[AISWorld] Cfp: IT Artefact & practice theorizing – pragmatic perspectives (Sysiac Special Issue)

Tue Sep 18 07:26:54 EDT 2012

IT Artefact & practice theorizing – pragmatic perspectives

Call for papers to a Special Issue in Systems, Signs & Actions

Theme

There is a growing recognition among information systems scholars that IT artefacts should not be black-boxed as mere technical objects (Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001). IT artefacts are instruments for work and communication embedded in their social context. The social, organisational and linguistic characteristics of IT artefacts should be acknowledged as well as their technical and material nature. In their seminal article, Orlikowski & Iacono (2001) raised a call for theorizing the IT artefact. They outlined alternative views of the IT artefact and proposed an ensemble view. As responses to their call, several views of the IT artefact have been presented (e.g. Ågerfalk, 2003; Sein & Harindranath, 2004; Alter, 2006; Markus & Silver, 2008; Matook & Brown, 2008; Sjöström, 2010; Strong & Volkoff, 2010).

An improved understanding of IT artefacts is needed in relation to their design, use and evolution. The importance of IT artefact theorizing for design is shown by Sein et al (2011). They build their method for Action Design Research explicitly on the ensemble view from Orlikowski & Iacono (2001). An improved understanding of the context of IT artefacts is needed as well. There is a growing interest to theorize the context as practices (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011; Goldkuhl, 2011) or work-systems (Alter, 2006). This includes an interest in the combined social and material characteristics of such practices (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008). The orientation of practice theorizing in IS follows a general ‘practice turn’ in social science (e.g. Schatzki et al, 2001; Reckwitz, 2002; Whittington, 2006; Miettinen et al, 2009; Gherardi, 2009).

The claims for theorizing IT artefacts as socially embedded instruments for work and communication and for theorizing the artefact’s context as practices can be seen as elements of a pragmatic re-orientation in IS. Statements for such a pragmatic re-orientation can be found in Goles & Hirschheim (2000), Baskerville & Myers (2004), Ågerfalk (2010) and Goldkuhl (2012).

This special issue is based on the International workshop on IT Artefact Design & Workpractice Intervention (www.vits.org/?pageId=381<http://www.vits.org/?pageId=381>) held in Barcelona on June 10, 2012. Papers from this workshop as well as other papers that address the theme of this special issue are welcome. Inquiries and submissions should be sent to the editors of this special issue.

Special Issue Editors

Brian Donnellan, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland (Brian.Donnellan at nuim.ie)
Göran Goldkuhl, Linköping University (goran.goldkuhl at liu.se<mailto:goran.goldkuhl at liu.se>)

Systems, Signs & Actions

Systems, Signs & Actions (www.sysiac.org) is an open access journal in information systems especially devoted to the study of information technology, action, communication and workpractices.

Schedule

Submissions are expected not later than November 30, 2012.
This Special Issue is planned to be published during 2013.

References

Ågerfalk P J (2003) Information Systems Actability: Understanding Information Technology as a Tool for Business Action and Communication, Ph D diss, Linköping University

Ågerfalk P J (2010) Getting Pragmatic, European Journal of Information Systems, 19(3), 251–256.

Alter S (2006) Work systems and IT artifacts – does the definition matter?, Communications of AIS, Vol. 17, pp 299-313

Baskerville R, Myers M (2004) Special issue on action research in information systems: making IS research relevant to practice – foreword, MIS Quarterly, Vol 28 (3), p 329-335

Feldman M, Orlikowski W (2011) Theorizing practice and practicing theory, Organization Science, Vol 22, p 1240-1253

Gherardi S (2009) The Critical Power of the 'Practice Lens', Management Learning, Vol. 40 (2), p 115–128

Goles T, Hirschheim R (2000) The paradigm is dead, the paradigm is dead … long live the paradigm: the legacy of Burell and Morgan, Omega, Vol 28, p 249-268

Goldkuhl G (2011) The research practice of practice research: theorizing and situational inquiry, Systems, Signs & Actions, Vol 5 (1), p 7-29

Goldkuhl G (2012) Pragmatism vs. interpretivism in qualitative information systems research, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 21 (2), p 135-146

Markus L, Silver (2008) A foundation for the study of IT effects: A new look at DeSanctis and Poole’s concepts of structural features and spirit, Journal of AIS, Vol. 9 (10/11), pp 609-632

Matook S, Brown S (2008) Conceptualizing the IT Artifact for MIS research, ICIS 2008 Proceedings

Miettinen R, Samra-Fredericks D, Yanow D (2009) Re-Turn to Practice: An Introductory Essay, Organization Studies, Vol 30 (12), p 1309–1327

Orlikowski W J, Iacono C S (2001) Desperately seeking the “IT” in IT research – a call to theorizing the IT artifact, Information Systems Research, Vol 12 (2), pp 121-134

Orlikowski W J, Scott S V (2008) Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization, The Academy of Management Annals, Vol 2(1), p 433-474

Reckwitz A (2002) Toward a Theory of Social Practices. A Development in Culturalist Theorizing, European Journal of Social Theory, Vol 5 (2), p 243–263

Schatzki T R, Knorr Cetina K, von Savigny E (Eds, 2001) The practice turn in contemporary theory, Routledge, London

Sein M, Harindranath G (2004) Conceptualizing the ICT Artifact: Toward Understanding the Role of ICT in National Development, The Information Society, Vol 20 (1), p 15-24

Sein M, Henfridsson O, Purao S, Rossi M, Lindgren R (2011) Action design research, MIS Quarterly, Vol 35 (1), p 37-56

Sjöström J (2010) Designing information systems. A pragmatic account, Ph Diss, Uppsala University

Strong D, Volkoff O (2010) Understanding organization - enterprise system fit: A path to theorizing the information technology artifact, MIS Quarterly, Vol 34 (4), p 731-756

Whittington R (2006) Completing the practice turn in strategy research, Organization Studies, Vol 27 (5), p 613–634

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aisnet.org/pipermail/aisworld_lists.aisnet.org/attachments/20120918/653bf23e/attachment.html>