In studies of organisations and workplace relations there has been a long-standing recognition that national and cultural difference play an important role in the continuing diversity of organisational forms and management practices around the world in general and in Europe in particular - despite the progress made by European integration over the last 50 years. The origin of these differences is seen in deep-rooted value and belief systems (e.g. Geert Hofstede), the influences on companies of existing societal and political structures as a whole (e.g. Philippe d'Iribarne) or of specific economic and social institutions, such as management and worker education and industrial relations (e.g. Richard Whitley). None of these approaches deals explicitly with the role of technology, possibly because their authors consider it as largely neutral in national or cultural terms.

At the same time, in the literature on technology and its history, this neutrality has been increasingly questioned. It is now widely recognised that human-made artefacts always include a symbolic dimension in addition to their material characteristics, leaving it to a certain extent to the user to fill them with meaning. This opens the possibility for different, sometimes competing interpretations of technology - interpretations influenced to a considerable degree by the characteristics of the users, e.g. their gender or their cultural and national background. The recognition that the meaning (and application) of technology are driven by the users would make it possible to establish a link with the above-mentioned literature on national/cultural differences. One example concerns the transfer of US mass production technology to Europe and Japan - where the technological innovations not only led to certain tensions and changes at a material level, for instance in terms of work or office organisation, but also prompted debates of a more symbolic nature, namely about the exact meaning of the American "model". This project will therefore make an attempt to explore the relationship between technical and organisational changes in a given socio-economic context.

Regarding information systems and technologies (IST), the potential for such tensions resulting from national/cultural differences appears particularly high - both from organisational and individual perspectives. One question concerns the effects of the introduction of the same technology (e.g. a new filing system or standardised business software) in different countries on existing organisational structures. To what extent is this technology likely to reduce the existing differences and lead to an increasing similarity among organisations, even those operating within different socio-economic contexts. This seems even more of an issue when these organisations are part of the same entity (e.g. a multinational) or have frequent interchanges of information (e.g. in a buyer-supplier relationship). In this context, it is important to recognise that individuals use the same technologies, e.g. a computer, in both a private and a work setting. If nationally or culturally determined user patterns are reproduced in the office, this might reinforce rather than eliminate existing differences. If, by contrast, a technology is first introduced at work, this will shape the ways it is used at home - thus possibly leading not only to a convergence of organisations, but also of individual behaviour.

Such a technology-driven process of convergence might be facilitated by the emergence of transnational communities of actors, both within the organisation and outside. As a result, the application of IST might be defined more by the rules of a professional group rather than the national/cultural setting in which it takes place. Another important phenomenon regarding IST concerns the importance of intermediaries in shaping the use and interpretation of these technologies. This intermediation can be more or less personal. Regarding the use of the Internet for example, the billing structure is an important determinant of usage and might displace users from one form of communication to another (e.g. voice to text/data). In the Internet, the so-called portals play an important role in attracting and directing the attention of users towards certain content. The most personal form of intermediation concerns the role of consultants in overcoming the tensions between new technologies and the organisation and its members. They have played this role in the introduction of new filing systems at the beginning of the 20th century (an early form of information storage and knowledge management) and continue to play them nowadays -at a much larger scale- in the introduction of complex IT-based systems of information capture and exchange (such as Enterprise Resource Planning).

Combining these issues and hypotheses with the overall lines of investigation of the "Tensions of Europe" network, a number of detailed questions emerge:

Linking of infrastructures

• To what extent have organisations become increasingly linked both nationally and internationally through ICT (e.g. in-house computer networks, data exchange, intranets)?
  
• What are the differences and similarities of this process according to the types of organisations (e.g. multinationals, other companies, research and educational institutions, public administrations)?
  
• Has this process occurred at the same time in different parts of Europe or are certain countries or regions lagging behind?

Circulation of artefacts and services

•  What has been the origin of the predominant information systems and technologies (American, European, or national) and how have they spread across Europe?
  
• To what extent has this created tensions resulting from the introduction of new technologies in a specific nationally/culturally determined socio-economic context?
  
• What has been the outcome of these tensions on user patterns and organisational structures and practices: neutral, convergence (towards which model) or reinforcement of differences?

Circulation of knowledge

• What role have formal or informal user groups (e.g. professional associations or Linux-type efforts) and intermediaries (e.g. service providers, consultants) played in the construction, application and interpretation of ICT in Europe?
  
• Has their national origin been of any importance in this respect?
  
• How have both, user groups and intermediaries, influenced the possible convergence process?