Theorizing IT

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Theorizing IT
Eric Monteiro NTNU and Univ. i Oslo 460
Spring 2003
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One-way traffic

• everything imported
• Technology traditionally second order citizen
• or rather incorporated already
• Ex. Phenomenology (structure of expectations)
• Ex. Structuration theory (Orlikowski / Walsham)

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The contiunuum
Social determ.
Tech. determ
Causal Ed Moses
User centered Tailorability End-user
computing participation
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The contiunuum
Contradictory Dan Robey
Social determ.
Tech. determ
Causal Ed Moses
User centered Tailorability End-user
computing participation
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The Foucaultian heritage
structural
mechanisms
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The Foucaultian heritage
performative productive Actually
achieved . Process orieneted
structural
mechanisms
Ex. - Portugues vessels / long distance
control - Panopticon - New Public
Management, auditing
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Mechanisms a few issues

• supporting vs. transforming action
• M Bergs critique of CSCW
• Bowker Stars 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

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IT The problem, too often
stable discrete
independent fixed monolithic
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State-of-the-art (a la Orlikowski)
Ensemble - network Proxy -
characteristics Tool - black-boxed,
stable Computational - algorithmic Nominal
- generic
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more

• stable - ongoing/provisional/performed
• Ex. wandas 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

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ANT

• With fidelity, clearly a candidate
• Strategicly formated argument by Wanda O
• Fidelity, but how ?
• Method gone mad
• The rational man
• Drift, improvisation and all that
• Politics

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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 ?

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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

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3. Drift etc.

• Projects always drift (Claudio)
• but what then ?
• Structure to drift or anything goes ?
• Relevance to practioners
• Analytically problematic

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4. Politics

• Critique purely descriptive (L Winner)
• Response
• The politics of mechanisms
• Politics by other means
• Increasingly hollow ?