Abstract

This is an empirical case of how data work performed by health personnel is rendered invisible because of the institutional logic of top-down control inscribed in the information system, which exerts a coercive pressure. It is important to study the effect of institutional logics on data work because such logics shape data work and the data produced. We use ethnographic methods to study how a specific institutional logic – which we refer to as a logic of top-down control—inscribed in information systems shapes data work related to training, data entry, and data representation in two large-scale health information systems in India. We discuss the tensions between the institutional logic as it is envisioned by change agents at the top of the hierarchy and how the data work is carried out, and how this tension ultimately shapes how the information systems are implemented and used.

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