What’s in a Name? That Which We Call CRM: How New Knowledge Institutions Frame Information Technologies

Abstract

This paper considers the constant propagation of new terminologies within the information technology domain. Whilst scholars have noted and developed concepts to explain this proliferation, we look in the opposite direction to consider their corollary, noting how very few designations actually manage to sustain themselves as technological fields. In the paper we consider the development of the technological field known as Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Key in the development and shaping of this and other technologies are the ‘new knowledge institutions of information technology’ and in particular the specialist forms of consultants known as ‘industry analysts’. Experts like these continuously attempt to draw and police the boundaries surrounding emerging fields: they do this through numerous ‘naming interventions’ and ‘categorization work’; which we conceptualize as their ‘knowledge frames’. This paper enquires into the nature and form of these frames and asks: What’s at stake in these experts’ framing of new information technologies? In order to unpack this question we draw widely on ideas from Information Systems Research, Economic Sociology, the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, and Science and Technology Studies. The paper is based on a longitudinal study of the CRM field and includes: ethnographic fieldwork carried out on the eve of the contemporary CRM boom; and interviews conducted as part of an ongoing investigation into industry analysts.