This paper addresses profession-orientated work and the professionals’ involvement and engagement in design and use of information systems. Two ethnographical studies have been performed within different types of professional organizations. Information systems will reduce the complexity in the professionals’ work, but only if the professionals could trust the usage of information systems. The analysis reveals the importance of the professionals’ engagement in information systems design and use in order to trust the systems integrated in the work.

Aircraft maintenance can be described as a complexly interactive and technical system. The ever-increasing complexity of aircraft maintenance place greater demands on the professions responsible for that work The maintenance work is performed within a risky and complex framework. A case study is performed within a military aircraft maintenance organization. The case study is analysed, and the aim is to identify problems in the work situation for aircraft maintenance professionals. The knowledge and practical experience of the different professions, besides coordination and cooperation between them, are of great value for decision making in complex situations. For this context the paper highlights some design challenges for creating information systems for professions, where quick access to common information and professional knowledge is of vital importance. The aim of this paper is to find challenges for information and knowledge management, according to the problems found in the empirical aircraft maintenance case. This paper shows how social dimensions such as collaboration and sharing of common information and professional knowledge are played out within aircraft maintenance.

Different professions often collaborate within profession-orientated organizations in order to accomplish complex and sometimes both time- and life-critical activities. Knowledge is a prerequisiting resource in performing work in such activities. Hence, knowledge is integrated in such work settings, and knowing is a central concept to make sense of the professionals doing and their collaborating actions. We present and analyze two ethnographical case studies. The result of the analysis of the cases shows both differences and similarities within the use of boundary objects, brokers and boundary spanning activities which facilitated the integration of knowledge within the collaboration between different professions. From these results we make some proposals for design of knowledge integration. However, the results of the use of boundary objects, brokers and boundary spanning activities identified in each case have been used to inspire the other case proposing new ways of designing knowledge integration.

Aircraft maintenance can be described as a complexly interactive and technical system. The ever-increasing complexity of aircraft maintenance places greater demands on the professions responsible for that work. The maintenance work is performed within a risky and complex framework. A case study is performed within a military aircraft maintenance organization. The case study is then analysed in the framework of the professions, professional knowledge and knowledge sharing concepts. The knowledge and practical experience of the different professions, besides knowledge sharing and cooperation between them, are of great value for decision making in complex work situations. For this context the paper suggests support of information systems for professions, where quick access to common information and professional knowledge is of vital importance. The aim of this paper is to highlight challenges for knowledge sharing, according to the problems found in the empirical aircraft maintenance case. The overall analysis accounts for a profession-oriented approach. This paper shows how social dimensions such as cooperation in producing professional knowledge as well as knowledge sharing are played out within communities in aircraft maintenance.

For a satisfactory development of commercial and industrial life companies must obtain enough venture capital. The behaviour of the shareholders in companies is of vital importance for the financial opportunities. In order to supply venture capital and provide long-term ownership there has to be a satisfactory progress of the share values, and there is also an expectancy of returns on shares. A performance-driven company giving returns on shares will provide confidence for investors. Investors need information about the companies’ economic situation. This paper reports from an empirical qualitative review of different Swedish companies’ annual reports. Shareholders are often more interested in narrative information in the annual reports, than in the numerical information. Therefore the companies should be more interested in the qualitative aspects in their annual reports. It is important to inform about their business concept and their strategy. Information about the long-term economical outline is important in order to judge the company’s ability to make growth for the future. Companies’ governance routines are not described very well in the reviewed annual reports at all. Furthermore, many of the companies are missing information about future profit forecasts.