Contribution in Information Systems: Insights from the Disciplinary Matrix

Hospital readmissions are an important quality measure in healthcare, as they can indicate issues in treatment, rehabilitation, or discharge management. Furthermore, readmissions are often associated with increased costs resulting from penalties and regulations enforced by policy makers and insurers. Several studies have been conducted in order to identify patients at high risk of readmission, especially focusing on the initial diseases addressed in the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure (HF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and pneumonia (PN). Since elective primary total hip arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty (THA/TKA) procedures are a added later to the HRRP, research on risk prediction in that area is still quite scarce. This study focuses on total hip arthroplasty and total knee arthroplasty procedures. Based on a dataset from a not-for-profit Australian healthcare group, 10,872 admissions from 2011 to 2015 are utilized to build several predictive models for readmissions after THA/TKA procedures. The structure and application of these models are presented and benchmarked against current hospital risk scores, resulting in a good prediction power to identify patients at 28-day risk of readmission

Sociotechnical Systems through a Work System Lens :A Possible Path for Reconciling System Conceptualizations, Business Realities, and Humanist Values in IS Development

This position paper describes an approach that might increase the likelihood that the sociotechnical perspective will take its proper place in today’s world. This paper questions the clarity of the traditional STS notion of joint optimization of a social system and technical system. It explains how the integrated system view in work system theory (WST) and the work system method (WSM) might provide a more straightforward way to describe, discuss, and negotiate about sociotechnical systems. Using WST/WSM to bypass the effort of separately describing and jointly optimizing social and technical systems might make it easier to engage effectively in discussions that reconcile system conceptualizations, business realities, and humanist values in IS development

Digital Technologies and Patterns of Distributed Innovation

In this conceptual essay we develop a framework for comparing different forms of organizational structures for distributed, innovative work. To develop this framework we identify two dimensions. The first distinguishes between organizational arrangements that are structured either in relation to a “container” organization, or those arrangements that are structured by the digital platforms upon which their ecosystems are based. The second dimension considers the degree to which the boundary spanning activity is more or less opaque, in terms of the degree to which collaborators interact in either an arm’s length or a tightly coupled fashion. In developing and reflecting on this framework, we characterize four ideal types of organizational structures for distributed innovation: agent relationships; work teams; managed crowds; or open projects. We further utilize the framework to theorize about processes that might lead to transitions between structures

Transformation through Big Data Analytics: a Qualitative Enquiry in Healthcare

With an aim to understand transformation around big data analytics, this paper first investigates the literature to explore elements of change around big data. The research comprises a qualitative enquiry in the New Zealand healthcare context to understand how professionals across the sector view this transformation. Healthcare sectors are increasingly adopting big data technologies to improve healthcare delivery and management. However, for sectors like healthcare, big data brings significant changes in terms of technology architecture, infrastructure, skills, and organisational structure changes. Security measures and policy changes are also apparent. Using a deductive approach to data analysis, it confirms the important elements identified in the literature around big data transformation and highlights the relationships between these elements of change. The paper uses Sociotechnical Systems Theory as the underlying theoretical foundation for this study. The findings of this research contribute to policy and practice in healthcare

Policy Ambiguity: a Problem, a Tool, or an Inherent Part of Policymaking?

It has been acknowledged that the Information Systems (IS) discipline needs to pay attention to policymaking. However, the IS field has not yet sufficiently acknowledged complexities of policymaking and the resulting ambiguity. We present two worldviews that underlie how IS research has approached policymaking and, indirectly, policy ambiguity. In the dominant “representationalist” view, a policy is planned and implemented in a linear manner, and ambiguity is seen as problematic. The “enactivist” view sees a policy and its implementation as mutually constitutive: a policy does not exist without its implementation but it also guides the implementation. This can result in unresolvable paradoxes that manifest as ambiguities. Based on our review of the extant IS research we present existing perspectives to policy(making) and ambiguity. We call for IS researchers invested in policy/regulation-related research to be aware of and explicit about the views to policy(making) and ambiguity guiding their research

Taking the first step with systems theorizing in information systems : a response

We address the commentaries of Robey and Mikhaeil, of Mingers, and of Schultze which provided responses to our paper, “Crafting theory to satisfy the requirements of systems science.” We find their responses useful for reflecting on the development of the role of systems theorising within information systems research and provide our reaction in order to clarify several fundamental considerations pertaining to 1) our proposed set of requirements for systems theorizing, 2) the need for explicit systems theorizing, 3) the supposed overall neglect of systems science, 4) the communicability of systems theory and the path of grand theories, 5) emergence, the observer, and other considerations, and 6) systems theory from the perspective of sociomateriality

Artificial Intelligence and Digital Work: The Sociotechnical Reversal

A well-designed information system (IS) in the classical view comprises two interrelated yet different subsystems; one that represents the technological dimension of work; and one that represents the social dimension. When these subsystems are heralded as equally important, they constitute a sociotechnical whole, producing economic outcomes such as profit and efficiency, plus humanistic outcomes, such as engagement and well-being. We see, increasingly, this classical view becoming obliviated. In this conceptual paper, we reflect upon the role of humans and technology in these changing work environments. While technical aspects from Artificial Intelligence and digital technologies are dominating the social side of work, we suggest a sociotechnical reversal to happen. Whereas this technosocial reality might be well motivated by advances in efficiency and productivity, the effects on well-being and engagement are less well understood. Consequently, we provide a set of theoretically derived principles to guide these changes in the digital workplace

Modular Change in Platform Ecosystems and Routine Mirroring in Organizations

Organizational routines involve modular digital technologies that are part of larger platform ecosystems that often transcend organizational boundaries. Change in organizational routines is thus interwoven with innovation and associated change in digital platforms. To get at this “embedded” routine change, we use the concept of modular operators to conceptualize how changes to digital technologies in platform ecosystems are mirrored in changes in the organizational routines in which these technologies are implicated. We distinguish between enabling and constraining impacts and develop a set of propositions to move towards a theory of “routine mirroring.” We use the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as a base example

Overcoming Silo Thinking in the IS Discipline by Thinking Differently about IS and IT

This essay challenges fundamental, silo-oriented assumptions about the IS discipline. It shows how work system theory and its extensions form a potential basis for overcoming that silo-orientation and finding and exploiting areas of overlap with other disciplines. Within the IS discipline, this paper shows how WST and extensions provide a basis for thinking differently about fundamental topics including the following: IS as a system-related discipline, system usage, sociotechnical systems, planned and emergent change in systems, system development and systems analysis and design, user participation and IS/IT projects, attaining value from IS and IT, IS success, business/IT alignment, and IS theories and a body of knowledge for IS. This paper also shows directions toward synergies and possible collaborations with other disciplines that build on areas of overlap