Upload
others
View
5
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Margunn Aanestad
Information Systems as a research field
IN5210 – Information Systems
5.9.2017
Agenda for today
• An overview over Information Systems as a
research field
– Historical emergence
– Key works and streams
– Exercise to map the field
• The Scandinavian tradition and IS at IFI
2
3
Sørensen, C. «The Curse of the Smart Machine…» SJIS 28(2)
http://iris.cs.aau.dk/tl_files/volumes/Volume%2028/3%2028-2-Sorensen(IRISweb).pdf
Science and
Technology studies
Technical, socio-technical, and social research
4
Computer
Science
Software
Engineering
Organisation
and Management
studies
Sociology«INFORMATICS»
Bo Dahlbom: «The New Informatics», SJIS 8(2)
http://iris.cs.aau.dk/tl_files/volumes/volume08/no2/02_dahlbom_p29-48.pdf
5
Scale (unit of analysis)
Timeline
Person
Group
Organisation
Sector
National
Global
Idea and design
Development
Implementation
Ongoing usage
and management
Obsolesence
HCI
CSCW
ICT4D
Information Systems
Operations Research
Systems Analysis
Information Science
Organization and
Management Studies
Software Engineering
Systems Development
Participatory Design
Object area: Information, people and technology
Methodological pluralism – positivist, interpretivist, critical, design science
Various «academic homes»: business schools, social science departments etc.
INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
RESEARCH
IS as an academic field: history and location
• Internationally: built from Operations Research,
Systems Analysis, etc. and from Organization
Studies
– Initially: Management Information Systems Information
Systems
– Methodological pluralism – positivist, interpretivist, critical,
design science
• Scandinavian IS: OR/SA, but also the socio-technical
tradition + «trade union projects» participatory
systems development.
– Work place ethnographies, design-oriented research
– (overlap with CSCW, PD, STS, etc…)
IS as an academic field: orientation
• Information systems in organizations (real life, not experimental/lab)
– Temporal scope:
• Design and development,
• Implementation (adoption, assimilation, benefits realization)
• Ongoing management, strategy, governance, innovation etc.
– Empirical focus:
• Individual – TAM models, «technological frames»
• Team/group – sensemaking, learning, coordination
• Organization – implementation studies (process, learning, politics,..)
• Sector/domain – Institutional change
• Central aims:
– “The fundamental knowledge interest that underlies information system
(IS) research is this: how can an IS […] be effectively deployed in the
human enterprise?” (Grover and Lyytinen, 2015)
IS as an academic field: outlets• Internationally:
– MISQ, ISR, JIT, JSIS, EJIS, JMIS, JAIS, ISJ …
– Information and Organization, The Information Society, IT&P,
EJISDC …
– Organization Science, Organization Studies, Organization ….
– Conferences: ICIS, ECIS (AMCIS; PACIS), HICSS – EGOS,
III, …
– Association of Information Systems (AIS) …
• Scandinavian IS:
– Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems
– IRIS/SCIS + SWEG
– Norway: NOKOBIT (… NOKIOS, NEON)
Historical context (post WWII technology
development)
• Computers as «computing machines»
• Computerized information systems – gather, present
and analyse ifnormation for managers (MIS)
• Computerised Numerical Control (CNC)
• Automation of office work
• Personal Computers, client-server architectures
• Internet, mobile, IoT
• «Born digital» organizations
10
A few classic works/key persons in user-oriented,
interpretive IS
• Enid Mumford
• Peter Checkland
• Rob Kling
• Shoshana Zuboff
• Geoff Walsham
• Claudio Ciborra
11
Enid Mumford
• Human factors, sociotechnical systems
• ETHICS (Effective Technical and Human
Implementation of Computer-based Systems)
12
1924-2006
Peter Checkland: Soft Systems Methodology
• Peter Checkland: Systems thinking, Systems practice (1981)
• Checkland and Scholes: Soft Systems Methodology, Action research (1990)
• Checkland & Holwell: Information, systems, and Information systems (1998)
• «Hard» vs. «soft» systems thinking
– Hard: structured approaches, systems engineering, assumes well defined problem, predominantlytechnical
– Soft: assumes messy/ill-defined problem, consideralso humans, values, politics
• Core concepts: Rich Pictures, Root Definitions, CATWOE (clients, actors, transformations, Weltanschauung, owner, environment), model of transformation, measure of performance (the three E’s: efficacy, efficiency, effectiveness) 13
1930 -
14
From: https://systemspractitioner.com/tools-and-techniques/
15From: http://systems.open.ac.uk/materials/T552/pages/rich/richAppendix.html
16
Rob Kling: Social Informatics
• Interested in processes of computerization in organizations a social life,
• Attention to interactions and webs of relationships
– Sociotechnical interaction networks
– Web models/web of computing
• Five «big ideas»:
– “multiple points of view”, “social choices”, “the production lattice” (and its corollary, the problematization of the user), “socio-technical interaction networks”, and “institutional truth regimes”
– http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/09593840510584621
• Kling, R. and Scacchi, W. (1982), “The web of computing: computing technology as social organization”, Advances in Computers, Vol. 21, Academic Press, New York, NY, pp. 1-85.
• https://www.indiana.edu/~rkcsi/wordpress/home/sample-page/rob-kling/ 17
1944-2003
Shoshana Zuboff
• Shoshana Zuboff (1988): «In the age of the
smart machine: The future of work and power”
– Ethnographic studies from 8 contexts.
– Automated factories and offices
• Technology has a substantially transformative
capacity.
• Core concepts: «Textualization», «automate
and informate», «information panopticon»
• See also:
– Burton-Jones, A. (2014) "What have we learned
from the Smart Machine?." Information and
Organization 24.2,71-105.18
1951 -
19
http://shoshanazuboff.com/
Geoff Walsham: Interpretive research
• Important books:
– Interpreting Information Systems in Organizations (1993)
• process focus on studying organizational change (change
content, social process, social context).
– Making a World of Difference: IT in a Global Context
(2001)
• Articles:
– Walsham, Geoff. "Interpretive case studies in IS
research: nature and method." European Journal of
information systems 4.2 (1995): 74.
– Walsham, Geoff. "Doing interpretive research." European
journal of information systems 15.3 (2006): 320-330. 20
1946-
Claudio Ciborra
• Technology-organization, change, infrastructures…– phenomenology
• Books: – «From Control to Drift» - studies of
information infrastructures in ”global companies”; Hoffmann-La Roche, Astra, IBM, SKF, Hydro, Statoil 2000
– “The labyrinths of information: Challenging the wisdom of systems: Challenging the wisdom of systems”, 2002.
– «Risk, Complexity and ICT»: integration –solution or problem? 2007
21
1951-2005
.. and now you…
• Go to one of these sites:
– http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/
– http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2016/
• Find an article you think look interesting
– What is the topic/focus?
– What do they try to find out?
– Who is the audience?
– Which research method was used?
– What do they claim they have found out/learnt?
22
Scandinavian IS research
• Articles;
– Bansler: three approaches
– Iivari and Lyytinen: broader perspective
• «The Collective Action» approach at IFI
– Kristen Nygaard’s collaboration with trade unions (NJMF),
– others
• Today at IFI:
– Participatory Design, user-oriented IS, work/use
ethnography, CSCW
– Studies of Information Infrastructures
– Globally distributed action research
23
The Trade Union
projects
Norway:
The NJMF project
1971-1974 Kristen
Nygaard and Olav T.
Bergo
Sweden:
DEMOS 1975-1979
Demokratiske
Styringssystemer
(Pelle Ehn)
Denmark:
DUE 1977-1980
Demokrati, Udvikling
og EDB (Morten Kyng)
• Conflict view, siding with labour
against capital
– Harry Braverman: Labour and Monopoly
Capital 1974
– Automation and deskilling
– Technology = means of production
Industrial democracy as goal
• Data shop stewards, legally
recognized right to participation
• Inspiration for Participatory Design
• ”The Scandinavian Tradition”
”Skills projects”
UTOPIA
1981-1985
(Utbildning,
Teknik och
Produkt i
Arbetskvalitets-
perspektiv)
Nordic Graphic
Workers Union
Sweden and
Denmark (Pelle
Ehn and Susanne
Bødker)
• Shifting aims: From industrial democracy
to fighting deskilling
• Professional competency, skills
– UTOPIA
– Craftwork metaphors
– Technology concept: ”Tool”
• Oslo: FLORENCE 1983-1987
– Nurses’ work (allergy/cardiology)
– Pilot systems and prototypes
– Mutual learning in collaborative design
Expansion of IS field
• Initial focus: how to design IS
• How to organize the design and development work?
• Implementation studies, organizational processes
• Users’ actions, end-user development
• Technological development, spread of technology, new user
interfaces
• More systems in use over a longer time frame:
– Maintenance of systems over time (life cycle)
– Multiple systems – integration, redesign
• Networked systems
FIRE project
Functional
Integration
through
Redesign
1992-1994
• From design and development to use and
maintenance
– Emphasised the need for redesign
– How to enroll users in redesign
• From single systems to multiple systems
– The user’s perspective – having to use multiple
systems + multiple users for every system
• From standalone systems to
interconnected systems
– Interorganisational networks (EDI)
– Internet since 1994
The Internet project
1994-2000 (?)
IFI, UiO and Gothenburg
University
Braa, Sørensen and
Dahlbom (2000): ”Planet
Internet”
• Understand the impact of the Internet,
not just as technical connectivity, but its
impact on information practices and
organizations
• Many case studies: News agencies,
public administration, hospitals,
pharmaceutical companies…
• Information Infrastructure theory,
cultivation, bricolage, drift.
Spin off from this
project
Ciborra and Associates:
”From Control to Drift. The
Dynamics of Corporate
Information Infrastructures”
(2000)
• ”From Control to Drift”
– More targeted publication on
information infrastructures
– SKF, Norsk Hydro, Statoil, IBM,
Hoffman-La Roche
– II as unruly, emerging, drifting
-
Hanseth and
Ciborra (eds.)
2007:
”Risk,
Complexity and
ICT”
• ”Risk, Complexity and ICT”
– IFI/UiO and LSE researchers
– Telecom, global banking, oil/gas, maritime
classification company, hospitals,
pharmaceutical industry
– II as complex systems, unintended
consequences
FIPP,
RegCom,
REACH, C3,
FIGI …