Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jan 2018

Failure Matters: Conflicting Practices in a High-Tech Case

Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder Oregon State University

Abstract

Technical communication researchers have studied failure through a number of different case studies, though none more often than the space shuttle Challenger explosion. While scholars have offered several explanations in the intervening three decades, this work often treats the disaster as a failure of organizational communication, a failure of the material O-ring, or a failure of two discourse communities, engineers and managers, to engage in mutually comprehensible forms of meaningful deliberation. This essay hypothesizes that the real cause of failure was neither positivist nor social constructionist in nature, but discursive-material. I offer discussion of the Challenger case in order to frame a different study of project failure and show that complex technical projects fail for a number discursive-material reasons. Employing assumptions from actor–network theory and Barad’s theory of agential realism, this essay establishes a basis for how to read the Challenger disaster as one of competing and unresolved “conceptual structures of practice.” I then take this framework and apply it to a case study of a transportation project at a large, Midwestern research university. This project, the electric personal transportation vehicle, failed because competing structures of practice generated powerful actants that mattered in different ways. Insufficient project management activities also contributed to failure; the conclusion identifies concepts technical communicators can employ in establishing more effective project management strategies that work to resolve competing actants.

Journal
Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Published
2018-01-01
DOI
10.1177/0047281616662984
Open Access
Closed
Topics
qualitative research technical communication professional writing multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Pflugfelder et al. (2023)
    Expanding the Scope and Scale of Risk in TPC: Water Access and the Colorado Riv…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Brizee (2020)
    What Happens When We Fail? Building Resilient Community-Based Research
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Cites in this index (22)

  1. Swarts (2014)
    The Trouble with Networks: Implications for the Practice of Help Documentation
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Choi et al. (2013)
    Analysis of the Interactive Relationship Between Apology and Product Involvemen…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. Fraiberg (2013)
    Reassembling Technical Communication: A Framework for Studying Multilingual and…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Frost (2013)
    Transcultural Risk Communication on Dauphin Island: An Analysis of Ironically L…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Potts et al. (2011)
    Contextualizing Experiences: Tracing the Relationships Between People and Techn…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Show all 22 →
  1. Swarts (2011)
    Technological Literacy as Network Building
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  2. Salvo et al. (2010)
    The Children of Aramis
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Swarts (2010)
    Recycled Writing: Assembling Actor Networks From Reusable Content
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Graham (2009)
    Agency and the Rhetoric of Medicine: Biomedical Brain Scans and the Ontology of…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Potts (2009)
    Using Actor Network Theory to Trace and Improve Multimodal Communication Design
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  6. Rice (2009)
    Woodward Paths: Motorizing Space
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  7. Fleckenstein et al. (2008)
    The Importance of Harmony: An Ecological Metaphor for Writing Research
    College Composition and Communication
  8. Swarts (2008)
    Information Technologies as Discursive Agents: Methodological Implications for …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  9. Slattery (2007)
    Undistributing Work Through Writing: How Technical Writers Manage Texts in Comp…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  10. Swarts (2007)
    Mobility and Composition: The Architecture of Coherence in Non-places
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  11. Winsor (2006)
    Using Writing to Structure Agency: An Examination of Engineers' Practice
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  12. Spinuzzi (2005)
    Lost in the Translation: Shifting Claims in the Migration of a Research Technique
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  13. Miller (1993)
    Framing Arguments in a Technical Controversy: Assumptions about Science and Tec…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  14. MOORE (1992)
    When Politeness is Fatal
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  15. Dombrowski (1992)
    <i>Challenger</i>and the social contingency of meaning: Two lessons for the tec…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  16. Winsor (1990)
    The Construction of Knowledge in Organizations: Asking the Right Questions abou…
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  17. Pace (1988)
    Technical Communication, Group Differentiation, and the Decision to Launch the …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Also cites 23 works outside this index ↓
  1. 10.2307/j.ctv12101zq
     ↗
  2. 10.1007/978-1-349-07408-2_2
     ↗
  3. 10.1109/47.108666
     ↗
  4. 10.1109/47.406727
     ↗
  5. 10.1109/TPC.2007.908729
     ↗
  6. 10.1353/tech.2000.0060
     ↗
  7. 10.1080/10510978609368212
     ↗
  8. 10.7208/chicago/9780226264196.001.0001
     ↗
  9. 10.1023/A:1017986712405
     ↗
  10. 10.1093/oso/9780199256044.001.0001
     ↗
  11. 10.1007/BF01059830
     ↗
  12. 10.1177/030631279402400402
     ↗
  13. Pflugfelder, E. H. (2011). Sustaining knowledge work in student engineering clubs. In Proceedings of the inte…
     ↗
  14. 10.7208/chicago/9780226668253.001.0001
     ↗
  15. Potts, L. (2008). Diagramming with actor network theory: A method for modeling holistic experience. In Procee…
     ↗
  16. 10.4324/9780203366905
     ↗
  17. 10.1080/10510978809363235
     ↗
  18. 10.7551/mitpress/6875.001.0001
     ↗
  19. 10.2190/CPIC3
     ↗
  20. 10.1017/CBO9780511509605
     ↗
  21. 10.1177/002194360304000303
     ↗
  22. 10.2307/378336
     ↗
  23. 10.1109/47.7814
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 3 View in citation network →

Related Articles

  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Mar 2026
    “It's Hard to Show ROI When You’re Preventing Things from Happening”: How Impact Storytelling Frames Community Health Initiatives for Executive Audiences ↗
    Margaret Hsiao
    qualitative research multimodality technical communication professional writing multilingual writers
  2. Journal of Business and Technical Communication Oct 2020
    Legally Minded Technical Communicators: A Case Study of a Legal Writing Course ↗
    Godwin Y. Agboka
    writing across the curriculum qualitative research technical communication professional writing multilingual writers
  3. College Composition and Communication Sep 2025
    Using the AI Life Cycle to Unblackbox AI Tools: Teaching Résumé 2.0 with Résumé Analytics and Computational Job-Résumé Matching ↗
    Huiling Ding
    qualitative research artificial intelligence professional writing multilingual writers
  4. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Jan 2025
    Lessons from a “Scholar on Fire” for a World on Fire: A Framework to Position Technical and Professional Communication Scholars for Policy Impact ↗
    Heidi Willers
    qualitative research professional writing multilingual writers
  5. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Oct 2024
    Role Play: Conversational Roles as a Framework for Reflexive Practice in AI-Assisted Qualitative Research ↗
    Luke Thominet; Jacqueline Amorim; Kristine Acosta; Vanessa K. Sohan
    qualitative research multimodality artificial intelligence technical communication multilingual writers