Technology-Related Interruptions and Paper-Based Documents in Back-Office Knowledge Work

This study examines how administrative staff in the back-office aim to maintain the continuity and flow of their tasks that is critical for producing appropriate administrative results in time. Based on an ethnographic study of administrative work, the results suggest that administrative staff in a back-office environment prepare for information technology-related interruptions that may affect the continuity and flow of their tasks. To overcome and tackle these possible interruptions in the workflow, administrators interact through paper-based documents as workarounds to information technology. The study identifies and elaborates three different types of paper-based documents - recipes, proofs, and sketches. The study reveals that different materials, i.e. paper-based documents and information technologies, are closely entwined with each other in back-office work. The study begins to detect important affordances of paper-based documents as administrators attempt to work around the perceived constraints of information technology to maintain the flow and continuity of tasks in administration.