How people and stakeholders shape standards: The case of IEEE 802.11

Abstract

Following the 'social shaping of technology' approach, this paper provides a brief discussion of the relations that exist between different stakeholders in ICT standardisation. It then discusses the impact exerted by the individuals who populate a standards body's working group, and how this body's voting rules impact its final standards. The paper primarily draws upon a qualitative empirical study. In particular, it will use the IEEE 802.11 committee as a real-world sample group to further highlight the issues discussed more theoretically above. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.