Information Systems: The State of the Field (John Wiley Series in Information Systems) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470017775 ISBN 13: 9780470017777

Verlag: Wiley, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Discussion of the precise nature of the Information System discipline has raged for more than twenty years and continues fiercely today. The most interesting aspect of recent debate is not only the sharpness and depth of the arguments, but the diverse conclusions arrived at by participants. While very different, these have all been reached with the genuine aim of strengthening IS scholarship, and they all add to our specific understanding of the discipline in the last two decades. Edited by two of the most prominent academics in the field, Information Systems - The State of the Field brings together such perspectives along with wider contextual discussion to provide a fertile ground for reflection, learning and further debate. It includes articles from Izak Benbasat, Robert Galliers, Rudi Hirschheim, Heinz Klein, Suzi Iacono, Wanda Orlikowski, Gerry DeSanctis, Bob Zmud, Dan Robey, Kalle Lyytinen, John King, Sal March and Ron Weber, all of whom also provide a short original commentary of their views on this debate.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John Leslie King is Dean and Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. He previously served on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine. He has published many articles and five books on the relationship between technical and social change, and has served in key editorial positions for many academic journals, including Information Systems Research, Information Infrastructure and Policy, Information Polity, Organization Science, Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, Information Systems Frontiers, ACM Computing Surveys, the Journal of Strategic IT, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, and the Journal of Information Systems Management. He is currently a member of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committees for the directorates of Computer and Information Science and Engineering and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association. He holds a PhD in Administration from the University of California, Irvine.

Kalle Lyytinen is Iris S. Wolstein Professor at Case Western Reserve University. He has published books, articles and conference papers on his research, which includes system design, method engineering, implementation, software risk assessment, computer-supported cooperative work, standardization, ubiquitous computing, IT-induced innovation in architecture and the construction industry, design and use of ubiquitous applications in health care, high level requirements model for large scale systems, and the development and adoption of broadband wireless standards and services. He serves currently on the editorial boards of several leading IS journals including the Journal of AIS (Senior Editor), Information Systems Research, the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Information and Organization, Requirements Engineering Journal and Information Systems Journal among others. He holds a PhD from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

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The information systems field has contributed greatly to the rise of the information economy and the information society. Yet, after more than a quarter-century since its formation, it still is plagued by doubts about its identity and legitimacy. Information Systems: The State of the Field contains the reflections of leading IS scholars on the nature of the discipline, its core identity and the challenges of creating a strong and legitimate academic enterprise centred on information systems. It includes debates, reflections and commentaries from a group of leading information system scholars, and offers an overview of the state of the field at this time. This book is intended for all who are interested in the nature and direction of the information system field as it enters the 21st century.

"The sociologist Zygmund Bauman has defined a discipline which is constantly debating its credentials as a “flawed” discipline. This critique can certainly be applied to the IS discipline. The editors of this book must be congratulated on collecting together the principal writings reflecting the nature of the debate to provide a learned and fascinating account of where the field now stands and perhaps where it is going. It is essential reading for any student of IS."
―Frank Land, Emeritus Professor, Department of Information Systems, London School of Economics

"The struggle for identity, according to Alford North Whitehead entails a dialectic of “becoming”. It evolves from coping with continuous change, a conflict of perspectives and always asking: “Who am I?”, “Who are we?”, “Who are we not?”, “What do we inherit from our past?”. In this imaginatively edited volume, King and Lyytinen recount information systems' restless pursuit for identity. Anyone who is affected by the struggles, but more importantly everyone who wants to join it must read this book."
―Richard O. Mason, Carr P. Collins Distinguished Professor, Management Information Sciences, Edwin L. Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University

Aus dem Klappentext

This volume explores key questions on the state of the information systems field:

• What is at the core of the IS field?
• What part does the ‘IT artifact’ play in the shaping of the field?
• What are the best ways to build the identity, legitimacy and institutional strength of the field?
• What roles do analytical, empirical and design perspectives play?
• How does the field best balance its intellectual and professional dimensions?
• How best can the IS field be sustained as a learning community?

The volume offers a unique set of influential essays from thought leaders in the field, followed by commentaries and critical reflections on what can be learned from the ongoing debate as the field moves forward in the 21st century.

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Information Systems

The State of the Field

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2006 John Leslie King
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-01777-7

Chapter One

Scoping the Discipline of Information Systems

David Avison and Steve Elliot

INTRODUCTION

In reflecting on the academic discipline of information systems (IS) we might first look at what we mean by 'discipline'. Here we mean 'a branch of instruction or learning' though we do not wish to imply the desirability of, nor actual, agreement on a limited field of study nor total 'control', 'obedience' nor too much 'order' about what we research. This would give grounds for concern, for information systems is a pluralistic field, founded on knowledge from other, more established, source disciplines and frequently borrowing from these disciplines. On the other hand, a lack of 'discipline'-for example, not having an agreed general area for teaching, research and practice-is also a concern, as it leads to a perceived lack of coherence in the discipline and a low status as a consequence. It is this balancing act, between too much control about limiting the issues relevant to the discipline on the one side and the danger of incoherence on the other, which is a central theme of this chapter. This balancing act might be considered to be only of academic interest except for the importance of information systems to industry and to society.

Since the 1990s, applications of information and communication technology (ICT) have been fundamentally changing the way organizations conduct business. These changes create opportunities for researchers to make significant contributions to knowledge while they assist organizations to manage this change better. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) acknowledges the structural impact of these technology-enabled innovations:

The Internet and related advances in information and communication technology (ICT) are transforming economic activity, much as the steam engine, railways and electricity did in the past (OECD, 2001).

But we have reservations about the above as a basis for understanding the discipline of information systems in its concentration on economic activity with technology, rather than the broader activity between people and organizations and technology, and also in its comparison between ICT and the more static technologies mentioned. Major developments in ICT seem to occur every day and there are so many different strands and applications. Further, there can be no doubt that it is transforming society, at least in the developed world and some regions in the developing world.

IS is a relatively new discipline. We consider the start of the discipline to be the widespread use of computers to process data in the 1950s. Of course they existed well before the advent of computers. There can today be IS without computers. The grapevine is a powerful information system. Further, if technology is used, it does not have to be sophisticated. But in practice, information systems are now almost invariably computerized, and can be very sophisticated in their use of technology. The rejoinder is that the organizational context is key, that people will be involved as much as computers, and that not all parts of the information system will be automated.

IS as a field of study developed in response to the increasing necessity of organizations to improve their capabilities to process and to manage data. Reflecting this origin, an information system was initially seen to be an application of computers to help organizations process their data so they could improve their management of information. Indeed, information systems used to be referred to as data processing systems.

While the types of computer technologies developed and potential areas of their application increased, so too did the role of an information system and the scope of the discipline. Information and communication technologies are now ubiquitous in industrialized nations and widespread in much of the rest of the world. Their impact extends from business, across a broad range of application areas, including health and government, to the community at large and into many private homes.

By looking at some potential definitions for the discipline, we will set the scene for our discussion on its scope. Our starting point for a definition of information systems is that of Avison and Fitzgerald (2003, p. xi): 'The effective design, delivery, use and impact of information [and communication] technologies in organizations and society.' This definition captures an important part of IS, that is the development of IT applications, and it recognizes that successful applications of ICT require broader attention than just that on the technology. The IS discipline has steadily developed from its initial 'techno-centric' focus to a more integrated technology, management, organizational and social focus.

But this definition does not capture the excitement of the discipline. We are now in a period of great transformation, as organizations change to address their challenges or achieve their goals. It is also a period of structural transformation of the global economy. ICT supports and enables most of these changes, and IS is the only discipline with a primary focus to study the applications of technology by organizations and society. It is therefore particularly relevant during this period of great change.

The following definition suggested by the UK Academy for Information Systems is somewhat broader than the definition looked at previously:

The study of information systems and their development is a multi-disciplinary subject and addresses the range of strategic, managerial and operational activities involved in the gathering, processing, storing, distributing and use of information, and its associated technologies, in society and organizations.

The above definition is, however, somewhat passive about IS as it does not give a sense of the creativity and innovative effort that is part of the potential contribution of IS. The definition might also include some scholars from other disciplines, such as the computing disciplines or some management and social science ones, such as sociology or psychology. In his definition, Allen Lee tries to distinguish information systems from other disciplines without presenting too narrow a view. He argues that the IS discipline is distinct in that it:

examines more than just the technological system, or just the social system, or even the two side by side; in addition it investigates the phenomena that emerge when the two interact. (Lee, 2001, p. iii)

As Lee points out: 'This embodies both a research perspective and a subject matter that differentiate the academic field of information systems from other disciplines' (Lee, 2001, p. iii). However, although it provides a focus, it lacks a sense of the richness of the discipline and its possible contribution.

The above discussion has set the scene on our perspective on the scope of the discipline and, having suggested a fairly broad scope, we turn to differentiating between IS and other related disciplines, both on the technology side and the social side, using Lee's definition above.

DIFFERENTIATING IS FROM RELATED DISCIPLINES

On the technology side of information systems, it is differentiated from computer and IT disciplines by its focus. In a controversial article in...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Wiley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0470017775
• ISBN 13: 9780470017777
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 394
• Herausgeber: King John Leslie, Lyytinen Kalle
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Wiley-VCH GmbH; product_safety@wiley.com; ; Boschstrasse 12; Weinheim; 69469; Deutschland