The Philosophical Universe And The Information Systems Research Journey: A Hitchhiker’S Guide To A Virtual Galaxy

There is concern among information systems (IS) scholars that the lack of philosophical engagement and conviction among the research community threatens the future integrity and creativity of the research process. The paper seeks to respond to Weber’s call for IS researchers to clearly present their “ontological and epistemological assumptions” and to accept Myers’ invitation for “further reflection and debate on the important subject of grounding interpretive research methodology”. The approach of the paper is to present a self-reflective case study, following Schön, of the author’s doctoral research journey. The paper aims to make a contribution by: presenting the work of two philosophers new to the IS discipline and proposing a dynamic model that opens IS research to engagement with the complex philosophical universe. The argument is developed using analogy and by describing the author’s journey towards a philosophical system that reflects his worldview

Information Systems Research Methods: exploring the implications of Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the human condition

In ‘The Human Condition’ (1958) Hannah Arendt presents a picture of what it is to be human based on the activities that we humans undertake. She distinguishes three forms of activity fundamental to our lives –labor, work and action. In her view the western intellectual tradition hasfailed to take proper account of the distinctions between the three activities. She considers that this way of categorising human actions is important to understanding the way that modern life has developed and seeks to describe each one as fully as possible. Labor refers to the actions required to meet the unceasing need to satisfy our bodily needs. Work includes all those activities by which physical products are produced. It is through work that man (homo faber) transforms raw materials into tools and creates the human world we live in. However it is the third type of activity –action (vita activa) which promises to shine a different light on both the way organisations make use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)and the role current research methods play in developing our understanding of the potential value to be obtained by organisations from this technology. This paper presents Arendt’s analysis of these three human activities and then explores the implications for business research methods –in particular those applied within the Information Systems discipline(IS

Supply Chain Transformation in Apc Ireland: Lean Thinking, Opposing Logics and Bricolage

This paper presents a number of observations and\ud findings from an ongoing study of supply chain\ud transformation in a subsidiary of American Power Conversion (APC) located in the West of Ireland.\ud The study is being carried out in a period of significant change within both the Irish economy and the\ud APC Corporation. The research addresses the question of how innovation can contribute to the sustainability and development of the Operations function in a time of transition. To begin with, a review is presented of\ud relevant research and theory in the areas\ud of lean supply, innovative culture and information systems bricolage. Then the context and composition of the lean transformation team involved in the case study are described together with the research design.\ud The work proposes to make a contribution in two areas.\ud Firstly by providing empirical evidence of the role of innovation in an organizational transformation and the challenge of incorporating bricolage in the course of\ud information systems design. Secondly to the building of theory by proposing that organizational innovation\ud can be viewed as a dynamic process of tuning\ud “opposing logics”. The paper concludes by suggesting\ud that the study has significance in the context of Ireland’s objectives of moving to an innovation economy and of strengthening academic-industrial collaboration

Monitoramento internacional da produção científica em ciência da informação. volume 1

256 p.Objetivo – Identifi car tendências de publicação de números temáticos (themed issue; special issue) em periódicos de ciência da informação. Concepção/ metodologia/ abordagem – Levantamento de números temáticos indexados em bases de dados internacionais de ciência da informação/ biblioteconomia, no período de 2005 / 2010, monitorados no gerenciador de dados Asksam, para eliminação de duplicatas, derivação de dados estatísticos; classifi cação dos artigos introdutórios aos números temáticos de acordo com a Information Science Taxonomy (Donald T. Hawkins e colaboradores, 2003) e decorrentes análises sobre estado da arte. Resultados – No período selecionado foram publicados 185 números temáticos, distribuídos em 11 categorias, com “Pesquisa em ciência da informação” (20%, 37 números temáticos), “Bibliotecas e serviços bibliotecários (17%, 32 números, com 12 destes sobre ensino e treinamento em biblioteconomia e ciência da informação) “Tecnologias da informação” e ”Questões sociais” (14% cada, 26 números), apresentando-se com as mais representativas do ponto de vista quantitativo. Originalidade/valor – Mapeamento das tendências de publicação de números temáticos para elaboração do segundo produto deste projeto ─, comparação dos resultados deste primeiro produto com trabalhos apresentados em congressos de ciência da informação para fi ns de proposição de números temáticos para a revista Ciência da Informação, editada pelo Ibict

What is the contribution of personal information management systems (PIMS) to the Working Model and personal work system of knowledge workers?

The thesis reports research into a phenomenon which it calls the personal working model of an individual knowledge worker. The principal conjecture addressed in this thesis is that each of us has a personal working model which is supported by a personal work system enabled by a personal information management system. For some people, these are well defined; for most they are not even explicit. By means of structured self-reflection aided by conceptual knowledge modelling within the context of a process of action learning they can be improved. That personal working model is predicted by Ashby's law of requisite variety and by the good regulator theorem of Conant and Ashby. The latter theorem states that the only good regulator of a system is a model of that system. The thesis and the work it reports result from a systemic approach to identifying the personal information management system and personal work system which together contribute to the personal working model. Starting with abductive conjecture, the author has sought to understand what models are and to explore ways in which those models can themselves be expressed. The thesis shows how a new approach to the conceptual modelling of aspects of the personal knowledge of knowledge worker was designed, built and then used. Similarly, the actual data used by a knowledge worker had to be stored, and for this purpose a personal information management system was also designed. Both these artefacts are evaluated in accordance with principles drawn from the literature of design science research. The research methodology adopted in the first phase of the research now ending also included a relatively novel approach in which the PhD student attempted to observe himself over the last five years of his PhD research – this approach is sometimes called autoethnography. This autoethnographic element is one of a number of methods used within an overall framework grounded by the philosophical approach called critical realism. The work reported in the thesis is initial exploratory research which, it is planned, will continue in empirical action research involving mentored action learning undertaken by professional knowledge workers

Version control software in the open source process: A performative view of learning and organizing in the Linux collectif.

This research describes a study of learning and organizing within the Linux kernel open source collective. For its empirical focus it concentrates on Linux kernel development activities and this collective's debates about the role of, and need for, an agreed approach to version control software. This is studied over a period of eight years from 1995-2003. A textual analysis of messages in the Linux Kernel mailing list is used as the primary data source, supported by other contemporary accounts. In this work learning and organizing are understood to be mutually constitutive, where one entails and enables the other. Learning is about interacting with the environment, organizing is about reflecting this in the collective. The thesis uses the theoretical approach of actor network theory, Bateson's levels of learning and Weick's concept of organizing, to analyze learning and organizing in the kernel collective. The analysis focuses on the discourse and interplay between relevant actors (human and non-human), and the ongoing debates among kernel developers over whether to use version control software, and then which version control software to adopt. The persistence and passion of this debate (it spans the 8 years studied and is ongoing) is evident, and allows a longitudinal study of the becoming of learning and organizing. Drawing on actor network theory, the thesis emphasizes the performative (worked out, lived, 'in the doing of', in other words the becoming) character of learning and organizing. The findings of the study reveal how learning is understood in the collective and is, to a degree, reflected in its organizing activity. Key themes that emerge include: the organizing of time and space, maintaining of transparency and the overall concern with sustaining the assemblage. The thesis offers a distinctive account of technical actors as an essential part of the open source process. In conclusion, it re-emphasizes the significance of code and the agency of non-human actors