Petter Nielsen

The Reality beyond the Hype: Mobile Internet is Primarily an Extension of PC-Based Internet

The mobile Internet (MI) has been hyped as the next big thing by telecom operators, handset manufacturers, and content providers. However, recent studies indicate that the usage of Internet via mobile phones has remained quite flat. The authors inquire into this discrepancy by focusing on actual usage of the MI and the motivating factors behind its use. Based on focus-group interviews in Norway and Hungary, they argue that MI usage is interrelated with and is an extension of the personal computer (PC)–based Internet. The key motivation behind MI use is to attain information in situations in which the PC is out of reach. In effect, MI has not led to the development of new usages. The expectation that the development of new killer applications will lead to an explosion of new usage is therefore misguided. MI usage is and will perhaps continue to be a mere extension of PC-based Internet usage—and such use activities are the very nature of MI.

Control Devolution as Information Infrastructure Design Strategy: A case study of a content service platform for mobile phones in Norway

This paper depicts the results of an empirical case study on how two Norwegian telecommunications operators developed a business sector information infrastructure for the provision of mobile content services. Focusing on the context of this technologys development, and the strategic issues behind its design, implementation and operation, control devolution as a design strategy is explored. This analysis draws on insights presented by Claudio Ciborras in his study of the change from alignment to loose coupling in the Swiss multinational Hoffmann-La Roche. This paper illustrates how control is played out on different levels, and balanced against autonomy. The theoretical implications of this paper highlight how the differences and transformations between information systems and information infrastructures are conceptualised, with the development of the latter better understood in light of a balance between control and autonomy. Consequently, it is suggested that control devolution as a design approach should be based on a deep understanding of the existing control/autonomy balance as well as the distribution of resources, risks and the ability and willingness to innovate.

Information infrastructures and public goods: analytical and practical implications for SDI

Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are envisioned to increase efficiency, transparency and equity, but realising this potential has proven problematic. We argue that insights from studies of large-scale, integrated but distributed information systems, dubbed “information infrastructures” are applicable. This perspective may help address an important dimension of SDIs: their character of being public goods rather than private assets. We identify and illustrate four key aspects of information infrastructures that underpin such a public goods focus. First, we advocate the necessity of deploying a socio-technical rather than a limited technical perspective. We further argue that the notion of installed base is central, that it is important to be aware of the “politics of representation” and to accept the unavoidable “messines” of reality. We illustrate these concepts through examples from health care in developing countries, an area particularly concerned with the potential to increase equity.

Three Strategies for Functional Architecting: Cases from the Health Systems of Developing Countries

Health systems in developing countries are commonly struggling with multiple and overlapping information systems (IS). There is a need to move away from this to reduce the burden of parallel reporting it creates and enable coordinated information collection and sharing. However, this is not straightforward as it prompts intricate functional architecting activities across a range of IS domains including health staff, commodities, logistics, progress tracking, financing and health services information. This paper is based on a case study of a District Health Information Software and how it is involved in the current drive toward integrated systems. From focusing on aggregate health indicators for health management, it is becoming one component among others in larger architectures where it may take on many different roles. The aim of this paper is to strengthen our understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to functionally architecting integrated systems. Applying an information Infrastructure lens, we describe these processes as involving a range of different software components and actors not under any central control. We conceptualize functional architecting as activities performed by multiple actors to configure and re-configure the functional roles of independent software components. Based on the case study, we contribute by identifying three different architecting strategies and conceptualize them as connecting, encroaching, and charting.

Infrastructural Innovation: Flexibility, Generativity and the Mobile Internet

This article addresses issues related to how to enable broadest possible innovative activities by infrastructural technology design. The authors focus on the development of high level services based on mobile telecommunication technologies. The focus of their analysis is how features of the technology enable or constrain innovations. They do so by looking at embryos of the Mobile Internet (primarily the Norwegian CPA platform, but also two pre-CPA platforms in Norway and Japan’s i-mode) through the concepts of end-to-end architecture, programmability of terminals and generativity. This analysis illustrates that the change from closed infrastructures like MobilInfo and SMSinfo to more open ones like CPA and i-mode increased the speed and range of innovations substantially. At the same time the differences between CPA and i-mode regarding programmability of terminals, and the billing service provided by the CPA network enabling the billing of individual transactions, also contributed to basically the same speed and range of innovations around CPA as i-mode in spite of the huge differences in investments into the networks made by the owners. The analysis also points out important differences between the Internet and the existing Mobile Internet regarding technological constrains on innovations. It points out important ways in which powerful actors’ strategies inhibit innovations and how they embed their strategies into the technology and creates technological barriers for innovation.

COMMUNICATION PRACTICES AS FUNCTIONS, RITUALS AND SYMBOLS: CHALLENGES FOR COMPUTERIZATION OF PAPER-BASED INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Communication within organizations is more than functional transmission of information between different actors. Communication practices are also composed of ritualistic and symbolic aspects, together building a relation between context and practice. This paper discusses communication practices within and among different levels of the health information system in Mozambique and efforts to implement ICTs to support these paper‐based practices. The analysis builds on a case study, based on participatory observations and interviews revealing these different aspects of communication practice. Applying our analytical lens, we describe the ongoing communication practice as shaping and shaped by the context.

The Information Transparency Effects of Introducing League Tables in the Health System in Malawi

League tables are used to compare the performance of different entities in the health systems in developing countries. The aim of this paper is to study the implementation process and its effects related to a computerized league table application in Malawi. Focusing on the health district and using a field experiment research approach, the focus is on the implementation process and how it improves information transparency for health managers. Based on routine health data recording in the health management information system DHIS2, the introduced league table was used by the district health management teams in the pilot districts to rank and compare performance among their health facilities. While the introduction of the league tables was challenging, it also showed its potential through effects including improved visibility of information and accessibility for managers, better understanding of indicators, the identification of data quality issues, skills acquisition in computing and information use and improved communication and collaboration among stakeholders.

Innovation in the fringes of software ecosystems: the role of socio-technical generativity*

ABSTRACT Understanding the way information systems grow and change over time and the role of different contributors in these processes is central to current research on software development and innovation. In relation to this, there is an ongoing discourse on how the attributes of software platforms influence who can innovate on top of them and the kind of innovations possible within the larger ecosystem of technologies and people these platforms are part of. This discourse has paid limited attention to innovation unfolding in the fringes of the ecosystems peripheral to and disconnected from where the central software components are developed and where the resources necessary for digital innovation are scarce. Drawing upon Zittrain’s characteristics of generativity and Lane’s concept of generative relationships, the key contribution of this paper is a socio-technical perspective on innovation and generativity in this setting. We build this perspective of socio-technical generativity based on a case study of software innovation activities in Malawi on top of the health information system software platform DHIS2 developed in Norway. This case illustrates how the technical attributes of the platform played a key role in concert with human relationships in shaping innovation activities in Malawi.

Ordinary Innovation of Mobile Services

The anabolic growth of dot.com—with third-generation network license auctions as the grand finale—implied a series of large investments in mobile technology. Without new products and services utilizing this infrastructure (m-services), however, these investments may never be recouped, and today there is no sure sign of demand for these new nomadic applications in the market. This paper shows how actors in the m-services value network coordinate their efforts to bring such applications to the marketplace. It shows their risk averse and locally optimizing strategies, which theoretically are very different from the current fascination in Information Systems with disruptive innovation. This paper illustrates the need for a theory of ordinary innovation in nomadic and ubiquitous computing.

Digital Innovation: A Research Agenda for Information Systems Research in Developing Countries

This paper is based on a survey of the current landscape of information systems research concerned with developing countries and development. Significant gaps are identified representing a lack of focus on digital technologies and the impact and significance of digital innovation for developing countries and development. We need to expand our focus from primarily addressing the challenges of access to and the ability to use ICTs, to also include how developing countries can participate in and take relevant roles in digital innovation. We are witnessing a wide-spread digitization of organizations and societies at large, and these significant changes warrant a new research agenda for information systems in developing countries. This paper proposes three new directions for research to support this shift; empirical research on digital innovation by developing countries; theorizing digital innovation by developing countries; and participation in digital innovation as freedom.