The Foundations of Information Systems

Research and Practice

Andrew Basden

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317633303
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Negocios y empresa
• Categoria: Gestión de la información

Why does information technology disappoint or enslave us? Why do so many information systems projects collapse? How can we do better? There are many technical, social, economic and other aspects to consider. How do we ensure we take all these into account as we research ITC or employ them? ICT affects our lives and world more profoundly than ever before. How may we understand it? This book employs philosophy to lay foundations for understanding the complexity of ICT, in five areas:

• 
  
  

• The nature of information and computers, and artificial intelligence;

• 
  
  

• The use of ICT at work and home, for serious and less-serious use;

• 
  
  

• The ICT features that annoy or delight us;

• 
  
  

• Societal issues, such as surveillance, e-government, ICT in developing countries, climate change, what technological progress is and what is the role of ICT as a whole and of the information systems field;

• 
  
  

• ICT development - including computer programming, knowledge engineering and project management.

The ideas in this book emerge from five decades of experience of the author with ICT, across industry, the professions and academic life. Information systems researchers will enjoy this book because it offers them new ideas and fresh perspectives.

On the 500th anniversary of the European Reformation, this book introduces and applies the Reformational Philosophy of mid-20th-century Dutch thinker, Herman Dooyeweerd, to contemporary challenges of the 21st century. Excitingly, this accessible philosophy is grounded in everyday experience and yields a rich seedbed of ideas, which researchers and practitioners can develop to their advantage.

Part I

This part introduces the topic of the book (Chapter 1), the role that philosophy plays in laying foundations for information systems research and practice (Chapter 2), and the philosophy that will be employed in order to lay foundations (Chapter 3).

Since this philosophy, developed by Dooyeweerd, is not widely known, Chapter 3 offers a substantial explanation, and Chapter 4 prepares us for Part II by discussing how the philosophy can engage with discourses and research extant in the information systems field.

1 Introduction

At the time of writing this book, the future of the automotive company Volkswagen hangs in the balance because programmers installed a ‘defeat device’. Vehicle pollution emissions are supposed to be controlled, but the emissions control system reduces driving performance. The Volkswagen defeat device software detected whether the car is undergoing emissions testing and if not, switched the control system off, so that in normal driving, the pollution emissions were between 15 and 30 times higher than they should be (Ford 2015), and drivers were unaware.

Upon disclosure of cheating, Volkswagen’s shares worldwide plummeted by 30 per cent, and the trust that Volkswagen had built up as an ethical, environmentally aware company evaporated. Volkswagen was fined billions of dollars and is having to replace the software on 11 million cars worldwide. Readers will know the outcome.

The CEO of Volkswagen told the US Congress that the defeat device had been installed by “a couple of software engineers” and had not been company policy. The full story can be found on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal.

Information systems (or ‘information technology’ or ‘information and communications technology’) like this can have serious, unexpected repercussions. Repercussions occur not only for embedded software like engine management systems, but also for large organizational systems, computer games, websites, individual mobile applications, and indeed all kinds of systems. The type of repercussion varies with the type of system and its context of use. For example, might the game Pokemon Go get screen-bound young people out walking? Some repercussions might be good, others bad.

• Note on terminology: Throughout this book, the terms, ‘Information systems’ (IS), ‘information technology’ (IT), ‘information and communication technology’ (ICT), ‘computers’, and ‘digital media’ might all appear in this text and will signify almost the same thing (synonyms), namely the combination of technical artefacts and human context. Most discussion in this book will be relevant to all of them. No term is ideal. ‘Information systems’ connotes organizational systems, but we also consider individual and mobile use. ‘Computers’ and ‘information technology’ emphasise the technical side but we emphasise the human and informational sides too. ‘Digital media’ might prove a transient fashion. So ‘information and communication technology’ (ICT) is preferred, often with ‘information systems’, to cover all the above. The others are used where connotation matters.

How may we understand what is going on or what might happen in the future? ICT is designed, developed and installed. ICT is used. Its use brings repercussions which, if widespread, can affect society’s attitudes and beliefs.

Where does responsibility lie? In the Volkswagen case, does responsibility stop with software engineers? Does it not often extend to management, from whom attitudes diffuse through their organizations? It appears that the culture in Volkswagen had deteriorated over the years, to be one of fear and control rather than of honest innovation. That Volkswagen had made several versions of the ‘defeat devices’ suggests involvement by management (Cremer et al. 2015).

Does the responsibility stop with management? Does it not often extend to the (global) culture within which companies operate—the business culture that accepts as normal, competitive outsourcing, offshoring and body-shopping, which creates a precarious life for all?

1-1 About This Book

This book aims to lay foundations for understanding the phenomenon that is ICT in our lives. It takes a broad view across areas that are not usually considered together—its nature, use, design and development, through to its impact in society—and it seeks depth of understanding that will be helpful for both practice and research.

It will employ philosophy to lay these foundations but in a way that is sensitive to everyday experience, because the philosophy it uses (that of the Dutch thinker, Herman Dooyeweerd) is one that takes everyday experience as its starting point. As a result, it offers new ways of looking at a wide range of areas of interest in research and practice in information systems, suggesting new avenues of research. Throughout the book, a hundred suggestions are made for specific, promising pieces of research in the information systems field, which are gathered together in the final chapter.

Foundations. Information Systems. Research. Practice. In this chapter, these will be considered in reverse order, to address questions like: What are these? Why are they important to us? This chapter sets the scene for the others, explaining rather than discussing.

Chapter 2 discusses philosophy in general, and Chapters 3 and 4, Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. Chapters 5 to 9, in Part II, develop foundational frameworks for understanding in five main areas to do with information systems and ICT, which are discussed in Section 1-4 below:

• The nature of ICT;
• ICT use;
• ICT features;
• ICT and society; and
• ICT development.

Chapters 10 to 12 draw this all together and make recommendations.

Most of the chapters have been written in a way that each can be read somewhat independently of others, without having to read through the chapters that precede them. Readers will find reading through rewarding, but those interested in benefits of ICT in use, for example, might jump immediately to Chapter 6 if they wish, or those interested in the artificial intelligence question, to Chapter 5. The danger of skipping is, of course, that concepts encountered might be misunderstood, having been explained earlier, so copious cross-references are included to where concepts are explained, indicated by “§”. Later, if they wish, readers might read through chapters they skipped, in order to gain background understanding.

In fact, just perusing the tables might provide insight (e.g., try Table 6.2 to understand interaction with ICT).

1-2 Practice

This book is about how foundational understanding might contribute to practice around ICT, including the practice of research, by putting us in a position to offer good-quality guidance, including to those who offer guidance. To do this, there will be an emphasis on practice as everyday experience, though this is not always explicit.

1-2.1 What Is Practice?

Sadly, ‘practice’ has two misleading connotations, neither of which is intended in this book: (a) of professional activity, as for example in health’s ‘general practice’, and (b) of learning a skill. In this book, its meaning is much wider, about everyday life around ICT.

‘Practice’ refers to everyday experience of using ICT (whether as emissions-tester, car-driver (indirectly), games-player or insurance clerk entering data; see §6-2.16). ‘Practice’ also refers to the everyday experience of developing ICT. Even when highly methodical, rational and technical, ICT development also involves: socializing, being creative, competing or collaborating, being generous or mean, cheating or refusing to cheat, even pressured by management—and for example stopping work to pray at certain times. When it comes to ICT in relation to society, ‘practice’ takes on a different form, as pervasive beliefs, assumptions and expectations, or infrastructure, which, lying unquestioned, affect all we do or aspire to.

Even research is practice: being polite while interviewing, being careful while analysing data, doing justice to the literature and also competing or collaborating, believing (or not) in the value of what we do, and so on.

Practice, as everyday experience, is therefore of many different kinds. Practice is action. We can almost always differentiate between better and worse practice, between good and bad.

1-2.2 Everyday Experience

Sometimes, ‘everyday’ has connotations of being second-class, mundane, unworthy of our attention. That is not what is intended here. Here, everyday experience is respected and adopted in an attempt to develop foundational understanding of information systems. The precise form this respect takes is explained in §3-1.1, but for now, it will suffice to list a number of concepts and terms that are associated with everyday experience and practice. Some have emerged from certain thinkers. (This list may be considered a long note on terminology on terms used here.)

• Practice: “actual performance or application of knowledge, as opposed to mere possession of knowledge”, often as “the exercise of a profession” (Webster 1971, 1780). Contrasted with theory or academia.
• Everyday life: The total functioning, situation and being of people engaged in living, working, playing, etc. Example: using Twitter on a mobile phone while walking along.
• Real life: Everyday life, emphasising its complexity, richness and the unexpected, as in “Theoretically it’s easy to use, but in real life it’s frustrating.”
• Everyday experience: Everyday life from the perspective of the experiencer, their experiencing and being experienced. Example: technical experience covers the technical aspect; everyday experience covers all aspects of life.
• Everyday functioning or activity: Functioning while directly engaged in living, working, playing, etc., without much abstraction. Contrasted with theoretical thinking.
• Down-to-earth issues: The kind of issues encountered in everyday l...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Index