Issues in the Black-Boxing of Technologies: What Happens When the Black Box Meets 40 Shades of Grey?

Organisations are faced with several choices in developing software applications - between customised development 'in-house' and buying in a standard package. Packages appear to offer an attractive solution for user organisations that will be cheap and straightforward: the choice to buy a standard package for the job effectively 'black boxes', or contains, parts of the development process inside a commodified technical artefact. However, standard packages may not be well suited for the specific requirements of individual user organisations, particularly for large or complex applications. Some elements of an Information Technology system may therefore be acquired as black-box solutions and others may be customised or developed in-house. This leads firms to form various sorts of collaborative relationships with external suppliers, in which case the black-boxing of the development process is only partial. This paper, based on case studies from the finance sector and a manufacturing firm, considers the conditions under which firms opt for total or partial black-boxed solutions. Under particular circumstances, new black boxes emerge through collaboration between suppliers and users in building specific applications. However this process of stabilisation and standardisation is contradictory; the dynamics of development of user organisations, stimulated in part by technological change, leads to new demands and problems which can reverse the trend to standardisation.