IS ACTIVITY AS ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITY WITHIN A BROADER CONTEXT

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IS ACTIVITY AS ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITYWITHIN A
BROADER CONTEXT

• Michael S H Heng
• Free University of Amsterdam

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Aim to reflect on the concept and draw some
conclusions

• The idea is intuitively very appealing
• It is present in some important IS works
• Some authors articulate this point more
  explicitly than others
• Examples Web model of Kling, Semiotics framework
  of Stamper, and IS as social system of Hirschhiem

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Relevance of the concept in

• IS strategy formulation and presentation
• the background of IS development methods
• IS as a sub-discipline in management school
• IS as a sub-discipline in organizational studies
• use of sociological theories in IS research
• implications for IS curriculum

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IS strategy formulation and presentation

• It tends to conform to the rational expectations
  of stakeholders in normal circumstances
• It is related to the prevailing moods or fashions
  of powerful stakeholders, especially in abnormal
  situations, e.g. the last quarter of 1999 and
  first quarter of 2000

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IS development methods

• A system development method is an organized
  collection of concepts, beliefs, values, and
  normative principles supported by material
  resources. (Lyytinen 1987)
• The differences in ISD in the American and
  Scandinavian traditons - the MIS tradition and
  history in the USA as opposed to the trade
  unionist and user centred in Scandinavian
  countries

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continued

• The deep philosophical divide between these two
  traditions
• The importance of relating ISD methods to social
  norms

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IS in management school

• It tends to follow the main concerns of dominant
  business schools, e.g. in Harvard Business Review
• It lags such fashions by a few months
• IS has not contributed much to shape the teaching
  and research agenda of business schools

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IS in organizational studies

• Reflects organizational issues like power,
  culture, history
• the boundaries between IS researchers and
  organizational researchers is not clear
• important contributions of organizational
  researchers have made them members of IS
  community
• e.g. James March Stern Jonsson

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IS in schools of computing

• Let us fill in the blanks here

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Use of sociological theories

• Giddens structuration theory
• Postmodernism
• Habermans theory of communication
• Actor network theory
• But what about other influential theories,
  especially feminism

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Implications for research and teaching

• Inter disciplinary and multi disciplinary
  approach
• Potential rewards in integration and synthesis
• training courses for Ph D researchers with pure
  IT background

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Implications for IS courses

• Compulsory introductory sociological course
• Relate the IS theories and concepts to wider
  societal context
• Invite guest lectures from organizational
  researchers who do IS studies