The emergence of information systems: a communication-based theory

  • 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.

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Metadaten
Author:Roland HoltenORCiDGND, Christoph RosenkranzORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-236211
URL:http://sprouts.aisnet.org/10-122/
ISSN:1535-6078
Parent Title (English):Sprouts : working papers on information environments, systems and organizations
Publisher:Information Systems Department in Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University
Place of publication:Cleveland, Ohio
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2010
Year of first Publication:2010
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2012/05/14
Tag:Emergence of Information Systems; Language; language community; process theory; shared understanding
Volume:10
Issue:122
Page Number:24
HeBIS-PPN:31014907X
Institutes:Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung 3.0