Integration by Infrastructuring

342 Pages·2015·18.9 MB·English

Elena Parmiggiani
Integration by Infrastructuring:
The Case of Subsea
Environmental Monitoring
in Oil and Gas Offshore
Operations
Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor
Trondheim, September 2015
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Faculty of Information Technology,
Mathematics and Electrical Engineering
Department of Computer and Information Science
NTNU
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor
Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering
Department of Computer and Information Science
© Elena Parmiggiani
ISBN 978-82-326-1124-9 (print)
ISBN 978-82-326-1125-6 (digital)
ISSN 1503-8181
Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2015:234
Printed by NTNU Grafisk senter
“Lo duca e io per quel cammino ascoso
intrammo a ritornar nel chiaro mondo;
e sanza cura aver d’alcun riposo,

salimmo sù, el primo e io secondo,
tanto ch’i’ vidi de le cose belle
che porta ’l ciel, per un pertugio tondo.

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.”

(Dante Alighieri – Divina Commedia, Inferno, Canto XXXIV, 133 – 139)

“The Guide and I into that hidden road
now entered, to return to the bright world;
and without care of having any rest,

we mounted up, he first and I the second,
till I beheld through a round aperture
some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear.

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.”

(Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XXXIV, 133 – 139)
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Abstract
This thesis investigates the development of ICT solutions for performing real-time
subsea environmental monitoring during oil and gas offshore operations. The research is
based on a three-year case study of an international oil and gas company headquartered
in Norway. The thesis is specifically focused on aspects of integration: how new tools,
systems, and approaches are developed, and how existing ones are adapted to fit the
existing systems and practices of the oil and gas company.
The thesis has three goals. First, it analyzes how real-time environmental monitoring
emerges as a distributed, interacting, and interconnected sociotechnical network
(information infrastructure). Second, it identifies how the company’s initiatives are
currently changing the representations of subsea environmental risk in remote and
previously inaccessible areas like the Arctic region. Third, it reflects on the research
methodology to address such a spatially distributed and long-term setting.
On the theoretical level this work aims to contribute to the field of Information Systems
and, marginally, to Computer-supported cooperative work. It is also inspired by Science
and Technology Studies. A theoretical framework is developed connecting contributions
from these three streams of literature in order to characterize the co-evolution of
environmental monitoring infrastructures and their phenomenon of interest,
environmental risk. This evolving relationship shows that, on the one hand, the
perception of environmental risk as a problem is affected by the integration mechanisms
that generate new knowledge. On the other hand, new conceptions of environmental risk
have consequences for the maintenance and upgrade of environmental monitoring
infrastructures. I call this process infrastructuring.
The thesis provides a vivid empirical illustration of how the relationship between
environmental risk and integration strategies unfolds in offshore environmental
monitoring. By merging the theoretical framework and the empirical case, I argue in
favor of a flexible understanding of the development of complex systems in
organizational settings. Studies of infrastructure should account for the existence of
pragmatic approaches to face persistent uncertainty and the fluid relationship between
situated usefulness and a cross-geographical dimension. In line with existing debates in
the literature, I demonstrate that the traditionally bounded distinctions of system
design/development/implementation and of users/designers must be overtaken when
studying infrastructures. On the methodological level, this thesis therefore advocates a
deeper empirical analysis of the unfolding of infrastructures in organizational realities.
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Preface
This thesis is submitted to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU) in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor
(PhD). The PhD work was performed at the Department of Computer and Information
Science, NTNU, Trondheim, under the supervision of Professor Eric Monteiro (main
supervisor), Professor II Vidar Hepsø (co-supervisor), and Professor Jon Atle Gulla (co-
supervisor). The PhD project was financed by the Center for Integrated Operations in
the Petroleum Industry.
Part of the research work was conducted during visits to foreign institutions: the
Institute for the Study of Science and Technology and Innovation (ISSTI) at the
University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Professor Robin Williams, and the IT
University of Copenhagen (ITU), under the supervision of Associate Professors Pernille
Bjørn and Brit Ross Winthereik.
The thesis consists of an introductory section comprising seven chapters and an
appendix with seven published/submitted papers:
1. Parmiggiani, Elena; Hepsø, Vidar (2013). Pragmatic Information Management for
Environmental Monitoring in Oil and Gas. In Proceedings of the 21st European
Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Paper 65
2. Parmiggiani, Elena; Mikalsen, Marius (2013). The Facets of Sociomateriality: A
Systematic Mapping of Emerging Concepts and Definitions. In Nordic
Contributions in IS Research Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, M.
Aanestad and T. Bratteteig (eds.), Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 87–103
3. Mikalsen, Marius; Parmiggiani, Elena; Hepsø, Vidar (2014). Sociomaterial
Capabilities in Integrated Oil and Gas Operations: Implications for Design. In
Proceedings of the 22nd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Tel
Aviv, Israel, June 9-11, 2014, Track 20, Paper 3
4. Parmiggiani, Elena; Monteiro, Eric; Hepsø, Vidar (2015). The Digital Coral:
Infrastructuring Environmental Monitoring. Submitted to Computer Supported
Cooperative Work (CSCW)
5. Parmiggiani, Elena; Monteiro, Eric (2015). The Nested Materiality of
Environmental Monitoring. Submitted to the Scandinavian Journal of Information
Systems
6. Parmiggiani, Elena; Monteiro, Eric (2014). A Measure of ‘Environmental
Happiness’: Infrastructuring Environmental Risk in Offshore Oil and Gas
Operations. Submitted to Science & Technology Studies
7. Parmiggiani, Elena; Monteiro, Eric (2015). Environmental Sustainability:
Implications for Green IS. Submitted to Management of Information Systems
Quarterly
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Acknowledgements
My first huge thank you goes to my supervisor, Eric Monteiro. You are an invaluable
guide, inspiring reference, and role model for me. You have always believed in me,
supported me, and taught me how to find my own way through this intense PhD, where
you have been the best companion. You have seen a potential in me that I was not able
to see myself, and for this I owe you my deepest gratitude.
For the same reasons, I also heartily thank my co-supervisor, Vidar Hepsø, who helped
me to navigate in a completely new world and supported me every day. Thank you for
always listening to me, for always finding the time for a chat, and for always making me
smile.
Thanks to the both of you, Eric and Vidar, for accompanying me and for letting me
discover this exciting research making me feel the luckiest PhD student.
I would like to extend my gratitude to my co-supervisor Jon Atle Gulla for his support
during my project and for providing useful comments. In addition, I also thank Monica
Divitini for her constructive advice and for our chats in the dungeons of IDI.
I also greatly enjoyed and benefited from the advice and support of Robin Williams,
Pernille Bjørn, Brit Ross Winthereik, and David Ribes. Your suggestions and feedback
have been an invaluable resource for framing my work as it is today.
Thanks to the Doil project members, in particular to Petter Almklov and Thomas
Østerlie for giving me the opportunity to spend a lovely time in Studio Apertura and for
our chats and discussions.
A very special thank you also goes to all my informants for turning my fieldwork into
an amazing experience, in particular for their patience, for never letting me feel like an
outsider, for granting me access to precious information, and, above all, for being my
best teachers of Norwegian.
I also gratefully acknowledge the financial support and the generous travel grants
provided by the Center for Integrated Operations in the Oil and Gas Industry that made
this PhD activity possible.
I am also thankful to my friends, with a special mention to the present and past IDI
gang: Stefano, Simone, Francesco, Max, Alessandro, Ilaria, and, last but not least, Ines.
Finally, thanks to my parents Giordana and Enrico, my brother Edoardo, and my
grandparents for your support ever since I decided to move to Norway.
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