Includes bibliographical references.

A new perspective on the dependability of software systems / Graham Button -- Trust and organisational work / Karen Clarke ... [et al.] -- When a bed is not a bed : calculation and calculability in complex organisational settings / Karen Clarke ... [et al.] -- Enterprise modeling based on responsibility / John Dobson and David Martin -- Standardization, trust and dependability / Gillian Hardstone, Luciana d'Adderio and Robin Williams -- 'Its about time' : temporal features of dependability / Karen Clarke ... [et al.] -- Explicating failure / Karen Clarke ... [et al.] -- Patterns for dependable design / David Martin, Mark Rouncefield and Ian Sommerville -- Dependability and trust in organisational and domestic computer systems / Ian Sommerville ... [et al.] --Understanding and supporting dependability as ordinary action / Alexander Voss ... [et al.] -- The DIRC project as the context of this book / Cliff B. Jones.

List of Contributors. Introduction: A New Perspective on the Dependability of Software Systems; Graham Button. 1. Trust and Organisational Work; Karen Clarke et al. 2. When a Bed is not a Bed: Calculation and Calculability in Complex Organizational Settings; Karen Clarke et al. 3. Enterprise Modeling based on Responsibility; John Dobson and David Martin. 4. Standardization, Trust and Dependability; Gillian Hardstone et al. 5. It's about Time: Temporal Features of Dependability; Karen Clarke et al. 6. Explicating Failure; Karen Clarke et al. 7. Patterns for Dependable Design; David Martin et al. 8. Dependability and Trust in Organizatinal and Domestic Computer Systems; Ian Sommerville et al. 9. Understanding and Supporting Dependability as Ordinary Action; Alexander Voss et al.10. The DIRC Project as the Context of this Book; Cliff B. Jones.

This book encapsulates some work done in the DIRC project concerned with trust and responsibility in socio-technical systems. It brings together a range of disciplinary approaches - computer science, sociology and software engineering - to produce a socio-technical systems perspective on the issues surrounding trust in technology in complex settings. Computer systems can only bring about their purported benefits if functionality, users and usability are central to their design and deployment. Thus, technology can only be trusted in situ and in everyday use if these issues have been brought to bear on the process of technology design, implementation and use. The studies detailed in this book analyse the ways in which trust in technology is achieved and/or worked around in everyday situations in a range of settings - including hospitals, a steelworks, a public enquiry, the financial services sector and air traffic control. Whilst many of the authors here may already be known for their ethnographic work, this book moves on from accounts of 'field studies' to show how the DIRC project has utilised the data from these studies in an interdisciplinary fashion, involving computer scientists, software engineers and psychologists, as well as sociologists. Chapters draw on the empirical studies but are organised around analytical themes related to trust which are at the heart of the authors' socio-technical approach which shows the nuanced ways in which technology is used, ignored, refined and so on in everyday settings.