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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.

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This study addresses the knowledge, skills, and attributes of success school principals from the perspective of 310 practicing principals from a large metropolitan area in the Gulf Coast region of Southeast Texas. Although the duties and responsibilities of the principal have escalated and intensified in complexity over the years, the expectations of the principal are twofold, to provide instructional leadership, in addition to, managing the day to day functions of the school. Time, social factors, and economic trends have served as catalysts for determining what knowledge, skills, and attributes are necessary for successful school leadership. With the current accountability system created by the No Child Left Behind legislation (2002), principals must be astute in determining educational goals, fiscal constraints, personnel issues, curriculum development, and functional use of time and space. They are required to provide leadership in revamping the school and district. Barth (1990) reported there is a shortage of knowledge concerning the skills that are essential to be a successful school leader; especially since there have been changes in the expectations of the role of principal. This paper empirically explores the results of over 300 surveyed principals'' perceptions of the knowledge, skills, and attributes necessary for successful principals in the 21st century. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) will be used for all data analyses. Descriptive statistics will be reported for all variables. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) will be used to determine if there are statistically significant differences on the survey items by principal and school demographics. The findings for the current study will be useful for future and practicing administrators, in addition to, institutions who provide principal''s certification.

We address the seemingly implausible project of moving the technical support of complex organisational technologies online. We say ''implausible'' because from the point of view of micro-sociological analysis, and the influential work of Julian Orr, there appears a consensus that the diagnosis and resolution of technical failures is an intrinsically local affair: technical problems are theorised as context specific, requiring specialists to have knowledge of and close interactions with local settings. However, more recently, there has been a push amongst technology producers for the development of online forms of support so that failures and problem-settings can be handled remotely. Today, and particularly in the area of organisational software, many failures are repaired at a distance. How is this possible given the consensus amongst sociologists? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a major software producer we show how technical support has been recast and inserted in a new geographical and temporal regime. This has implications for how sociologists of technology conceptualise the nature of technical failure as well as the situation in which repair occurs. We shift understandings of technical problems from a focus on rootedness to ''disentanglement'' and ''exporting'' (how problems are lifted out of local contexts and passed around globally distributed offices in search of requisite specialist expertise). From the point of view of the producer, this is seemingly an effective means to resolve failures, but it is also one with negative consequences. Thus, we describe how the support process is further modified and regulated in an attempt to rid it of unwanted features. Finally, we show how globalised online support reconfigures relationships between various actors. Our conclusions are that whilst the circumstances underpinning localist views of technical support are not abolished by virtualisation they are substantially reshaped by it. We suggest that different analytical approaches are needed that address tensions between local practices and technological restructuring, and their contradictory outcomes.

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We consider naming and categorization practices within the information technology (IT) arena. In particular, with how certain terminologies are able to colonise wide areas of activity and endure for relatively long periods of time, despite the diversity and incremental evolution of individual technical instances. This raises the question as to who decides whether or not a particular vendor technology is part of a product category. Who decides the boundaries around a technology nomenclature? Existing Information Systems scholarship has tended to present terminologies as shaped by wide communities of players but this does not capture how particular kinds of knowledge institutions have emerged in recent year to police the confines of technological fields. The paper follows the work of one such group of experts - the industry analyst firm Gartner Inc. - and discusses their current and past role in the evolution of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. We show how they make regular (but not always successful) ''naming interventions'' within the IT domain and how they attempt to regulate the boundaries that they and others have created through episodes of ''categorisation work.'' These experts not only attempt to exercise control over a terminology but also the interpretation of that name. Our arguments are informed by ethnographic observations carried out on the eve of the contemporary CRM boom and interviews conducted more recently as part of an ongoing investigation into industry analysts. The paper bridges a number of disparate bodies of literature from Information Systems, Economic Sociology, the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, and Science and Technology Studies.