Larry Stapleton

Towards a Privacy Framework for Information Systems Development

Privacy issues are an increasing concern in our society (Pedersen, 1999). As information and communications technology (ICT) becomes increasingly pervasive, these concerns are being intensified. Privacy is a fundamental human right (UN, 1948) that continues to be violated by intrusive and unethical applications of technology in society and the workplace (cf. Baase, 2003). However, in spite of the ethical concerns and the pivotal role ICT plays in gathering and processing information on people, privacy remains a misunderstood and undervalued concept in ISD. Although literature addresses many ethical issues associated with intrusive technologies, privacy has received very little attention from ISD researchers, with mainstream literature treating privacy as analogous to data security. Palen and Dourish (2003) note that social and design studies of technology often unknowingly conflate the many functions of privacy and consequently fail to provide sufficient analytical treatment. Current ISD approaches are failing to recognise the significance of privacy ...

Modes of reasoning in theories of the social impact of advanced technology: A critique of ERP systems in healthcare

Abstract Human-centred systems has a long theoretical tradition within the automation and control community stretching back at least into the 1970s and particularly in manufacturing systems. As automation and control systems are increasingly important outside the factory many researchers are revisiting core concepts within this tradition in order to address concerns in these other contexts. One particularly important sector is health care which, in recent years, has implemented a range of AMAT-type solutions not least of which are enterprise systems. This paper reviews the application of enterprise integration systems to health-care and, in doing so, unpacks several theoretical tensions. The paper proposes a re-assessment of human-centred systems (HCS) thinking as a way to address these tensions in automatic healthcare systems.

Zarathustra and beyond: exploring culture and values online

Illusions of control and fantasies of power are important themes in human history and culture. The first objective of this paper is to explore Zarathustran fantasies in the information society, and our dreams of God-like control and mastery over ourselves and the Universe. This paper does not try to be faithful to Nietzschean philosophical concepts of Zarathustra, but instead explore cultural themes, which can be related to a mythology of God-like control and omniscient perception. It draws together strands from science fiction, anthropology, philosophy, technology development, systems engineering, socio-technical systems, finance and e-business to set out how we have fallen for the technocultural illusions we have created. The paper then shifts gear, and in an attempt to address these technocultural problems, identifies an intellectual trajectory centred on an anthropological perspective. Using examples from e-business and Schwartz’s universal model of human values, applied into a technocultural context, the paper shows how it is possible to create meaningful systems of organisation that utilise advanced technologies to help provide a deeply value-laden cultural system. Our world is changing fundamentally and dramatically, and we desperately need new approaches to help us understand these transitions. The paper’s primary contribution is to critique both human-centred thinking, and mechanistic, Taylorist views of organisation and technology. It stimulates debate concerning the relationship between technology and culture as it is worked out in the information society. Shifting the perspective from humans as social, functioning creatures, this paper offers a new human-centred approach based upon humans as cultural, valuing beings.

Technology Adoption in Post-Conflict Regions: EDI Adoption in Kosovo After the War

Post-conflict developing regions are special cases of developing countries which have received little attention in information systems research. They are emergency situations which attract significant aid designed to help create economic stability through, for example, the use of IT. This study compared the experiences of Electronic Data Interchange EDI adoption in the extreme environment of a post-conflict region to other developing regions. Presenting data gathered from 68 companies in Kosovo, this paper provides an in-depth examination of EDI technology adoption in a post-conflict region. The findings suggest that EDI adoption in Kosovo comprises different features when compared with other developing countries, indicating that current theories of technology adoption have not fully accounted for EDI adoption in post-conflict regions. From this finding, implications for interventions in post-conflict regions are drawn. This paper contributes to the understanding of technology adoption processes and offers new insight into the process of technology adoption in this context. This paper provides a starting point for further work which creates a basis for more effective interventions in post-conflict zones, contributing to economic development and stabilisation.

Systems engineering methodologies, tacit knowledge and communities of practice

In the context of technology development and systems engineering, knowledge is typically treated as a complex information structure. In this view, knowledge can be stored in highly sophisticated data systems and processed by explicitly intelligent, software-based technologies. This paper argues that the current emphasis upon knowledge as information (or even data) is based upon a form of rationalism which is inappropriate for any comprehensive treatment of knowledge in the context of human-centred systems thinking. A human-centred perspective requires us to treat knowledge in human terms. The paper sets out the particular importance of tacit knowledge in this regard. It sets out two case studies which reveal the critical importance of a careful treatment of tacit knowledge for success in two complex, technology-driven projects.

Requirements Engineering During Complex Isd: Case Study Of An International Ict Company

Abstract This paper provides a new interpretation of how ISD requirements can be collectively constructed in organizations through intersubjective sensemaking. The study described in this paper focuses upon how people in complex ISD contexts make sense of requirements as the development process unfolds. Its primary contribution is to suggest that requirements shaping during an ISD project can be described as a sensemaking process of incongruence, filtering, negotiating and shifting of different attitudes and expectations. An interpretive case study is undertaken and it highlights how the relevant stakeholders of the project came to make sense of, and shape, their ISD process. The study suggests sensemaking as a potential new rationality for requirements engineering and for ISD in general, by complementing the traditional functional rationalism. It lays a basis for understanding the complex interactions that emerge during challenged ISD projects in their way of navigating out of difficulties.

Implications of an ethic of privacy for human-centred systems engineering

Privacy remains an intractable ethical issue for the information society, and one that is exacerbated by modern applications of artificial intelligence. Given its complicity, there is a moral obligation to redress privacy issues in systems engineering practice itself. This paper investigates the role the concept of privacy plays in contemporary systems engineering practice. Ontologically a nominalist human concept, privacy is considered from an appropriate engineering perspective: human-centred design. Two human-centred design standards are selected as exemplars of best practice, and are analysed using an existing multi-dimensional privacy model. The findings indicate that the human-centred standards are currently inadequate in dealing with privacy issues. Some implications for future practice are subsequently highlighted.

Ethical decision making in technology development: a case study of participation in a large-scale information systems development project

Advanced systems engineering has traditionally paid little attention to ethical concerns relative to other technical and non-technical issues. This is particularly evident in systems analysis, design, and development methodologies. This paper asks if it is possible that the lack of emphasis upon ethical considerations in development methodologies can result in the failure of advanced technology development projects? In order to explore this contention, the paper sets out the findings of a case study of a large-scale advanced technology project in a multinational engineering company involving the implementation of an enterprise resource planning system. The research examined the extent to which ethical issues emerged in the project and assesses the impact of ethical considerations upon the technology development process and its outcomes. Evidence is presented which shows how ethical concerns clearly impacted upon the outcome of the project, supporting the contention that ethics was a success factor in the case presented. However, it was also clear that the kinds of ethical considerations that emerged were highly complex, and associated with an “ethics of care”. The findings suggested that researchers should examine the potential of an “ethics of care” as a way of complimenting the “ethics of rights” currently dominant within engineering ethics.

From Information Systems in Social Settings to Information Systems as Social Settings: A Study of Large Information Systems in Manufacturing Firms

Research into the social impact of automation sees automation systems as separate entities to the social systems that they affect. This paper examines this research position. Social systems are defined as systems of organisation and work involving human cooperation and inter-relations (adapted from OED 1990). It explores the possibility that some automation systems are themselves social systems. This proposition reframes the question of social impact by placing the impacting system as part of the impacted social system. Manufacturing information systems (IS) are presented as an example of automation applied to information processing. Manufacturing IS’s attempt to provide streamlined, automated information processing in their host organisations. Information systems development (ISD) methodologies are centred upon delivering a technical solution in this space. The focus upon technology in ISD de-emphasises the social impact of these systems and places the technical system outside the impacted social system. This paper briefly summarises results from an empirical study, which reveals that the delivery of a new information system means the delivery of a new social system. This social system is the primary outcome of ISD. This issue is not explicitly recognised by most current research trajectories. This paper contends that the implications of this are extremely significant for research and development of complex automata for information systems.

The Influence of International Agencies on Technology Adopters in Post-Conflict Regions: The Case of Kosova

Abstract Post-conflict zones need to rapidly create sustainable economic activity to ensure their stability. International agencies bring significant knowledge and influence into these regions. Institutional theory has demonstrated that institutions can have a significant positive influence on economic development, not least by stimulating the adoption of advanced technologies to support improved local business processes. This paper presents findings of a case study of the influence of international agencies in Kosova during a critical period six years after the 1999 war. It uses neo-institutional theory to draw up theoretical propositions for testing. Data was gathered from 68 companies, findings are presented and interpreted. From this conclusions are drawn about international agency policy in Kosova. Few empirical studies have appeared which assess the extent and effectiveness of the positive influence of International Agencies on the diffusion of important automation and control systems technologies throughout the societies in which they operate.