Information+and+Organization_LP

Empirical research and relevant theory to understand the relationships between information technologies and social organization Must be innovative; encourages critical perspectives Encourages a broad range of arguments: historical, theoretical, empirical, analytical, interpretive, critical, and action However, it seems as though most arguments walk through //processes// of how information systems are produced
 * What counts as an argument?**

support seems to be based on primarily empirical case studies
 * How supported?**

Special interest to social construction of information technologies and their implications for organizational change Most articles seem to offer new understandings (in the form of key terms or phrases) of the social construction of information systems Seem to be leveraging existing theoretical frameworks to work through case studies and may offer a new phrase in the process
 * Contribution?**

Between meaning and machine: Learning to represent the knowledge of communities

Ribes and Bowker conduct an ethnography of a research community formalizing knowledge with an ontology. They argue that: “Ontologies have their own epistemology: what and how the computer can ‘know’ is very particular, limited by the available description logics and the extant level of formalization” (17)

[|David Ribes][|a], [|http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772709000141 - cor1] , mailto:dr273@georgetown.edu , [|Geoffrey C. Bowker][|b], mailto:gbowker@scu.edu Representing knowledge in codified forms is transformative of ones orientation to that knowledge. We trace the emergence of a routine for knowledge acquisition and its consequences for participants. Over time, participants in the earth science project GEON, first learned about ontologies and then learned how to create them. We identify three steps in the routine: understanding the problematic of interoperability; learning the practice of knowledge acquisition; and engaging the broader community. As participants traversed the routine they came to articulate, and then represent, the knowledge of their communities. In a process we call reapprehension, traversing the routine also transformed participants’ orientation towards their data, knowledge and community, making them more keenly aware of the informational aspects of their fields.

Inscribing behaviour in information infrastructure standards

This article draws on actor-network theory (Latour), inscription (Akrich), and translation to describe the complex actor-actant relations that produce the standards that make up information infrastructures. It situates its study of information infrastructure with that of Bowker, Star, Timmermans, and Ruhleder. It then outlines a case study of how standardization processes play out (through the lens of ANT, and inscription) in a specific case study (info infrastructure for health in Norway.) [|Ole Hanseth] [|Eric Monteiro] This paper focuses on the processes producing the standards which make up the technical back-bone of an information infrastructure. These standards are neither ready-made nor neutral. They are currently being developed, and they ‘inscribe’ behaviour in complex and non-transparent ways. We explore how this takes place, identifying by whom, where and how inscriptions are made. Our principal aim is to uncover the socio-technical complexity of establishing an information infrastructure, a complexity which so far has been severely underestimated by those involved. By studying the process of aligning and linking one inscription to other inscriptions, we also hope to learn more about the strength of inscriptions, that is, the degree to which an inscription actually succeeds in enforcing a desired behaviour. The empirical basis of our analysis is a case-study of standardization processes of health information infrastructure from Norway.

Hermeneutical exegesis in information systems design and use [|Richard J. Boland][|a], mailto:boland@case.edu , [|Mike Newman][|b], [|c] , [|http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772709000323 - cor1] , mailto:mike.newman@manchester.ac.uk , [|Brian T. Pentland][|d], mailto:pentland@bus.msu.edu Interpreting texts is central to information systems practice and research. The entire process of developing and using information systems involves interpretation, from the earliest statements of functional requirements, through the testing of prototypes, to the engagement with a completed system. Here, we present a framework for locating six techniques of exegesis (textual criticism, linguistic criticism, literary criticism, historical criticism, Form criticism and redaction criticism) in the hermeneutic circle and applying them to some problems of interpretation that are central to information systems development and use. We first apply this hermeneutical exegesis framework to the interpretation of a textual fragment of a computer system development project in an American insurance company, and show how the six techniques of exegesis can each serve as an entry point in the hermeneutic circle and open up the possibility for meaningful interpretations that can improve system development. We then apply the hermeneutical exegesis framework to the proposed development of a “semantic web”, revealing some of the limitations of this venture. In both these settings, we argue that the problem of interpretation is fundamental to information system design and use, and that the hermeneutical exegesis framework is a systematic approach for addressing it.

The order of technology: Complexity and control in a connected world [|Jannis Kallinikos][|http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772705000084 - cor1], mailto:j.kallinikos@lse.ac.uk This paper examines some of the implications associated with the growing complexity of the contemporary world, consequent upon the expanding economic and organizational involvement of ICT-based systems and artefacts. Drawing on Luhmann, traditional forms of technological control are analyzed in terms of functional simplification and closure. Functional simplification involves the demarcation of an operational domain within which the complexity of the world is reconstructed as a simplified set of causal or instrumental relations. Functional closure implies the construction of a protective cocoon that is placed around the selected causal sequences to ensure their recurrent unfolding. While possible to analyze in similar terms, current developments, as manifested in the diffusion of large-scale information systems and mostly the internet spin a web of technological relations that challenge the strategies of functional simplification and closure and the organizational practices that have traditionally accommodated them.

Seeking the new and the critical in critical realism: déjà vu? [|Heinz K. Klein][|http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147177270400017X - UREF2044], mailto:hkklein@acm.org Critical realism (CR) is a research philosophy that has been proposed with the claim that it could be a way of “ ⋯ providing a consistent and coherent underpinning philosophy for information systems”. The purpose of this paper is to examine this claim critically in light of the advances made in hermeneutics and critical social theory as alternative research philosophies. CR is found lagging behind these philosophies in epistemology, ontology and action-oriented value formation. It is concluded that critical realism could nevertheless play a useful role as a catalyst in the contemporary methodological debate in the applied social sciences by broadening the frame of reference of positivists beyond the issues already recognized in the post-positivist literature.

In shaping how data is organized, named, and made discoverable, data infrastructures play a key role in structuring how information becomes knowledge. Taking the Semantic Web as an empirical case study, in this paper, I will describe the Web Ontology Language (OWL) – a language of predicates designed to formalize the relationships between data points – and how it is embedded with different ways of thinking about the structure and function of data infrastructure. First, honing in on the community of Web practitioners involved in developing OWL, I will highlight the key debates that have arisen over how the ontology should be formalized and describe how these debates are rooted in diverse ontological philosophies (largely stemming from traditions in artificial intelligence and information science). Second, I will demonstrate how such debates tend to not get resolved, but instead manifest at different places within information infrastructure. Finally, I will go on to show how the assumptions built into OWL play an important role in mitigating how data is structured, named, organized, and linked to other data – shaping how diverse communities that adopt Semantic Web infrastructure identify and use data. This is particularly significant at a time when organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for Disease Control are adopting Semantic Web infrastructure. I hope to show how information infrastructures, marked with conflicting viewpoints impact how organizations produce knowledge.
 * My abstract**