role-play in inquiring systems and info sys dev

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& Research PaperRole-Play in Inquiring Systems andInformation Systems DevelopmentPeter D. C. Bennetts,1* Stella Mills1 and A. Trevor Wood-Harper21School of Business Computer Systems, Gloucestershire Business School, Cheltenham and Gloucester Collegeof Higher Education, Cheltenham, UK2Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Salford, UK and Department of Information Systems, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Churchman's framework for inquiring systems has been used by authors interested intaking more than just a positivistic approach to information systems development. Thisframework is used by Churchman to explore the nature of the design process and thephilosophical implications arising. Inquiring systems are supported by a set of con-ditions and statements which define three generic roles played in the design andimplementation of inquiring systems. These roles are compared with the generic rolesof information systems development identified by Hirschheim and Klein. Churchmandevelops his ideas using the causeeffect model of physical science which supportsthe software engineering approach to information systems development. However,this does not support interpretative approaches to information systems development,such as Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology. Paradoxically, Checkland claimsphilosophical support from Singerian Inquiring Systems for his methodology. Theproblems found are shown to relate, in part, to the measure of performance and how itis implemented. However, the main problem is the spectrum of environments thatinformation systems development takes place in, not all of which follow the causeeffect paradigm. Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords inquiring systems; software engineering; interpretative approaches; Soft SystemsMethodology

1. INTRODUCTION

There has been a strong argument, for manyyears, by those concerned with the developmentof computer science (Boehm, 1976; Dijkstra, 1976;Gibbs, 1994; Hoare, 1982; Sommerville, 1989, forexample) that the methods of information

systems development (ISD) should reflect theattitudes and approaches of science. From this

viewpoint ISD should be seen as an appliedscience. Despite this, there has been a minorityargument by those concerned with the develop-ment of business computer systems (Bostromand Heinen, 1977; Earl and Hopwood, 1980;Lucas, 1981; Lyytinen, 1987, for example) which,while recognizing the advances made by com-puter science, also recognizes the effect oforganizational and political issues on ISD.

Copyright# 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Received 8 August 1997 Accepted 22 January 1999

Systems Research and Behavioral ScienceSyst. Res. 17, 231242 (2000)

*Correspondence to: Peter Bennetts, Senior Lecturer in Computing,Gloucestershire Business School, Cheltenham and Gloucester Collegeof Higher Education, PO Box 220, The Park, Cheltenham, Glos,GL50 2QF.


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Hirschheim and Klein (1989) characterize aUniverse of Discourse for ISD which covers allknown and possible ISD methodologies. Church-man (1971), on the other hand, has developed acharacterization of the design process (whichimplicitly includes implementation) from the

same viewpoint as the computer scientists. Bothcharacterizations involve the use of archetypalrole modelling. In order to ascertain the degreeto which Churchman's characterization can beused to support all approaches to ISD, the rolesplayed in different contexts are correlated andissues which do not correlate are identified. Theexpectation is that this exercise will offer insightinto the nature of an appropriate framework tosupport the roles of ISD.

Performing this correlation will enable us tocontribute to the issues highlighted by Le

Moigne (1985) when he claims that `the con-temporary lack of epistemological foundations ofinformation processing science endangers therigor and validity of its applications'. Andagain, `at present, we do not have an epistemo-logically validated theory of information proces-sing systems'. This is supported by Checkland(1992) when he claims that the philosophicalfoundations of ISD are often not explicit. Church-man (1971) is used by Checkland (1981) toprovide the required philosophical support forthis Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). This paper

examines the extent to which this is appropriate.This paper summarizes Churchman's (1971)

approach to inquiring systems in the next section.That section also identifies why it is reasonableto relate the role-play identified by Churchmanas being a necessary part of inquiring systemusage with the role-play identified by Hirsch-heim and Klein (1989) in all the various forms ofISD. It is argued in this paper that the definitionof an inquiring system is essentially arbitrary andthe component elements of the generic inquiringsystems defined by Churchman (1971) aredescribed in section 4. This is followed by asummary of the relationships between the role-players in an inquiring system. These are quotedfrom Churchman (1971), who states them with-out developing supporting arguments. Some ofthese statements are seen by Churchman asnecessary conditions, but he does not defend

these assumptions. They are presented here asnumbered statements. Following this is a sectionwhich summarizes the roles played in ISD,as seen by Hirschheim and Klein (1989). Thediscussion section attempts to find correspond-ences between these two sets of perceptions.

Finally, the conclusions are identified.

2. INTRODUCTION TO INQUIRING SYSTEMS

Churchman (1971) defines his inquiring systemsin terms of general systems, which he describes(Churchman, 1971, p. 78) as an area of theorywhere those who examine systems characterizethe essential aspects of all systems. These aspectsare considered in this paper in the context of oneparticular class of system: information systems.Further, the `purpose of an inquiring system is to

create knowledge which means creating thecapability of choosing the right means for one'sdesired ends' (Churchman, 1971, p. 200). Thereare many approaches to knowledge within theWestern intellectual tradition (Burrell and Mor-gan, 1979; Hirschheim, 1992). Churchman (1971)restricts himself to this tradition, although hepoints out elsewhere (Churchman, 1979) thatother approaches are possible. Churchman isinterested in `the meaning of a system from thedesigner's point of view, i.e. in the ``systemsapproach'' to social change' (Churchman, 1971,

p. 63). Inquiring systems are embedded in thesystems approach (Churchman, 1968); con-sequently any philosophy that supports thesystems approach could be used to define aninquiring system. In particular, Churchman(1971) suggests that the work of Plato, Aristotleor St Thomas Aquinas could be used; whileChurchman (1979) further accepts that the IChing, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gitacould equally well have been used. In practice,then, Churchman (1971) makes a personal selec-tion of various `classic or pure mode epistem-ologies' (Linstone and Turoff, 1975), representedby the work of the philosophers Locke, Leibniz,Kant, Hegel and E. A. Singer. Locke and Leibniz,for example, were chosen on the basis that`everything [in the seventeenth century] was soopen to speculation and imagination' (Church-man, 1971). Subsequently, Linstone (1984) and

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Scheele (1975) both introduce an inquiringsystem based on the work of Merleau-Ponty,Husserl and Heidegger, among others. Scheele(1975) suggests that this should be referred to asthe Merleau-Ponty inquiring system. In practice,it is not `which philosophy is ``correct'' that is

important, but `which philosophy is ``appro-priate''' to the problem situation (Mitroff andTuroff, 1975; Scheele, 1975; van Gigch, 1978).

The titles allocated to each inquiring systemare to be considered indicative only, for `whenwe speak of a Leibnizian inquiring system, we donot mean that this system is an exact account ofhow Leibniz conceived the theory of knowledge;rather, it is a reconstruction of Leibnizian ideasin the language of the design of an inquiring

system' (Churchman, 1971, p. 18). Churchmandoes not give a rationale for choosing his part-icular selection of philosophers. His aim is to usethose philosophers' ideas to elucidate what ismeant by `design' as well as `system'. Church-man's framework is constructed by considering

the simplest elements first. Problems are ident-ified, the solution of which leads to rather morecomplex elements which themselves have problems. The process ends with the Singerianinquiring system subsuming all the previousinquiring systems. Table 1 offers a summary ofthe identification of these inquiring systems.Alternative names have been used by Iivariand Kerola (1983), Mitroff and Linstone (1993)and Wood-Harper (1989). The characterizing

Table 1. Naming of inquiring systemsInquiring system Alternative name Identifying questions

Locke Inductiveconsensual orconsensus/deductive ordata

Since data are always prior to the development of theory, howcan one, independent of any formal technology assessmentmodel, justify the assessment by means of some objective dataor the consensus of some group of expert judges that bears onthe assessment? What are the statistics? What is the probabilityyou are wrong? Is that a good estimate?

Leibniz Analytic deductive orformal/deductive ormodels

How can one, independent of any empirical considerations, givea rational justication of the assessment? What is the model youare using? How was the result deduced and is it precise andcertain?

Kant Multiplerealities orsynthetic/representativeor multiple models

Since data and theory always exist side by side, does there existsome combination of data or expert judgement plus underlyingtheoretical justication for the data that would justify theassessment? What alternative assessments exist? Which of thesesatises my objectives?

Hegel Dialectic or con icting Since every assessment is a reection of a more general theoryor plan about the nature of the world as a whole system, i.e., aworld view, does there exist some alternative sharply differingworld view that would permit the serious consideration of acompletely opposite assessment? What if the reverse happensand why wouldn't that be more reasonable?

Merleau-Ponty Group realities What is the shared reality? How does it facilitate the generationof policy options? How does the assessment create an impetus

for desirable action? What kind of reality is most effectivelynegotiated by the parties at interest?

Singer Multiple viewpoints orpragmatic/interdisciplinary

Have we taken a broad enough perspective of the basicassessment? Would other perspectives help? Have we from thevery beginning asked the right question? To what extent are thequestions and models of each inquirer a reection of the uniquepersonality of each inquirer as much as they are felt to be a`natural' characteristic or property of the `real' world?

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questions are those offered by Linstone andTuroff (1975).

In practice, at this level, inquiring systems canbe recognized as supporting aspects of the mostpopular methodologies at least. Sometimes morethan one inquiring system is pertinent. Method-

ologies such as Structured Systems Analysis andDesign Method (SSADM) are supported by aKantian inquiring system. This would be on thebasis that there is essentially only one viewpointof the situation elaborated, which is character-ized in various options; i.e., we have the samedata but various models. Further, any in-usecomputer system will incorporate an appropriatemodel and algorithm and so can be representedas a Leibnizian inquiring system.

Checkland's SSM (Checkland, 1981; Check-land and Scholes, 1990) was identified through

reflection about what actually took place duringa series of interventions (Checkland, 1981).However, Checkland does recognize the theor-etical support given by Churchman (1971). Forexample, the debate through the construction ofimages is seen as a Kantian or Hegelianstructure. Further, SSM assumes that no studyis ever finally complete, in that its stage 7represents a redefinition and reflects one of thecharacteristics of a Singerian inquiring system. Itis this system that Checkland recognizes assupporting SSM as a whole (Checkland, 1981).

SSM can be seen as an example of a method-ology that can only be used in a cooperativeenvironment. Other examples are ETHICS, pro-totyping and the RAD-type approaches. This isnot to suggest that SSADM users operate in anuncooperative environment. In practice, ofcourse, many erstwhile users of SSADM resortto practical politics to make it work. However,within the description of SSADM itself the issuesare purely technical.

3. ROLE-PLAY IN INQUIRING SYSTEMSFor Churchman's inquiry into the nature ofinquiring systems, there are three generic figureswhose existence is necessary (Churchman, 1971,p. 43): the designer, the client and the decisionmaker. These figures are archetypes or idealizedrole models whose actions are described by

Churchman (1971) through the following state-ments. Each archetype can be one person ormany people or all three can be found in oneperson (Churchman, 1971, p. 48). Further, eacharchetype is assumed to have a recognized set ofinterests or values which are to be addressed by

any inquiring system. (This will also be true ofthe archetypes used by Hirschheim and Klein).Statements 1 to 9, below, are seen by Churchman(1971) to be necessary conditions for `somethingS [to] be conceived as a system'. In this particularcase Churchman implies S is an `inquiringsystem', as the purpose of that text is to developthe concept of inquiring systems to explore thenature of design. Each of the other numberedstatements is extracted from Churchman's (1971)text, where they are statements about the natureof the role-play in inquiring systems.

The necessary conditions (Churchman, 1971, p. 43):

(1) `S is teleological' (i.e., defined within acauseeffect model of nature).

(2) `S has a measure of performance' (a number;Churchman, 1971, p. 47).

(3) `There exists a client whose interests(values) are served by S in such a mannerthat the higher the measure of performance,the better the interests are served, and moregenerally, the client is the standard of

performance'.(4) `S has teleological components which co-

produce the measure of performance of S'.(5) `S has an environment which also copro-

duces the measure of performance of S'.(6) `There exists a decision maker who via

his resources can produce changes in themeasures of performance of S's componentsand hence changes in the measure ofperformance of S'.

(7) `There exists a designer, who conceptualizesthe nature of S in such a manner that thedesigner's concepts potentially produce ac-tions in the decision maker, and hencechanges in the measures of performance ofS's components, and hence changes in themeasure of performance of S'.

(8) `The designer's intention is to change S so asto maximize S's value to the client'.




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(9) `There is a built-in guarantee that thedesigner's intentions [are realizable (even-tually)]'. (Without this guarantee Church-man, 1971, considers that the system may beassumed to be largely meaningless to thedesigner (Churchman, 1971, p. 63).

The designer:

(10) The designer has to identify `the clientand the decision maker' (Churchman,1971, p. 48).

(11) `The designer needs to have a theory abouthis role as well as a theory about thesystem'. The designer must `learn aboutthe system' and understand the influencethat he can and should have on the systemchanges that will be required (Churchman,1971, p. 52).

The designer and client:

(12) The designer has a value structure identicalto that of the client (Churchman, 1971, p. 47).

(13) As an actor in this scenario, the client is`described only in terms of his valuestructure' (Churchman, 1971, p. 47).

(14) The designer invokes a world in which theclient could change whatever was wished`within the bounds of limited resources'(Churchman, 1971, p. 47).

(15) The designer seeks to describe the under-

lying principles of the client's choices, usinga `measure of performance' (Churchman,1971, p. 47).

(16) `The designer is successful to the extent thathe can accurately measure the client's realpreferences' (Churchman, 1971, p. 47).

(17) The designer must analyse possiblefutures by designing and, in principle,implementing each of them. The measureof performance is used to `assign numericalvalues to these possible futures' and hencerank them against each other (Churchman,1971, p. 47).

(18) `The designer is moral if he serves aclient who has a legal or moral right toexpect that the system will serve his(the client's) interests and his interests arethemselves legal or moral' (Churchman,1971, p. 48).

(19) If the decision maker's ideas about a systemare not seen as `good' by the client, then `thedesigner's role [is to] try to change thedecision maker's value structure' (Church-man, 1971, p. 48).

The designer and decision maker:

(20) The designer is expected to choose thedecision maker in a way that will maximizethe measure of performance (Churchman,1971, p. 52).

(21) The designer's ideas about a system areexpected to produce changes in the actionsof the decision maker and hence changes inthe measure of performance (Churchman,1971, p. 48).

(22) `The decision maker coproduces the futurealong with the environment, which he does

not control' (Churchman, 1971, p. 48).(23) The environment is defined by what is

not changed by the decision maker.Decisions about what will be changed by adecision maker and what will not bechanged depends on the decision maker(Churchman, 1971, p. 52).

(24) The decision maker also has a valuestructure, but it is not necessarily the sameas that of the other two actors (Churchman,1971, p. 48).

When we attempt to match these statementsagainst the scenarios of ISD, we will assume thatall but statements 8, 14, 15, 16, 18 and 20 can besatisfied, as the remaining statements have noimpact on the role-play. This list of six statementsdefines the role-play between the archetypes andso the role-play within ISD can be used to reflectback on them.

4. ROLE-PLAY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMSDEVELOPMENT

The process of inquiry will encompass not onlythe analytic phase of deciding what needs to bedone, the technical phase of deciding how itshould be implemented and the building phasewhich makes it work, but also the in-use phasewhere new knowledge is found through the useof the information system.




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Within information systems development,Hirschheim and Klein (1989) have identifiedfour distinct paradigms or `stories', each withtheir own set of actors which are described below, which together cover all knownapproaches. The four-way framework follows

that of Burrell and Morgan (1979), which wasoriginally set up to describe the `universe ofdiscourse' for social science or sociology. Thequadrants are defined by the intersection of two`dimensions' (defined by the ideal type at eachend): subjectiveobjective and orderconflict.Hirschheim and Klein (1989) develop theirideas through the concept of four archetypalstories, one for each of Burrell and Morgan'squadrants. As archetypal stories they are slightly

overstated. Each story is identified by a differentmetaphor for the analyst or systems developer.The story types are summarized in Table 2. Thefirst story is developed from a large experientialbase, as it is the orthodox or traditional approachto systems development. The other approaches

are more recent, with fewer examples. Theexample projects of Table 2 are cited by Hirsch-heim and Klein (1989) as being presented byBjerknes and Bratteteig (1984), Bodker et al.(1985), Ehn et al. (1983), Ehn and Sandberg(1983) and Howard (1985).

In the first story the analyst is seen as asystems expert. Many successful systems havebeen developed using this approach (Hirschheimand Klein, 1989). There have also been

Table 2. Characteristics of developer archetypes (after Hirschheim and Klein, 1989)

Paradigm Developerarchetype

Systems developmentproceeds...

The elements used indening informationsystems are . . .

Examples

Functionalism Expert or platonicphilosopher king

. . . from without, byapplication of formalconcepts through plannedintervention withrationalistic tools andmethods

. . . people, hardware,software, rules(organizational procedures)as physical or formalobjective entities

Structuredanalysis,informationengineering

Social relativism Catalyst orfacilitator

...from within, byimproving subjectiveunderstanding and culturalsensitivity throughadapting to internal forcesof evolutionary socialchange

. . . subjectivity ofmeanings, symbolicstructures affectingevolution of sense-makingand sharing of meanings,metaphors

Ethnographicapproaches,FLORENCEproject

Radicalstructuralism

Warrior for socialprogress orpartisan

. . . from without, by raisingideological conscience andconsciousness throughorganized political actionand adaptation of toolsand methods to differentsocial class interests

. . . people, hardware,software, rules(organizational procedures)as physical or formalobjective entities put in theservice of economic classinterests

Trade union-ledapproaches,UTOPIA andDEMOSprojects

Neohumanism Emancipator orsocial therapist

...from within, byimproving human

understanding and therationality of human actionthrough emancipation ofsuppressed interests andliberation fromunwarranted natural andsocial constraints

. . . people, hardware,software, rules

(organizational procedures)as physical or formalobjective entities for theTKI; subjectivity ofmeanings andintersubjectivity oflanguage use in otherknowledge interests

Critical socialtheory, SAMPO

project




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spectacular failures, such as the London Ambu-lance System. Management are given the role ofdefining the aims of the system. It is assumedthat the specification is as objective as possible.The primary role of the analyst is to be the expertin technology, tools and methods of system

design and project management. Politics is seenas irrational. Formality is emphasized, puttingless reliance on intuition and judgement. It isassumed that there is one, measurable realitywhich is the same for everybody. System designis effectively a technical process. These assump-tions give rise to some problems for ISD, as iswell recognized in the literature, and will not berehearsed here.

The key actors in this first story are managers(to identify the system objectives), system devel-opers (to construct and implement the system)

and users (who operate the system to achievetheir work objectives). Information systems aredeveloped to support rational organizationaloperation and effective and efficient projectmanagement. Reality consists of objects, proper-ties and processes that are directly observable inthe organization and the correctness of thesystem specifications and models can be checkedagainst this. In this story, an organization'sprimary goal is to maximize shareholders'wealth and management is the only groupempowered to decide how this should happen.

In Hirschheim and Klein's second story theanalyst is seen as a facilitator. This approach hasemerged only recently, partly in response to theshortcomings of the first approach, but is inmany ways its opposite. It recognizes thatknowledge about human means and ends isnot easily obtained because in reality it isexceedingly complex and elusive. Business doesnot deal with an objective economic reality, butone that evolves with social laws, conventions,attitudes. No one has a privileged source ofknowledge, each individual sees differentaspects. The role of people in shaping reality isnot clear. For management, information systemsare a part of the continually changing socialenvironment. The distinction between ends andmeans is fluid and reversible. The role of thesystem developer is to interact with managementto find out what type of system makes sense.

There are no objective criteria to distinguish goodor bad systems. Any system that has the approvalof the stockholders is legitimate. Systems emergethrough social interaction. It should be notedhere, immediately, that this story type, therefore,fails Churchman's proposition 1, as business

organizations are not entirely teleological.Churchman has a background in OR andsystems engineering. These subject areas areinherently quantitative, but they fail to encom-pass the intrinsic qualitative aspects of ISD(Rosenhead, 1989). Checkland (1981) noticesthat Churchman's writing is based implicitly onhard systems thinking. Further, Checkland (1981)characterizes this approach as goal-oriented(based on the optimization paradigm). Vickers(1965) argues that this paradigm is `. . . totallyinadequate' to explain what happens in an

organization. However, this `totally inadequate'paradigm represents Hirschheim and Klein's(1989) story type 1 or the traditional approach.However, in this story type it was recognizedthat users tended to be ignored.

In this second story the key actors are users(those organizational agents who interpret andmake sense of their surroundings) and thesystems developer (the change agent who helpsusers make sense of the new system and itsenvironment). In this context, ISD creates newmeaning. Its effectiveness lies in its ability to

improve users' understanding of current con-ventions and meanings. ISD proceeds throughthe application of symbolic interactionism(organizational actors interpret system objectivesand specifications and act according to themeaning their interpretation provides for them).The social environment is under continuousevolution no particular rational explanationclarifies organizational reality. Consequently, thephilosophical assumptions are an anti-positivistepistemology (which considers that the searchfor causal empirical explanations for socialphenomena is misguided and should bereplaced by sense-making) and a nominalistontology (which suggests that reality is not a`given', but is socially constructed and con-sequently uses social relativism as its paradigm).Thus, in this second story, the business world isexplained from the viewpoint of organizational




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agents who take part in the social process ofreality construction.

In the third story the analyst is seen as a labourpartisan. This is a recent reaction to the first storyand the main interest in it is in Scandinavia. Itdiffers from the second by suggesting that a

fundamental social conflict is endemic to society.It agrees with the first story that there is anobjective reality. Economic reality is consideredto be the historical result of the conflict betweenshareholders and labour. The developer chooseswhether to act as agent for one of these two sides.

In this third story the key actors are identifiedas being the owners (plus managers actingas their agents), labour (the workforce) andthe systems developer. In this environment,information systems are developed to supportmanagerial control (and hence owners' interests)

at the expense of labour. The underlyinghypothesis is Hegel's Dialectic Materialism.Essentially, the perception is that economicevolution takes the route from feudalism to acapitalist market economy and then to a collect-ively planned and managed economy. For thisthird story, the philosophical assumptions are apositivist epistemology (to generate a materialistview of history and society) and a realistontology (which assumes that there is a pre-existing empirical reality).

In the final story the analyst is seen as an

emancipator or social therapist. The story is areaction to the previous three. It is largelyhypothetical. Society is assumed to be organizedaround concepts of work, mutual understandingand emancipation. ISD evolves around the realmof work through the uses of language to achievemutual understanding. There is a belief thathumans seek knowledge to exercise better con-trol of nature and people and thereby rationalizework. Habermas calls this the technical knowl-edge interface (TKI).

Here the key actors are the stakeholders (whoinclude customers, labour, representatives, man-agement and owners) and the system developer,who acts as a social therapist in an attempt toderive consensus from the stakeholders.

In this story information systems aredeveloped to remove the distorting influencesfrom rational discourse. The process terminates

when the ideal of emancipation is achieved. Thephilosophical assumptions are that there is acomposite epistemology (which uses positivismfor technical knowledge and anti-positivism formutual understanding and emancipation) and acomposite ontology (which uses realism for

technical knowledge and nominalism for mutualunderstanding and emancipation).

5. IDENTIFYING THE CORRELATION

The two frameworks which are ostensiblydescribing the same thing (the various forms ofISD) make different assumptions. It is theinteraction of these assumptions which are ofinterest. To recapitulate: Churchman (1971)recognizes three generic figures: the decisionmaker (dm in Figure 1); the designer (d) and the

client (c). Statement 12 declares that the designer

Figure 1. The mapping of inquiring systems roles onto ISD




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and the client have the same interests. Further,statement 24 declares that the interests (orvalues) of the decision maker are not necessarilythe same as those of the other two actors. InFigure 1, the decision maker's value set isdenoted by V*, the other actors' value set by V.

Hirschheim and Klein (1989) have identified adifferent set of generic figures for each story type:managers (m, in Figure 1), system developers (sd)and users (u) for story 1; system developers (sd)and users (u) for story 2; owners and managers(om), the workforce (w) and a system developer(sd) for story 3 and stakeholders (s) and a systemdeveloper (sd) for story 4. These actors also havevalue sets, although their identification is lessclear cut than for Churchman. However, as thesestory types are rooted in the real world, it ispossible to make some delineations.

For story 1, it is usual for the project managerto be in the same department as the systemdevelopers. It is therefore assumed that, at ageneric level, they have the same viewpoints orthe same interests or values. This set of interestsis represented by v* in Figure 1. The users'viewpoint is assumed to be different and isrepresented by v. The essence of story type 2 iscooperation and communication, so that we canassume that the system developer is fully awareof the users' value set (v) and uses it to controlthe development of the system. For story type 3

the owners and managers are recognized ashaving different aims and objectives (representedin Figure 1 by v and v*, respectively). The systemdeveloper can choose which value set theyfollow in this case v*. For story type 4, theprocess continues until the ideal of emancipationis achieved. It is therefore assumed that allstakeholders have the same value set (v*) andthat this is used by the system developer.

The aim now is to find a plausible set ofcorrespondences between these actors and theirvarious viewpoints. Churchman's propositionsare then considered in that context, to see if theyare all still true. In order to discern correspon-dences between these sets of archetypes, we needto assume that if two archetypal roles arecombined in one person, both roles have thesame value set or set of interests. This might not be entirely accurate in that, in practice, a role

player may act differently in the two roles.Conversely, one archetypal role may be played,in practice, by a series of different people.In particular, system development is likelyto be carried out by a sequence of experts. Asdepartmental `team players' they are assumed to

have the same interests.For story type 1, if we compare the roles

played by the archetypes, then we could identifya correspondence where the manager is seen asthe decision maker; the analyst is recognized asthe designer and the user is seen as the client.This is identified as `Solution A'. This might beseen as a natural set of correspondences, butthere are some difficulties arising unless wemake further assumptions.

Churchman assumes that the decision makerholds one set of values and that the designer

and client both have the same set of values,which is distinct from that of the decisionmaker. However, in Hirschheim and Klein'sstory type 1, the manager and the systemsdeveloper have the same set of values and theusers have another. As Mumford (1995) pointsout, in this traditional approach the values of theinformation systems developers and managerswere to look for efficiency gains by reducingstaff numbers and imposing tighter financialand organizational controls. If we take the clientto be the staff who will be using the new system,

the neglect of the client's attitudes can causeproblems when the system is implemented(Mumford, 1995).

Another way of looking at this form of ISD isto consider that experience has indicated that thesuccessful designer takes account of officepolitics (Boland and Day, 1989). Indeed, it isdifficult to see how the designer could evaluatethe client's value system without consideringorganizational politics, or taking an interpret-ative approach which could be outside theassumed philosophical framework. In thisenvironment, the decision maker, as resourceprovider, has the role of describing what isrequired of the system. There is certainly noguarantee that the user's values or requirementsare going to be considered.

Consequently, we argue that the client mayhave a minimal role in the decision making, and




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hence statement 14 can only hold if it were torefer to the decision maker's world. In solutionA, the designer's intention is to maximize thevalue of the system to the decision maker, sostatement 8 will not hold. As we have shownearlier in this scenario, the user tended to be

ignored. Statements 15 and 16 also need `client'replaced by `decision maker'. Most significantly,the designer will not be serving the client'sinterests and so will not be behaving morally,according to statement 18. Finally, statement20 fails as the designer does not nominate thedecision maker. Despite all the above argument,we note that these statements could all besatisfied within this solution A, if the decisionmaker had the same set of values as the designerand the client, and the users had the same set ofvalues as the manager and analyst. However, if

this were true, it would no longer be story type 1but story type 2.

An alternative solution (solution B) for thetraditional scenario would recognize the systemsdeveloper as designer, as before, and the decisionmaker and the client as aspects of the manager.That is, the manager as decision maker decideswhat the client or user wants. This would requirethe role players here to have the same value set.However, and most importantly, the users have been excluded, which potentially causes theproblems discussed below. Ignoring the users is

clearly an unsatisfactory solution, although anec-dotal evidence shows it does sometimes occur.Such systems which do not have user supporthave the potential to be undermined by thoseusers (Zuboff, 1988). Further, this is precisely oneof the reasons that alternative approaches aresuggested by Hirschheim and Klein (1989). Onthe other hand, this actually fits in with thereality described by story type 1. The users arenot made an element of a composite decisionmaker as their value system is assumed to bedifferent from the manager's, which was pre-cisely why the manager took this initiative. Thissituation is likely to occur whenever a newinformation system is to be introduced in orderto facilitate downsizing, for example. For thissolution, with the decision maker, designer andclient not having the same set of values,statements 8, 14, 15 and 16 are not satisfied.

This is because the decision maker and designerdo not necessarily want the same things as theclient. Again, statement 18 will not be satisfied inthis situation and so the designer will not be behaving ethically according to Churchman oraccording to, for example, the BCS code of

conduct (Rackley et al., 1996) as the users' rightshave not been taken into account. (The BCS codeof conduct requires members to `. . . have dueregard to the legitimate rights of third parties').The designer still has no choice about thedecision maker so statement 20 still fails.

The other three story types have the followingstraightforward correspondences. For story 2,solution C requires that the designer correspondsto the systems developer and the decision makerand client combine in the form of a consensualuser. This situation occurs when the users, as

clients, are able to take the initiative and controlthe project. This will imply that the decisionmaker and client will have the same value set.For story 3, solutions D and E require that thedecision maker represents the owners andmanagers, and the designer corresponds withthe systems developer. Hirschheim and Kleinportray the systems developer in this situation asa traitor to the workers if he supports the owners'and managers' values and a labour partisan if hepropagates the workers' set of values. In the firstcase, solution D, the client will be the owners

and managers and the workers are ignored, ashappens in solution B to story 1. The second case,solution E, will follow Churchman's ideal wherethe systems developer tries to change the owners'and managers' set of values. The client in thiscase is the workforce. Finally, for story 4(solution F) we can assume that in this scenarioall value sets are essentially equivalent. In thiscase, the designer corresponds to the systemdeveloper and the other two roles are combinedin the stakeholders. Consequently, we havecorrespondences for story types 2, 3 and 4 ifassumptions about value sets are correct. If theyare, then all of the Churchman's statementsexcept 1 and 20 are valid. (Businesses are notteleological and the designer is chosen by thedecision maker, not the other way around).

The correspondences identified above aresummarized in Figure 1.




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6. CONCLUSION

The first major problem found was highlightedin the section introducing Hirschheim andKlein's story types. The problem was that ashuman institutions business organizations are

not always rational. To put it another way,organizations do not follow the causeeffectmodel of nature. Therefore, statement 1 had tobe ignored in later discussion of story type 2. It isnot entirely clear whether the assumptions ofstory types 3 and 4 will allow this statement.

A second major problem area found in thestatements was the nature of the measure ofperformance. Attempting to use a measure ofperformance to define a successful system needsa novel approach to software quality, althoughthis would be recommended by computer

scientists. A common definition of a successfulsystem would be one that is in use and achievesits objectives (Lucas, 1981, for example), but theissues here are qualitative. However, Church-man's (1971) use of measures of performancemeans alternative criteria are required forexample, increased market share. If this were tobe adopted then the organization itself would beacting as an inquiring system. Refining ameasure within that, which satisfies Church-man's definition for an individual informationsystem, is a major problem.

If we consider all those statements which wereshown to be false in a given context, it will benoticed that most of these problems arisethrough inappropriate attempts to measure andoptimize. These difficulties can be overcome ifthe measurement of qualitative information isincluded. Information systems can then beconsidered to make things `better' for a groupof stakeholders without necessarily being toospecific about what is being made better, or inwhat way or by how much. In our experiencevery few business information systems are set upto achieve a specific efficiency gain, despite therequests of software engineers.

Overall, this analysis emphasizes the need torecognize users as equal stakeholders to achievea successful information system.

The primary conclusion is, therefore, thatChurchman's framework of inquiring systems

covers a spectrum of environments, which havedifferent, and sometimes contradictory, epistem-ologies and ontologies. The conditions thatChurchman finds necessary for something to beidentified as an inquiring system do not reflectthe variability of the resulting environments.

We further conclude that Churchman's pre-conceptions on the nature of inquiring systemsneed to be adjusted to reflect the realities of ISD.One specific adjustment concerns Churchman'sassumption that our world is inherently quanti-tative and rational. At the current stage ofunderstanding, it would seem that not all thequalitative issues involved can be subjected tosuch an approach. In particular, statement 20 canbe seen as a consequence of this assumption ofChurchman.

On the other hand, looking at ISD from the

perspective of inquiring systems, approacheswhich are supported by Singerian inquiringsystems have the advantage that, at a givenlevel in an organization, all perspectives aretaken into account. Systems resulting from theseapproaches are therefore seen as having in-creased relevance to all the stakeholders.

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