Information Systems Development as Inquiring Systems: Lessons from Philosophy, Theory, and Practice

The paper presents a framework to interpret information systems development (ISD) as composed of activities for the creation and exchange of knowledge. The framework is based on the five inquiring systems presented by Churchman (1971). The main contribution of the framework is in showing that in ISD the inquiring systems should be used complementarily: rationalism, empiricism, idealism, dialectic, and pragmatism are to be used by participants in ISD projects in accordance to the development phase they face. Since the framework focuses on the knowledge created during the interaction of individuals and groups (or the lack thereof) rather than on the specific development process, the framework is robust enough to be adaptable to different ISD methodologies. In the second part, the paper presents an ethnographic study of an ISD project. Through the analysis of the case material, it is evident that the participants display behavior very similar to the pure rational inquirer far from the plurality of approaches that the framework shows as necessary. This conclusion indicates that improvement in ISD has to be sought not only in methodological amelioration but in a combination of methodologies that support multiple inquiring systems and a change in the mindset of the actors involved through adequate practices

The Sociomateriality of IT Surveillance: A Dramaturgical Model of IT Adoption

Information technology adoption in organizations is a process where managers and employees attempt to use and adapt information technology to carry out their everyday work. Given the different requirements of managers and employees, these adaptations often generate tensions around IT uses. We outline an alternative model of information technology based on the theatrical idea of performance where people use information systems not to resist but to project an image of compliance. Thus doing, they are able to erect an electronic façade that hides the improvised information systems needed to achieve their goals. We specify this model from a sociomaterial perspective on information systems use to highlight the role that the material properties of IT artifacts have in the adoption of prescribed information systems. Our dramaturgical model of IT adoption contributes to this emerging stream of research by exploring the social dynamics in sociomaterial performances of information systems

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE EVALUATION: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

By being holistically preoccupied with coherency among organizational elements such as organizational strategy, business needs and the IT functions role in supporting the business, enterprise architecture (EA) has grown to become a core competitive advantage. Though EA is a maturing research area, little has been done to understand how e.g. projects, application or other organizational elements contribute to the overall EA. The current paper presents a literature review on EA evaluation. Different types of evaluation are a necessity in order to ensure that EA demands are being met by disparate IT initiatives. Still, EA evaluation has attracted little attention within academic literature. Thus, the aim of the current review is to get an overview of the topic, which can serve as a foundation for further development of the field. Overall, the study shows that while little research has been done within this area, research is especially lacking regarding empirical studies of how EA evaluation unfolds in practice, while holistic views on EA evaluation is almost non-existin

Knowledge creation as an ISD goal: an approach based on communities of practice

In this article we present a perspective that considers information systems development as a knowledge creation process. By analysing the literature we evidenced a gap between two streams of thinking: the artefact-centric and the process-centric point of view. The first one focuses on the artefact characteristics but does not consider information systems development (ISD) as a process. The second one emphasizes the development methodology and its dynamics but, even when it considers the IT artefact as the main product of the process, it does not detail the specific characteristics that the artefact should have. With the intention of filling this gap we utilize the communities of practice theory as a framework to understand and make explicit the knowledge processes that lie camouflaged into ISD processes and artefacts. The main contribution of the article is to make explicit the intertwined knowledge nature of ISD process and product and the reasons and the conditions under which it is convenient to consider knowledge creation between the communities of developers and users as one of the main goals of ISD. The proposed perspective emerges from a theoretical deductive reasoning. According to an interpretative viewpoint, an ISD project is then analyzed to illustrate the practical applicability of the perspective. The empirical evidences show some preliminary suggestions for the planning of the ISD activities

Setting the Framework for Developing eGovernment Services on Cultural Heritage

This article is aimed at the design of a framework for the development of e-Government services on cultural heritage. Starting from a survey of the websites of the ministries of culture of a group of European Union countries we make a classification of the e-services provided and draw the conclusion that the development of advanced and complex services is possible with today’s technology but this technology is only an enabling factor and not a guarantee of success. The Lisbon strategy defined for the European Union aims at both the creation of the technical capability and also and foremost at the provision of content to the public. This goal, in turn, requires the compatibility of generated content across multiple, locally generated sites. Dynamic content exchange requires the use of a prescriptive framework for the development of cultural heritage websites, and their underlying data. This paper provides a primer on the development of such framework using observations from concrete applications, knowledge of information systems development methodologies, and today’s field proven IDEF0 modelling method

SYSTEMS OF TRANSFIGURATION AND THE ADOPTION OF IT UNDER SURVEILLANCE

Research on the adoption of information technology (IT) has shown that employees either comply with the implementation of a new information system or resist its implementation, improvising information systems artifacts to replace it. We use a 15-month ethnography of the implementation of Siebel in a desk sales unit to outline a third specification of adoption where employees scaffold their work in an improvised information system that they hide from their managers by using their company’s information systems to create an electronic façade of compliance. This façade is a labor-intensive process, complex enough to require a third information system of its own. We call this system “transfiguration system” and expose and explain a hitherto unexplored link between the information systems improvised by employees and the information systems that their company implements. We refer to the work required to create and maintain this link as transfiguration work

Moving the Implementation Line: A Nursing Home’s Path to Success with IT

Organizations continuously need to both update and upgrade their organizational and technological infrastructure to maintain a competitive edge. However, a traditional goal of information systems development is to satisfy a stable set of requirements rather than evolutionary ones. This article embraces the call to develop evolving systems in continuously emergent organizations and to identify the main factors that can lead to continuous system development—a continuously moving implementation line—from within the organization. In doing so, we draw on a longitudinal analysis of the experience of a typical Western nursing home that, in the past 12 years, has aimed to internally develop a healthcare provision and management system to support its evolving needs. Our analysis shows that four factors enable this concurrent change: (1) the internal appreciation of change, (2) the external appreciation of change, (3) enlightened management, and (4) emancipated employees. By controlling for the latter two factors, managers of long-term care centers can motivate employees to contribute to the development of the system over long periods and limit undesired behaviors with information technology (IT). From a theoretical perspective, this research shows that focusing on the implementation line in data analysis can be a constructive device for research. Although this construction is useful for studies on IT-driven organizational change, it should be mandatory for studies on evolving information systems in emergent organizations

Usability of IT-systems is more than interaction quality - The need of communication and business process criteria

This research builds on the literature on information technology and organizations to suggest an alternative to the current understanding of the production of computer-generated representations of work. This literature sees computer-generated representations of work as automatic outcomes of information technology that managers use to scrutinize employees. We present a ethnography of a desk-based sales unit which suggests that first-line managers can address the tension between the need to enforce prescribed goals and procedures and the need to adapt to and protect employees’ improvisation by forfeiting surveillance and instead use information technology to build a façade of compliance with prescribed goals and procedures. Our results to shed light on the hidden labours behind representations of compliance and place agency in the centre stage of the process of producing computer-generated formal representations of work