TOWARDS A PRACTICE-ORIENTED GREEN IS FRAMEWORK

This paper addresses the need for a comprehensive, practice-oriented Green IS framework. The study conducted a systematic integrative review of research and practitioner literatures in concert with a cross-sectional field study in order to achieve its objective of building such a framework. This research began in September 2009 and ended in September 2010; thus, the paper incorporates up-to-date findings from academic and practitioner studies and articles, and is informed by insights from leading IT professionals in public and private sector organisations. The Green IS framework presented herein is based on six core concepts or categories: the first of these is Business and IS Strategy, which, in turn, underpins the People; Energy Efficiency; Dematerialisation; Waste and Recycling; and Green Operations categories. This paper argues that if each of these five areas are addressed comprehensively by practitioners, then lower organisational Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions will result. The paper concludes that while the direct effects of Green IT are being realised by a growing number of organisations, the enabling effects of Green IS are proving more elusive. There is much then that research and practice needs to do if 2020 GHG emissions offset targets are to become a reality

Deconstructing the Hype Around Knowledge Work and Putting Clothes on the Emperor\u27s Back

It is widely believed that knowledge work is a relatively new phenomenon and constitutes the main form of activity in post-industrial organisations. While the term remains undefined, it is taken to refer to the knowledge that individuals apply while performing business activities in ‘knowledge-intensive’ firms. Here, the subjective knowledge of individual social actors’ is applied to objective organizational knowledge as the raw material of the production process. Thus, knowledge is considered to be both an input and an output of business processes and to also underpin the process by which knowledge inputs are transformed to outputs. This conceptualization is incorrect, and in order to illustrate why, the socially constructed nature of individual knowledge and its relationship to knowledge-produced data is subjected to critical analysis. Cooley (1975) was one of the first to employ the term ‘knowledge worker’; however, his conception encompasses both white and blue-collar workers, professionals and craftspeople alike. This paper echoes Cooley’s perspective in many respects; however, it seeks to extend and apply it in a contemporary context. Accordingly, the first section of this paper explores the constitution of individual knowledge and deconstructs commonly held beliefs on knowledge by examining its relationship to data and information. However, in order to help researchers and practitioners understand better the phenomenon, the third section presents a conceptual model and taxonomy of knowledge in organizational contexts. This paper’s motivation is to eliminate the hype that surrounds the concept of knowledge work and to propose an understanding of the phenomenon that is more in tune with the ‘reality’ of organisational life as evidenced by the author’s experience as a practitioner and his empirical research on information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructures in the newspaper industry. Thus the fourth and penultimate section of the paper draws on this research in support of its thesis and, also, to inform its conclusions

Making Sense of Knowledge: A Constructivist Viewpoint

Under the influence of Enlightenment epistemological thought, the social sciences have exhibited a distinct tendency to prefer deterministic explanations of social phenomena. In so doing, social scientists of the ‘foundational’ school have sought objective knowledge of social phenomena by eliminating the subjective intrusions of concerned actors (Hekman, 1986)1. However, as Bruner (1990; p. 118) points out “…there are no causes to be grasped with certainty where the act of meaning is concerned.” It is clear that ‘foundationalist’ views of knowledge have come to dominate the information systems (IS) field in that they influence extant perspectives on knowledge management and on the posited role of IT in creating, capturing, and diffusing knowledge in social and organisational contexts. In order to address what many would consider to be a deficiency in such thinking, this paper offers an ‘antifoundationalist’ perspective that considers knowledge as being simultaneously ‘situated’ and ‘distributed’ and which recognizes its role shaping social action within ‘contexts of practice’. Insights drawn from this short essay are addressed to academics and practitioners in the IS field in order to illustrate the considerable difficulties inherent in representing individual knowledge and of the viability of isolating, capturing and managing knowledge in organisational contexts

Book Review: 50 Economics Classics by Tom Butler-Bowdon

With 50 Economics Classics, Tom Butler-Bowdon takes readers on a tour of major economic works from the time of Adam Smith up until the present day, presenting an imaginative canvas of economic thought that showcases the variety of approaches and perspectives that have shaped the discipline. This interdisciplinary and compellingly idiosyncratic book offers new avenues to explore and much to delight in for professional economics, students and general readers, writes Niall Kishtainy

Life in the Data Warehouse: A Case Study of Second Phase Implementation Problems and Solutions

It is clear from the literature that the process of implementing applications around data warehouses is not well understood. One reason for this may be that practitioner and research emphasis has tended to focus on technical issues rather than on identifying the social web of factors that influence the successful implementation of data warehousing applications in organizations. This case study of a data warehouse project that drifted perilously close to failure illustrates the importance of organizational and social factors, such as the existence of end-user computer skills to leverage the data made available to the business users, coupled with a deficiency in end-user experiential knowledge and understanding of businessrelated data

UK government delays restriction of promotions on less‐healthy foods: Serious implications for tackling obesity

Regulations ensuring that the promotion and advertising of foods high in fat, sugar, and salt were restricted from October 2022 are now to be delayed by the UK Government. The delay of this policy is to be condemned because it will set back the anticipated improvement to population diets and obesity levels by postponing the expected transformation of retail food environments in-store and online. Governmental justifications for delaying these policies, the implementation of which was the responsibility of the UK food industry, can be perceived to reflect a short-sighted willingness to use the current economic circumstances to push the responsibility for obesity and dietary choices back into the court of the consumer. Delaying these polices will, yet again, leave public health and clinical practitioners tackling obesity with less-effective approaches focused on individual willpower and information provision

Social Inclusion and IT Education: An Institutional Analysis

This paper applies institutional theory to help understand the regulative, normative and culturalcognitive influences that shape policies aimed at widening participation in IT education. It also employs such theory to explore the commitments of social actors in translating policy into action. Thus, this study aims to deepen the IS field’s understanding of the institutional challenges facing governments, related agencies and educational organisations when implementing polices aimed at promoting social inclusion in and through the provision of IT-based education and training. The study achieves this by conducting (a) an institutional analysis of the Irish education sector and (b) a longitudinal study of an innovative programme that implements government policy on social inclusion through education. The lessons learned from the case study inform both theory and practice and illustrate that providing IT-based education for the socially excluded requires significant commitments to action by all concerned over lengthy time horizons

Looking for a place to hide: a study of social loafing in agile teams

Social loafing refers to the behaviour of individual members of a team who have tendency not to work as hard as they could or should, because social groups provide a degree of anonymity such that individual team members feel that their poor performance will be hidden by the overall output of the team. Agile Software Development philosophy espouses the importance of cohesive project teams, the empowerment of these teams, and the collective ownership of the code produced by the team — social values similar to those of communities of practice. This paper posits that one of the unintended consequences of Agile Software Development is that it may give rise to social loafing, under certain conditions. In order to test this proposition, research was carried out on two software development teams over an eight month period to determine if the values inherent in Agile Software Development could give rise to social loafing The theoretical assumption adopted by the authors was that the project team which fully adopted the agile approach would exhibit a greater tendency for social loafing, in comparison to the other team. The findings of the study indicate, however, that the opposite was the case; accordingly, the study’s findings are interpreted to offer an explanation for this apparent paradox

Recovering the Ontological Foundations of the Grounded Theory Method

Researchers have identified several problems with the Grounded Theory Method, which include fundamental concerns about its ontological foundations and epistemological stance. Many IS researchers consider such issues unproblematic or are unaware of them. This situation is compounded by the fact it is employed selectively as part of positivist, post-positivist or interpretivist research approaches; indeed, some researchers argue that the method is paradigmatically neutral. Accordingly, there have been recent calls in reference disciplines for researchers to address the method’s problematic ontological and epistemological grounding. The objective of this paper is, therefore, to help IS researchers understand better these issues. The paper draws on phenomenological hermeneutics to achieve this aim. This essay therefore makes a contribution to IS research through its constructive analysis of the Grounded Theory Method, by identifying the method’s strengths and weaknesses, and by providing insights into how the latter can be strengthened in interpretivist studies using phenomenological hermeneutics