Theorizing IT

1theorizing.tech.460l.ppt 09.05.2003

Theorizing IT

Eric Monteiro

NTNU and Univ. i Oslo

460 Spring 2003


”One-way traffic”

• ’everything imported’ …

• Technology traditionally second order citizen

• … or rather incorporated already– Ex.: Phenomenology (structure of expectations)

– Ex.: Structuration theory (Orlikowski =/= Walsham)


The contiunuum

Social determ. Tech. determ

User centeredTailorabilityEnd-user computing’participation’…

CausalEd Moses


Social determ. Tech. determ

User centeredTailorabilityEnd-user computing’participation’…

CausalEd Moses

The contiunuum

”Contradictory”

Dan Robey


The Foucaultian heritage

structural mechanisms


The Foucaultian heritage

’performative’’productive’Actually achieved….Process orieneted

Ex.: - Portugues vessels / long distance control - Panopticon - New Public Management, auditing

structural mechanisms


’Mechanisms’ – a few issues

• supporting vs. transforming action– M Berg’s critique of CSCW– Bowker & Star’s ’convergence’ (ex. Kodak)

• intended vs. unintended outcomes – control– ”the slight surprise of action”

• producer vs. consumer – inscription

• in isolation vs. concerted – network

• descriptive vs. political– ”politics by other means”


IT: ”The problem, too often”

”stable” ”discrete”

”independent”

”fixed”

”monolithic”


State-of-the-art (a la Orlikowski)

Ensemble - network

Proxy - characteristics

Tool - black-boxed, stable

Computational - algorithmic

Nominal - generic


…more…

• ”stable” - ongoing/provisional/performed– Ex.: wanda’s help desk

• ”discrete” - network/alliances/alignment– Ex.: integration of electronic patient record systems

• ”independent” - irreversibility– Ex.: installed base

• ”fixed” - unplanned, drifting, improvisation– Ex.: sinking plattforms

• ”monolithic” - never only one network– Ex.: mobile phones + internet


ANT

• With fidelity, clearly a candidate

• Strategicly formated argument by Wanda O

• Fidelity, but how … ?1. Method gone mad

2. The rational man

3. Drift, improvisation and all that

4. Politics


1. Sense-making

• ANT encourages excessive bureacracy– Endless enumerations of components

– Networks are never-ending

• The fundamental principle of hermeneutics … ?– Klein & Myers, MISQ 1999

• Relevance ?


2. Rationality

• Crudely : ANT is goal-directed (agendas,

interests, translations)

• Response– ”always overtaken by action” (Pandora)

– Last decade, more projects and less ethographies

• Symbolic aspects– ’culture’


3. Drift etc.

• Projects always drift (Claudio)

• … but what then ?

• Structure to drift – or anything goes ?– Relevance to practioners

– Analytically problematic


4. Politics

• Critique : purely descriptive (L Winner)

• Response– The politics of mechanisms

– ’Politics by other means’

• Increasingly hollow ?

Theorizing IT

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