Revising the Socio-Technical Perspective for the 21st Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-87
Author(s):  
Louise Harder Fischer ◽  
Richard Baskerville
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Technical System ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Information Systems Research ◽  
Parallel Structures ◽  
Realist Analysis ◽  
Collaboration Platforms

A predominant understanding in information systems research (ISR) is that technology has institutionalizing, routinizing, and socializing effects in its interaction with users in the human enterprise. Subscribing to these effects from an organizational point of view no longer provides a full understanding of the more complex dynamics in the 21st century workplace inhabited by a vast amount of different technologies with different purposes. Through a critical realist analysis, focusing on patterns in socio-technical structures and more specific actions and outcomes afforded by the recent and forceful adoption of unified communication and collaboration platforms (UCC), the authors see a new, powerful socio-technical mechanism of individualization that is profoundly changing these socio-technical dynamics. Through 18 interviews with knowledge professionals, the study finds that the mechanisms of individualization reduce the influence of the organization as an institutionalizing and socializing socio-technical system. As an example, the power of individualization creates new parallel structures of small networks of close colleagues. Thus, this research sees new structural patterns and dynamics emerging, forming a much more complex, yet self-organizing socio-technical system. The authors suggest expanding the socio-technical understanding of the present techno-organizational reality by taking into account the socio-technical mechanisms that produce certain outcomes. By understanding the fundamental mechanisms at work, they provide those with a fuller understanding of how these mechanisms can enable, while simultaneously crippling, each other. This fuller understanding also aids the pursuit of providing workplaces that achieve both humanistic and economic objectives.

A Context and Content Reflection on Business-IT Alignment Research

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Joe Parappallil ◽  
Novica Zarvic ◽  
Oliver Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
It Alignment ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Information Systems Research ◽  
Metadata Analysis ◽  
Future Research Directions ◽  
Business It Alignment ◽  
Research Domain

In this paper, the authors present the results of a recently performed literature analysis on the topic of Business-IT Alignment. They have thereby investigated 270 articles from the period 1993-2011 in a structured way. The articles were selected on the basis of three well-known ranking lists of publications in the Information Systems research domain. In the authors’ analysis they distinguish a context and a content point of view. The former one focuses on metadata analysis of the articles under consideration whereas the latter one uses text mining techniques to dive into the articles´ body of content. Finally, they discuss their results and present conceivable future research directions that should be tackled by alignment researchers and conclude their paper.

Critical Realist Information Systems Research

2011 ◽  
pp. 811-817
Author(s):  
Sven A. Carlsson
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Information Systems Research

The information systems (IS) field is dominated by positivistic research approaches and theories (Chen & Hirschheim, 2004). IS scholars have pointed out weaknesses in these approaches and theories and in response different strands of post-modern theories and constructivism have gained popularity— see, Lee, Liebenau, and DeGross (1997) and Trauth (2001). The approaches argued for include ethnography, constructivism, grounded theory, and theories like Giddens’ structuration theory and Latour’s actor-network theory. (We refer to these different research approaches and theories as “post-approaches” and “post-theories” when distinction is not required).

The Nearest Some of Us Will Ever Come to Information Heaven

2008 ◽  
pp. 1328-1351
Author(s):  
Buyile Ngubane
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Information Systems Research ◽  
Access Information

This study addresses the needs for a community computer centre (telecentre) for the community of Emkhambathini. This study was part of the information systems research exercise that was conducted by students. The problem that the researcher experienced was that Emkhambathini has no access to information and a need exists to ensure that this community joins the 21st century. The telecentre will also serve as a community upliftment tool. The data was collected using a questionnaire, it was collated and analysed using SPSS. The conclusion was that gender or employment does not play a role when there is a real need to access information.

The Nearest Some of Us Will Ever Come to Information Heaven

2011 ◽  
pp. 307-341
Author(s):  
Buyile Ngubane
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Information Systems Research ◽  
Access Information

This study addresses the needs for a community computer centre (telecentre) for the community of Emkhambathini. This study was part of the information systems research exercise that was conducted by students. The problem that the researcher experienced was that Emkhambathini has no access to information and a need exists to ensure that this community joins the 21st century. The telecentre will also serve as a community upliftment tool. The data was collected using a questionnaire, it was collated and analysed using SPSS. The conclusion was that gender or employment does not play a role when there is a real need to access information.

scholarly journals One map to rule them all? Google Maps as digital technical object

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott McQuire
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
Technical System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Technical Object ◽  
Google Maps ◽  
Mapping Space ◽  
Digital Platform ◽  
Level I ◽  
Technical Artefact

Since its launch in 2005, Google Maps has been at the forefront of redefining how mapping and positionality function in the context of a globalizing digital economy. It has become a key socio-technical ‘artefact’ helping to reconfigure the nexus between technology and spatial experience in the 21st century. In this essay, I will trace Google’s evolving strategy in the mapping space. I will argue that the evolution of Google Maps exemplifies way in which a contemporary digital platform ‘succeeds’ by becoming embedded as a foundational resource for a variety of other uses and services. At one level, this can be understood in terms of what Gillespie has conceptualized as the ‘politics of platforms’, contributing to the emergence of what has recently been dubbed ‘platform capitalism’. At a deeper level, I will argue that Google Maps exemplifies the complex dynamics of what Simondon calls ‘technical objects’ that always exist in relation to both an evolving technical system, and the other systems constituting a more or less integrated social milieu.

A Bridge Too Far?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte P. Lee ◽  
Kjeld Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cooperative Work ◽  
Computer Supported Cooperative Work ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Systems Research ◽  
Information Infrastructures ◽  
Information Systems Research ◽  
Critical Investigation

The study of computing infrastructures has grown significantly due to the rapid proliferation and ubiquity of large-scale IT-based installations. At the same time, recognition has also grown of the usefulness of such studies as a means for understanding computing infrastructures as material complements of practical action. Subsequently the concept of “infrastructure” (or “information infrastructures,” “cyberinfrastructures,” and “infrastructuring”) has gained increasing importance in the area of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) as well as in neighboring areas such as Information Systems research (IS) and Science and Technology Studies (STS). However, as such studies have unfolded, the very concept of “infrastructure” is being applied in different discourses, for different purposes, in myriad different senses. Consequently, the concept of “infrastructure” has become increasingly muddled and needs clarification. The chapter presents a critical investigation of the vicissitudes of the concept of “infrastructure” over the last 35 years.

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