Technical labour in an engineering boutique: Interpretive frameworks of sales and R&D engineers

This ethnographic study of engineers in action introduces an interpretive a pproach to the recent debate about the factors shaping the organisation of engineering labour within the firm. The study compares the consciousness of kind and of difference developed by R&D and sales engineers (also known as customer engineers) working for an engineering boutique. Two case stories and other field data exemplify that the R&D and the customer engineers not only developed distinct interpretive frameworks, they also enacted them in the course of daily interaction either to protect or to alter an existing j urisdictional map between the two engineering specialities. Discussion sugg ests that the organisation of engineering labour is partly shaped by the in terrelation of interpretive frameworks developed by engineering sub-groups. The possible technisation of salts work in micro-electronics is also discu ssed.