Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Knowledge consists of those constructions about which there is a relative
consensus (or at least some movement towards consensus) among those com-
petent (and in the case of more arcane material, trusted) to interpret the sub-
stance of the construction. Multiple 'knowledges' can coexist when equally
competent (or trusted) interpreters disagree (Guba and Lincoln, 1994, p. 113).
The emergence of interpretivism in information system research is described by Walsham
(1995). Walsham saw interpretivism as gaining ground at that point against a predomin-
antly positivist research tradition in information systems. Klein and Myers (1999) consider
that theory plays a crucial role in interpretive research in information systems. Theory
is used as a 'sensitising device' to view the world in a certain way. Particular observations
can be related to abstract categories and to ideas and concepts that apply to multiple
situations, implying some generalisability. The types of theory that information systems
researchers are likely to reference are social theories such as structuration theory or
actor-network theory.
The interpretivist paradigm leads to a view of theory which is theory for understanding
(Type III), theory that possibly does not have strong predictive power and is of limited
generality.
The technological perspective
Information systems involve the use of information technology and so we would like
theory that can deal with technologies. Recognition that theory might relate to technology
is rather uncommon and it might even be that there is definite prejudice against it. This
view may go back a long way. O'Hear (1989, p. 216) says the ancient Greeks tended to
despise the merely mechanistic or banausic. Popper saw the worship of science and
technology as instruments for control over nature as shallow and worrying because of
our ignorance of the effects our interventions might have. Nevertheless, the development
of science and the development of technology have gone on hand-in-hand. For example,
the start of the scientific revolution 'coincided' with the (mid-16th century) development
of the telescope and the microscope (Gribbin, 2002, xix)
The classic work that treats technology or artefact design as a special prescriptive type
of theory is Herbert Simon's
The Sciences of the Artificial
(1996), first published in 1969.
Simon (1996, p. xii) notes that in an earlier edition of his work he described a central
problem that had occupied him for many years:
How could one construct an empirical theory?
I thought I began to see in the problem of artificiality an explanation of the
difficulty that has been experienced in filling engineering and other professions
with empirical and theoretical substance distinct from the substance of their
supporting sciences. Engineering, medicine, business, architecture and painting
are concerned not with the necessary but with the contingent - not with how
things are but with how they might be - in short, with design.
Simon contrasts design science with natural science, which is concerned with knowledge
about natural objects and phenomena. Design science must take account of natural science
since an artefact is a meeting-place or interface between the inner environment of the
artefact and the outer environment in which it performs, both of which operate in ac-
cordance with natural laws. Simon discussed design science in the contexts of economics,
the psychology of cognition, and planning and engineering design, but not information
systems. It has taken some time for Simon's ideas to filter through to information systems
and they are still not unequivocally accepted in this discipline.
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