  Practice-based perspectives in information systems have established how, in
every instance of use i.e., work practices, the user exercises considerable
discretion in their appropriation of the technology with local workarounds and
situated improvisations. We analyse the relationship between technologically
mediated work practices separated in time and space. Specifically, we analyse
how similarity in work practices is achieved. Achieving absolutely similar or
best practices is unattainable. Drawing on a longitudinal 2007 to 2011 case of
ambulatory maintenance work in the oil and gas sector, we identify and discuss
three constituting strategies called differentiation, assembling and
punctuation through which a family resemblance of similar but not the same work
practices is crafted. We discuss how, in the absence of an essentialist
criterion, similarity is subject to pragmatic but also political negotiations.
