Closing the Legal-Technical Gap in Digital Trade

As digital trade continues to reshape the global economic landscape, the key objective of this study is to bridge a significant Legal-Technical gap characterized by the discord between rapid technological advancements and slower-evolving legal frameworks. This paper delves into the complexities of this gap and emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to understand and address the multifaceted challenges it presents to businesses, policymakers, and the broader international trading system. This research offers a novel theoretical foundation for exploring and bridging the legal-technical gap in digital trade. Initially, it discusses the integration of legal and technical knowledge systems, which leads to the emergence of specific transdisciplinary knowledge as described by Andrew Sage's Theory of Systems. Subsequently, it explores the acquisition of universal knowledge about these systems through Herman Dooyeweerd's multi-aspectual philosophy. Furthermore, it proposes the development of a transdisciplinary knowledge representation using Fritz Zwicky's Morphological Method. Our analysis reveals that focusing on lingual, social, economic, and aesthetic aspects enables the prioritisation of critical factors essential for enhancing legal-technical functionality

Emancipation Research in Information Systems: Integrating Agency, Dialogue, Inclusion, and Rationality Research

Emancipation is a key concept in critical theories. Prior work suggests that emancipation is a complex and multi-faceted concept. Many conceptualizations of emancipation exist, and emancipation is defined in different ways. Existing empirical studies mainly focus on one or few components of emancipation. To have an integrated understanding of emancipation, we review the literature on emancipation in information systems (IS), with a view toward developing a typology of components of emancipation in the IS field. The typology of emancipation components consists of four components: freedom to act, freedom to express, freedom to belong and freedom to think. These components relate to the concepts of agency, dialogue, inclusion, and rationality, respectively

A critical study of ISP filtering of child pornography

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are today the most used technologies for child pornography. In an attempt to reduce access to child pornography, some Internet Service Providers (ISP), in the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden have introduced filtering systems which block access to web sites containing child pornography. The aim of this paper is to critically analyse whether the ISP filtering techniques is an effective approach to the problem with child pornography and ICT. The paper will present initial empirical findings consisting of court records, criminal investigation records and interviews with convicted offenders. This material provides information about the type of ICT that has been used for child pornography. The paper has applied critical information systems research, since this perspective is well suited to critically examine the technology used. In light of the empirical material this paper argues that although the ISP initiative to block access to child pornography is a step in the right direction, filtering is not a truly effective approach to this problem. Some identified flaws with the filtering approach will be presented. The results of this study are of great importance to both the critical IS research and professional communities, since the findings enhance the understanding of ICT and its social effects

Making the Links: Domestication of ICTs in the Global Knowledge Economy

This paper considers the historical, social, economic, and political context of information and communication technologies (ICTs) used in our everyday lives. Under the pretext of engaging with a supposedly transforming new economy, society, or epoch, we are urged to be on-line everywhere and anywhere signifying new ways of living, loving, being governed, and educated. This paper critiques these perspectives through an investigation of the domestication of ICTs in families and households in the United Kingdom and draws on an empirical study of gender and home e-shopping as an illustration of the gendered consumption of ICTs in UK households. Studies of the domestication of technologies have developed from those concerning technologies of household maintenance to considerations of technologies for leisure in the home. In the so-called global knowledge economy, however, the domestication of ICTs and how they are embedded into the family and households today is a neglected area of research and one that is often rooted in flawed views of technological determinism and gender neutrality. This paper calls for analysis of the domestication of ICTs in the global knowledge economy to be placed in context rather than falling into faddish hype or unwarranted dystopia

Research, careers, and greed: An IS perspective on a human failing and how it threatens the future of the discipline

The demand for greater societal impact and participation of science in public discourse is at odds with the current “publish or perish” culture. A major factor why such a culture could be established in the first place is the excessive desire for complaisance, recognition, and status, which at some point turns into greed. There are two forms of greed that we will explore. Personal greed refers to short-term self- maximization behaviours that researchers engage in to secure academic positions and maintain a certain status within their community. Vicarious greed is rooted in the desire to please corporations by conducting research that helps extend surveillance capitalism, over-consumerism, and other harmful practices to civil society. The objective of this article is to catalyse a discourse on strategies to mitigate the influence of greed on IS research and careers. This discourse is crucial for the IS discipline to uphold its positive influence on society

Is altruism dead? A critical case study on the paradigm shift in open government data

The broad and continued success of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) has helped to spread its ideology to many other domains, including Open Government Data (OGD), which has recently gained prominence due to its potential for feeding algorithms. Despite the anti-market and anti-corporation values around free sharing, citizen participation, and unrestricted transparency propagated in particular by a highly idealized academic discourse on OGD, our case study of the development of Switzerland’s national OGD portal suggests that the altruistic and philanthropic notion that is often associated with OGD needs to be reconsidered. We show that low use, on one side, and the practical necessity towards cost-recovery behaviors, on the other side, have led to a compromise of the altruistic ideological beginnings of OGD and paved the way for a pragmatic shift towards a more utilitarian, partly even protectionist, view on liberating and sharing data

Development and emancipation: The information society and decision support systems in local authorities in Egypt.

The published version of this article can be found at Emerald publishing http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/menuNavigation.do?hdAction=InsightHomePurpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emancipatory promises and realities of information and communication technology (ICT) in Egypt. Design/methodology/approach – The combination of Habermasian and Foucauldian ideas implemented by a critical discourse analysis of the Egyptian Information Society Policy and interviews with employees of local decision support systems employees. Promises and rhetoric are contrasted with findings and questioned with regards to their validity. Findings – On the policy level, analysis shows that the emancipating rhetoric of ICT is not followed through. ICT is mostly seen as a means of attracting foreign direct investment. Neither political participation nor educational benefits are promoted seriously. On the local level, culture and organisational realities prevent individuals from exploiting the emancipatory potential of the technology. Originality/value – The combination of the Habermasian and Foucauldian approach exposes the problems of ICT use in developing countries. It shows that emancipation is used to legitimise ICT policies but is not taken seriously on a policy level in Egypt. Local implementations also fail to deliver on their promise. In order to have emancipatory effects, ICT policy and use will need to be reconsidered

A Demographic and Content Survey of Critical Research in Information Systems for the Period 2001 – 2005

The information systems (IS) field has been the subject of many enquiries over the years, however, in relation to research from a critical theory perspective, such enquiries as have been reported are problematical. The field includes a small number of academics who research and engage in discourse on information systems topics from a critical theory perspective. The growth and influence of this group are the focus of this enquiry. The paper reports the results of an extensive demographic and content survey of information systems research and writing activity from a critical perspective published in leading information systems journals, conferences and specialist critical information systems forums in the period 2001–2005. Patterns and trends of critical research and of critical IS researchers and authors are identified. The findings show distinct regional and gender distributions of authors of critical papers compared with IS field norms. The paper contributes to the IS field’s development by raising awareness of critical researchers’ activities and providing an analysis of critical activity in the IS field

Why Are Women Underrepresented in the American IT Industry? The Role of Explicit and Implicit Gender Identities

Gender inequality in the IT profession is an acute issue with major individual, societal, and national implications. In this study, we build on the individual differences theory of gender and IT and extend it to account for subconscious processes that may drive women away from IT university majors and IT career choices. We specifically theorize on how the asymmetric roles of explicit and implicit gender identity facets impact the major selection of men and women students and affect their decisions to pursue the IT profession. To do so, this study introduces the concept of implicit gender identity, defined as the degree to which men and women subconsciously, automatically, and uncontrollably associate themselves with the masculine and feminine gender groups, respectively. We obtained data from 185 pre-major selection university students by means of a survey and the Implicit Association Test. The findings revealed that implicit gender identity was a significant predictor of IT major and career choices for women but not for men university students. Explicit gender identity had no influence on IT major and career choices for men or women university students. Nevertheless, men’s and women’s IT major and career choices appear to be similarly influenced by normative pressures. IT skills and IT work experience also impact such choices. Ultimately, this study shows that implicit gender identity can be a factor that drives women university students away from the IT profession and contributes to the gender gap in the field

Can mobile phones enhance refugees' integration? : a South African perspective

Supervisor: K.A. Johnstone Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-56)