Interventionist grid development projects: a research framework based on three frames

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PurposeThis paper seeks to consider the collaborative efforts of developing a grid computing infrastructure within problem‐focused, distributed and multi‐disciplinary projects – which the authors term interventionist grid development projects – involving commercial, academic and public collaborators. Such projects present distinctive challenges which have been neglected by existing escience research and information systems (IS) literature. The paper aims to define a research framework for understanding and evaluating the social, political and collaborative challenges of such projects.Design/methodology/approachThe paper develops a research framework which extends Orlikowski and Gash's concept of technological frames to consider two additional frames specific to such grid projects; bureaucratic frames and collaborator frames. These are used to analyse a case study of a grid development project within Healthcare which aimed to deploy a European data‐grid of medical images to facilitate collaboration and communication between clinicians across the European Union.FindingsThat grids are shaped to a significant degree by the collaborative practices involved in their construction, and that for projects involving commercial and public partners such collaboration is inhibited by the differing interpretive frames adopted by the different relevant groups.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is limited by the nature of the grid development project studied, and the subsequent availability of research subjects.Practical implicationsThe paper provides those involved in such projects, or in policy around such grid developments, with a practical framework by which to evaluate collaborations and their impact on the emergent grid. Further, the paper presents lessons for future such Interventionist grid projects.Originality/valueThis is a new area for research but one which is becoming increasingly important as data‐intensive computing begins to emerge as foundational to many collaborative sciences and enterprises. The work builds on significant literature in escience and IS drawing into this new domain. The research framework developed here, drawn from the IS literature, begins a new stream of systems development research with a distinct focus on bureaucracy, collaboration and technology within such interventionist grid development projects.