Examining the relevance of paradigms to base OSI standardisation

摘要

It is now customary to think about standardisation in terms of economic and political interests. That analysing committee processes from a technological vantage point might be fruitful as well, is often neglected or even denied. This article explores the extent to which technological paradigms explain the outcome of committee processes. It is argued that, especially in fields of converging technologies such as telematic services, paradigms explain patterns of interest negotiation in standards development. The argument is substantiated with the findings of case studies on three base Open systems Interconnection (OSI) standards: the transport, session and message handling protocols.