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 …