Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic

The sociomateriality of information systems: current status, future directions

Our motivation for putting together this special issue on “Sociomateriality of Information Systems and Organizing” was the mounting interest in the relationship between the social and the material, in the context of our increasingly digital society. The attention to this relationship is manifested in the emergence of studies of technology intended to augment and complement, but also and importantly, to question the received views on technology in social life (see Carlile et al. 2013a; Leonardi et al. 2012; Suchman, 2007).

The Rationality Framework for a Critical Study of Information Systems

This paper situates the social implications of information systems (IS) within the broader context of progressive rationalization in modern organizations. Specifically, it examines the roles IS play in the rationalization of organizational processes and its social implications. The paper proposes a rationality framework that synthesizes different approaches to reason and rationality and provides a conceptual model for critical analysis of social and organizational consequences of rationalization in organizations that are enabled and supported by IS. By drawing on a field study the paper interprets three IS cases in order to demonstrate how the rationality framework helps explain different IS–organization relationships in the light of increasing levels of rationality that entail both substantial benefits and considerable risks.

On Being ‘Systematic’ in Literature Reviews in IS

General guidelines for conducting literature reviews often do not address the question of literature searches and dealing with a potentially large number of identified sources. These issues are specifically addressed by so-called systematic literature reviews (SLRs) that propose a strict protocol for the search and appraisal of literature. Moreover, SLRs are claimed to be a ‘standardized method’ for literature reviews that is replicable, transparent, objective, unbiased and rigorous, and thus superior to other approaches for conducting literature reviews. These are significant and consequential claims that – despite increasing adoption of SLRs – remained largely unnoticed in the information systems (IS) literature. The objective of this debate is to draw attention of the IS community to SLR’s claims, to question their justification and reveal potential risks of their adoption. This is achieved by first examining the origins of SLR and the prescribed SLR process and then by critically assessing their claims and implications. In this debate, we show that SLRs are applicable and useful for a very specific kind of literature review, a meta study that identifies and summarizes evidence from earlier research. We also demonstrate that the claims that SLRs provide superior quality are not justified. More importantly, we argue that SLR as a general approach to conducting literature reviews is highly questionable, concealing significant perils. The paper cautions that SLR could undermine critical engagement with literature and what it means to be scholarly in academic work.

Literature Reviews and the Hermeneutic Circle

Conducting a literature review is a vital part of any research. Library and information science (LIS) professionals often play a central role in supporting academics in their efforts to locate relevant publications and in teaching novice researchers skills associated with literature reviews. This paper examines literature review processes with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of their complexity and uncertainty and to propose a new approach to literature reviews: one capable of dealing with such complexity and uncertainty.

Reframing success and failure of information systems: a performative perspective

The paper questions common assumptions in the dominant representational framings of information systems success and failure and proposes a performative perspective that conceives IS success and failure as relational effects performed by sociomaterial practices of IS project actor-networks of developers, managers, technologies, project documents, methodologies, and other actors. Drawing from a controversial case of a highly innovative information system in an insurance company--considered a success and failure at the same time-- the paper reveals the inherent indeterminacy of IS success and failure and describes the mechanisms by which success and failure become performed and thus determined by sociomaterial practices. This is explained by exposing ontological politics in the reconfiguration and decomposition of the IS project actor-network and the emergence of different agencies of assessment that performed both different IS realities and competing IS assessments. The analysis shows that the IS project and the implemented system as objects of assessment are not given and fixed, but are performed by the agencies of assessment together with the assessment outcomes of success and failure. The paper demonstrates that by reframing IS success and failure, the performative perspective provides some novel and surprising insights that have a potential to change conversations on IS assessments in both the IS literature and IS practice.

Organisational change mediated by e‐mail and Intranet: An ethnographic study

Reports preliminary results from an ethnographic study of a consultative process in an Australian university during 1997. By providing a “virtual discussion forum” an organisational support system (OSS), based on e‐mail and Intranet, was expected to enable equal participation in the consultative process, freedom of expression (“everybody will have their say and will be heard”) and to contribute to more participative and consensus‐based decision making. The analysis of data collected (messages, documents, interviews, notes) suggests that the OSS was not used uniformly across the institution by departments, groups and individuals. Different modes of use of the OSS identified related to contextual features, such as democratic versus authoritarian management traditions, the sharing of power versus authority of power, the culture of consultation versus obedience to superiors. It was found that these contextual features conditioned the modes of use and consequently the role OSS played in the process. On the other hand, it was observed how, in the course of the process, the OSS affected these contextual factors themselves.

Doing critical information systems research – arguments for a critical research methodology

Critical information systems (IS) research, it is argued, does not have a distinct methodological identity. While some research methods are closely related to the positivist research paradigm (experiments, surveys, and structural equation modelling) and others to the interpretivist paradigm (field study, ethnography, and action research), the critical paradigm is not identified with specific ‘critical methods’ and typically relies on the appropriation of interpretivist methods (such as critical ethnography). The criticism of the critical research paradigm in IS has often focused on the lack of distinctly critical research methods and even the neglect of methodological issues (Klein; McGrath). This paper questions the notion of and the arguments behind the quest for ‘critical research methods’ defined in contrast to positivist and interpretivist methods. Instead, the paper argues that it is a critical research methodology – understood as an overall strategy of conceptualizing and conducting an inquiry, engaging with studied phenomena, and constructing and justifying socially relevant knowledge, which distinguishes critical from other research paradigms. Building on a Kleinian argument regarding the need for common principles across diverse critical IS inquiries (Klein; Myers & Klein) this paper proposes a framework that describes key dimensions of a critical research methodology that distinguish critical from other research paradigms and provide methodological guidance in the doing of critical research.

Exploring the critical agenda in information systems research

This special issue of the Information Systems Journal (ISJ) is dedicated to critical information systems (IS) research that involves a wide range of diverse research endeavours that explore the terrain beyond functionalist and positivist approaches, with the aim to transform IS practice and IS–organization relationships. Critical IS studies share with critical management studies (CMS) deep scepticism ‘regarding the moral defensibility and the social and ecological sustainability of prevailing conceptions and forms of management and organization’ (Adler et al., 2006), conceptions and forms made possible to a large degree by IS research and practice. Critical IS studies aim at revealing, criticizing and explaining how the development and use of IS in organizations and society in the pursuit of efficiency, rationalization and progress also increase social control and domination, with potential detrimental consequences for some stakeholders and society as a whole. Being ‘critical’ in IS research also means subscribing to a much broader historical, social and political view of the IS discipline and the role of IS across all institutional levels of society. Critical research draws attention to the ways in which economic and managerial interests, ideologies and discourses, assisted by educational and research funding institutions, shape and construct IS research. Critical IS researchers are concerned with the purpose, use and misuse of IS research outcomes in organizations and society. The point has been made in the International Conference on Information Systems 2007 senior scholars’ presentation that the location of many, if not most, IS programmes in business schools places certain constraints on their curriculum and research agendas. Future critical studies should also investigate IS research itself as a social activity – its practice, purpose, implications and institutional constraints under which it is currently operating. The goal of this special ISJ issue, as defined in the call for papers, is to explore the nature of the critical agenda and advance the ‘critical debate’ in information systems research. In order to document the breadth of current research, identifying itself as socially critical, and to encourage the widest possible debate, the editors deliberately chose not to

A sensemaking model of knowledge in organisations: a way of understanding knowledge management and the role of information technologies

The objective of the paper is to demonstrate how a sensemaking model of knowledge enables better and deeper understanding of knowledge management (KM) processes in organisations and the role of information technologies (IT) in these processes. Inspired and informed by a sensemaking view of organisations, the model identifies four types of knowledge, corresponding to four sensemaking levels: the individual, collective, organizational, and cultural. Each knowledge type, as the paper shows, is of different nature and has different characteristics but is constituted and affected by all other knowledge types. An organisation is thus seen as a ‘distributed knowledge system’ composed of numerous instances of these four knowledge types and their dynamic interplay. By drawing from three empirical studies, the paper illustrates how the sensemaking model of knowledge can be applied to investigate different ways companies (try to) manage knowledge and use IT-based systems to improve KM and ultimately company performance. A deeper understanding of these processes through the lens of the model reveals mechanisms and forces underlying KM phenomena that help explain why some processes were successful and others failed. The paper intends to make the following contributions: propose a theoretical framework of knowledge and KM in organizations, which is reasonably comprehensive and empirically grounded and also demonstrate its relevance and usefulness to both researchers and practitioners as they investigate and make sense of specific KM processes and IT applications in practice.

Prospering in a transition economy through information technology‐supported organizational learning

Abstract.  This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study of the Slovenian company Sava during its 1995–2004 transition period when it adapted to and prospered in a free market economy. The company is particularly interesting because of its successful transition from a socialist company operating in a protected market to a privatized company operating in a capitalist global market, as well as the pivotal role of information technology (IT)‐supported organizational learning that brought about radical change and successful transition. Our investigation of Sava’s experiences demonstrates how the company’s increasing attention to organizational learning, integration of working and learning, and its constant innovation of products and processes created new needs for IT support that motivated the adoption of new IT systems (such as Lotus Notes, document management systems, SAP), which in turn increased Sava’s capacity to learn. Furthermore, our study reveals how the role of IT systems in organizational learning depends on the nature of learning (single‐loop, double‐loop or triple‐loop learning) and the organizational level at which learning takes place (individual, group/department or organization). By providing insight into the emergence of distinct types of IT‐supported learning and their vital role in Sava’s successful transition, the paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between IT and organizational learning that is relevant and inspiring to other companies, especially those operating in transition economies.