and inspirational work on information and communication technologies.

This chapter uses McAlevey's mobilising/organising dichotomy to analyse the recent McDonald's mobilisation in Britain. It argues that this movement has had some impressive successes but building on these requires greater organising activities. However, conventional union organising techniques are unlikely to be successful in hospitality. Instead, the approach of another low-wage worker movement OUR Walmart demonstrates how social media can be used not only to benefit mobilising activities but to enable organising beyond the workplace.

The paper is based on research carried out within the Condor project funded under the European ESPRIT programme. Condor is a partnership between English, French and Swedish construction companies with aims and objectives of defining the working practices, processes, techniques, tools and technical infrastructure to allow the construction industry to progress from its current position towards a large scale, computer integrated industry. The selection, design and implementation of a new information technology system involves inevitably many technical issues but it must also meet user and organisational requirements. A generic model for business process re‐engineering was produced based on research results in order to facilitate Condor’s implementation to participating companies.

There can be little doubt that the risk and fluctuation of demand taken on by employers has been increasingly passed onto employees. We are witnessing a fragmented contract of rules largely determined by employers, for employers. Here the conventional form of employment relations is non-unionism and the management of employees through Human Resource Management (HRM). This chapter critically reviews the underlying assumptions underpinning the rise of HRM, not least its unitarist undercurrent, narrow emphasis on performance and limited incorporation of multiple stakeholders. The chapter then uses Amazon as an exemplary case to illuminate these dynamics in practice and to offer a critical review of what constitutes a meaningful and successful organisation in this new era of work. The chapter concludes by detailing prospects for redress and institutional experimentation, including via technological platforms.

To provide a view of Rob Kling's contribution to socio‐technical studies of work.

The five “big ideas” discussed are signature themes in Kling's own work in the informatics domain, and of his intellectual legacy.

This paper conveys something of Kling's presence in social informatics (SI) thinking by focusing on a number of “big” ideas – “multiple points of view”, “social choices”, “the production lattice” (and its corollary, the problematization of the user), “socio‐technical interaction networks”, and “institutional truth regimes”.

A growing research community has demonstrated the power of SI techniques. It is essential that this body of work is sustained and developed, demonstrating how to undertake investigation and observation, that is not driven by instrumentalism but is informed by and leads to “technological realism”.

The SI corpus, exposing the dangers of naïve instrumentalism as an approach to information systems design and management, can guide practitioners on how to unpack the history of what is in view. This may be a specific technology, a social formation, or a sociotechnical circumstance. Practitioners may draw on the concepts presented, not as a prescriptive toolkit, but rather as a sensitizing frame to assist those who wish to re‐vision the workplace.

Central to the successful utilisation of computers in work, we argue, is the continuing development of a portfolio of interpretive concepts (such as STINs, regimes of truth, production lattices) that can consolidate Rob Kling's “big” ideas that are the core of this paper.

To extend the work of Rob Kling, whose research interests, and advocacy were at the center of a movement in analytical inquiry and empirical research now known as “social informatics”.

Reviews the work of those who engage in social informatics research to strengthen and further the conceptual perspective, analytical approaches, and intellectual contributions of social informatics.

The vibrant and growing international community of active social informatics scholars has assembled a social informatics resource kit that includes: perspective lenses through which research data can be viewed critically; techniques for building theory and developing models from socially rich empirical data; and a common body of knowledge regarding the uses and effects of ICTs.

The paper identifies opportunities to engage new scholars in social informatics discussions, and suggests new venues for promoting and extending the work of scholars already enrolled in the social informatics movement.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of quality related to the context of software development using the ISO, TickIT and CMM frameworks. The paper also seeks to stress the fact that the different perspectives of those involved in software development will influence how quality is seen and measured. In the context of software engineering projects, quality takes on a broad meaning that refers not only to the way in which companies manage software engineering projects, but also to the software development process itself.

The approach and methodology adopted for this paper were a review of the literature and best practice in software engineering. It is argued that users of software systems are more interested in how easy the software is to use than in the underlying application code that is used to generate the system. Using the body of knowledge that is software quality the basic characteristics of software quality are described and compared in terms of quality standards such as ISO, TickIT and CMM. Each of these standards is decomposed further in order to clarify its usefulness.

The findings in the paper suggest that, whilst there are many differences in the quality standards used, there are a number of similar characteristics. In essence the underlying philosophies of ISO and CMM have at the core the same goals. Some academics see CMM as being technically over‐engineered; a CMM‐compliant quality system is in many respects far in advance of ISO.

This paper helps define the strengths and weaknesses within ISO, TickIT and CMM from a software engineering practitioner perspective.

The paper shows that software engineers need to pay more attention to the performance and conformance issues in software projects and to be proactive rather than reactive to quality issues.

It may be argued that the importance of this paper lies in the assertion that those engaged in the software engineering are in need of a multi‐perspective view on quality and, with that in mind, this paper should appeal to practitioners and members of the academic community with an interest in software quality.

In this concluding chapter, we draw together the various contributions presented in this volume, discuss the broader implications of our findings, and reflect on how this builds upon Willy Brown's work. The chapter examines how the patchwork of rules has been altered by new and emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of global supply chains and new forms of business. We return to the central objective of this volume of identifying and analysing the viability of various institutions for addressing these challenges and discuss how these might form the basis of a new web of rules for protecting labour standards in the future.