TY  - JOUR
A1  - Holten, Roland
A1  - Rosenkranz, Christoph
T1  - The emergence of information systems: a communication-based theory
T2  - Sprouts : working papers on information environments, systems and organizations
N2  - An information system is more than just the information technology; it is the system that emerges from the complex interactions and relationships between the information technology and the organization. However, what impact information technology has on an organization and how organizational structures and organizational change influence information technology remains an open question. We propose a theory to explain how communication structures emerge and adapt to environmental changes. We operationalize the interplay of information technology and organization as language communities whose members use and develop domain-specific languages for communication. Our theory is anchored in the philosophy of language. In developing it as an emergent perspective, we argue that information systems are self-organizing and that control of this ability is disseminated throughout the system itself, to the members of the language community. Information technology influences the dynamics of this adaptation process as a fundamental constraint leading to perturbations for the information system. We demonstrate how this view is separated from the entanglement in practice perspective and show that this understanding has far-reaching consequences for developing, managing, and examining information systems.
KW  - Emergence of Information Systems
KW  - Language
KW  - shared understanding
KW  - process theory
KW  - language community
Y1  - 2010
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/23621
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-236211
UR  - http://sprouts.aisnet.org/10-122/
SN  - 1535-6078
VL  - 10
IS  - 122
PB  - Information Systems Department in Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University
CY  - Cleveland, Ohio
ER  -