The Crisis of Social Science Oriented IS Research and the Role of Infrastructural Technology

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The Crisis of Social Science Oriented IS Research
and the Role of Infrastructural Technology

• Ole Hanseth.

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Title and topic

• The Crisis of the European Sciences and the Role
  of Transcendental Phenomenology
• The Crisis of (American) IS Research (and the
  Role of Transcendental Phenomenology)
• The Crises of LSE/SSB IS Research and the
  Role of Infrastructural Technology
• OR Theorizing the IT Artifact Why and How?

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The Crisis Focus and theorizing in IS

• Desperately seeking the IT artifact ....
  .......... and not finding it!
• Latour A Theoretical Framework is what you need
  when you have nothing to tell
• Latour and Baronesse Thatcher There is no such
  thing as society

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Theories in IS

• Use (apply) it and throw it away Marxism,
  philosophy of language, Structuration theory,
  institutionalism, ...
• The quest for virgin theories
• Theory building
• Contribution to social theories ?
• IS theories??

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Social theories and technology

• Structuration theory?
• Institutionalism?
• Winner Technological somnambulism
• Adding technology to social theories?
• Structuration theory?
• Technology as structure?
• Technology-as-artifact and technology-in-use?
• Institutionalism? Technology as institution?

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Theories of technology

• Social constructivism
• Determinism
• ANT
• Heidegger (Being-in-the-world, Gestell)
• Luhmann (Closure and functional decomposition)
• Winner Autonomous technology
• Hughes Large Technological Systems
• Perrow Complexity and tight coupling

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Building IS theories/Theorizing IT

• Integrating theories?
• Drawing upon various theories of technology
• Using ANT as a basic ontology
• Actant, socio-technical network, hybrid objects,
  (hybrid) collectives (We live in collectives,
  not societies)
• Interference, composition, black boxing,
  delegation, crossover
• Large Technical Systems Momentum, Reverse
  Salients, Battle of Systems, ....

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A Theory about Something!!

• Design theory
• Grounded in knowledge about the specific
  technology
• Addressing new challenges
• Information Infrastructure
• A shared, evolving, heterogeneous installed base
  -
• which is also open and standardized

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Technology characteristics

• Standardization
• (Backward) compatibility
• Tension between standardization and flexibility
• Gateways
• Battle of systems

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A social theory of something?

• Technology-centered social theories?
• Change theories
• From technology as structure or institution to
• Institution as infrastructure
• Why?
• ICT plays a crucial role in todays society
• Needs to be accounted for

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Examples

• Finance sector
• Media sector
• Government
• Health care