Details

Track Chairs:

Nik R. Hassan, University of Minnesota Duluth,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Alan Litchfield, Auckland University of Technology,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Track Description:

The role of philosophy in Information Systems (IS) is to question fundamental problems about the nature of realities encountered in IS disciplines, how to define and identify the existence of taxonomies, knowledge, human and other values, reason and logic, and the definition and use of language. In the field of IS, philosophy relies on rational argument as much as it does on practical evidence and therefore philosophy uniquely enables the presentation of new theory and the verification or replacement of old. Philosophy covers a broad range of expression from epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) to logic (the study of the principles of correct reasoning), from moral and political philosophy and ethics to other applied philosophies.

The Philosophy in Information Systems track provides a forum for scholars who are open to questioning all aspects of Information Systems and seeking to find ways for the field to progress. We invite papers that discuss philosophical aspects of the IS field from all IS domains, and from all angles and levels of inquiry.

Mini-Tracks:

People and Technology

Alan Litchfield, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Robert Wellington, Auckland University of Technology, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Emmanuel Monod, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The questions related to “People and Technology” range from the concept of dependence, for instance cell phone addiction, to freedom, for instance access to information in corporations. They also include the social pressure that social networks may operate on individuals. How long can we live without our cellphone before being excluded from our community of practice? How many communication mistakes can we make on a social network before being excluded from your private social community?

In our corporations, in what respect do ERP systems constraint not only innovation, but also freedom? Does sending an email in a corporation became a risk because this mail may be used against you?

Shall we simply talk about sociomateriality (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008)? Or do we need other philosophical concepts like “embodiment” (Dourish, 2011) “entanglement” or “dictature of the they” (Heidegger)? At the corporate level, what happened to the ideal of socio-technical systems? Does IT reinforce control, or may it promote participative management?


Socio-Technical Aspects of Information Systems 

Laurence Brooks, School of Information Systems Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, UK; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
David Wainwright, School of Computing, Engineering & Information Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne UK; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank">

There is growing acceptance that IS it is not solely about the technical issues which are the major factor in their successful development and use, but the other relevant (non-technical) human and social factors. These combine with technologies to create the informated contexts in which IS are developed and operate; effectively or otherwise. Within the IS field the ‘socio-technical’ movement (Mumford, {1995, 2003}) can be seen to provide insights into this complex relationship between the technological artefact and the social aspects in which they are situated (Avgerou et. al., 2004). In this, these technologies and their functionality may be seen to combine with humans and their actions to constitute informated ‘socio-technical ensemble’ (Bijker and Law 1995) that exhibit a concerted agency. How such ensembles may be effectively created, maintained and changed – locally and globally- incrementally and radically - is the subject of this mini-track.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

  • Social informatics
  • The application of social theory to information systems (eg. Structuration Theory, Actor-Network Theory, StructurANTion Theory)
  • Human and organisational aspects of information systems
  • Balancing of social and technical factors in information systems development and information systems
  • Critiques of the socio-technical approach
  • Case studies of socio-technical analysis of information systems
  • Sociomateriality and its implications for our understanding of information systems
  • Comparative studies (ie. between sectors, countries, cultures, etc.) of socio-technical analyses of information systems
  • Comparative analyses of socio-technical change and information systems
  • Global/local (or ‘glocal’) balance of information systems within a socio-technical context


Foundations of Information Systems Subfields ("Philosophy of ….")

Nik R. Hassan, Labovitz School of Business and Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Judith P. Carlisle, College of Computer Science, Engineering and Physics, University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, MI, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Disciplines do not endure for any length of time without reflecting on their underlying tenets and methods and their philosophical bent and commitments. Dennett writes: “There is no way to avoid having philosophical preconceptions; the only option is whether to examine them explicitly and carefully at some point in one’s endeavors.” The "Philosophy of …" mini-track provides the mechanism for disciplinary introspection and assessment thus allowing a field to come to a better understanding of itself and its purpose.