A panel at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) in 1997 discussed the question ‘why should IS academics and professionals devote attention to developing countries?’ The answer the panellists mostly elaborated on was that developing countries are a huge and yet untapped market. In contrast, Walsham has repeatedly pointed out the ethical significance of researching the way ICT may come to bear on improving the life conditions of the vast majority of people who are born in non-affluent regions of the contemporary world (Walsham, 2001). These views demonstrate the varying motives of researchers from Western countries. But, with an increasing number of IS researchers from developing countries and an increasing number of IS professionals working on global IS infrastructures that include DCs, ISDC research is in less need of justification as a field of enquiry concerned with the way ICT may benefit ‘others’. The value of this research area can be judged in terms of its contribution to understanding IS innovation and its socio-economic consequences across an increasingly interlinked world. To that end, I conclude this outline of ISDC research with some comments on the knowledge it has added, or can potentially add to the IS field. First I summarize the contributions made through the diffusion and social embeddedness discourses, and highlight their potential for developing further analytical capacity to understand IS innovation in the contemporary development context. Then I discuss the potential of the transformative discourse, which, although the least developed in comparison to the diffusion and social embeddedness, I believe is the most novel and challenging for the IS field.
Both the diffusion and the socially embedded discourses are well established in the general IS research. The ISDC studies have enriched them substantially. At the very least they have increased awareness that in different countries and regions the circumstances of IS innovation are different. This is demonstrated by the particular issues and new themes that came to comprise the ISDC research agenda. In different parts of the contemporary world IS innovation is found to be associated with different hopes and expectations, concerns and fears, observed behaviours and reflections. And both the diffusion/adaptation and the social embeddedness discourses share the assumption that these differences matter, they do not disappear by the force of technology or managerial logic alone. But their approach to understanding and acting upon the differences of the IS innovation context differs.
The diffusion discourse does so by further assuming that the material/cognitive entities that comprise ICT and associated best practices of organizing are adequately independent from the social circumstances that give rise to them to be transferable, more or less intact, into any other society. Consequently, subject to suitable adaptation, these entities can make a desirable impact. Such research, therefore, traces the particular factors that capture the differences of the recipient country and organization that are likely to affect the innovation process – such as economic conditions, technology competences, people's attitudes to IT, institutionalized work place habits. Consequently, it designs modifications of the technologies and interventions in the recipient institutions to make them hospitable to the intended innovation.
The social embedded innovation discourse finds this assumption about the nature of IS oversimplifying and misleading. It has developed more elaborate ontologies of IS innovation as socially constructed entities, and therefore contingent in their perceived significance and their interplay with human actors and their social institutions. The focal point of the research is the process of innovation in situ, thus tracing the cognitive, emotional, and political capacities that individuals nurtured in their local social institutions bring to bear on unfolding innovation attempts. Through this approach the socially embedded innovation discourse sheds light on what, regarding an attempted innovation, is locally meaningful, desirable, or controversial, and therefore how innovation emerges (or is retarded) from the local social dynamics. With attention to local concerns, situated meanings of ICT, and courses of reasonable action that often differ from the taken-for-granted rationality of IS innovation, ISDC studies reveal a much more complex picture of the IS innovation effort than the general IS field has constructed, see for example Miscione (2007).
A more challenging task following the recognition of the significance of contextual contingency, that both the diffusion and the social embeddedness discourses share, is to identify the context that matters and develop theory capable of addressing the interrelationship of context with IS innovation. To my judgement the social embeddedness discourse is in a better position to do so. As it has been developed in close association with contemporary social theory, its elaborate socio-technical concepts address more effectively the dynamic interplay between the artefacts/cognitive constructs of IS innovation and the multiple and changing social dimensions in developing countries.
The third discourse, the transformative IS innovation intervention, introduces new elements in the IS research field. First, it expands the domain of IS research beyond the organization or inter-organizational links and addresses questions related with institutions of broader social collectivities. This is discernible in the literature that examines the developmental potential of ICT and the way such potential can be exploited. For example the transformative discourse on telecentres is cast primarily in terms of the developmental needs of a society and seeks relevant insights from macro-societal theories. Some macro-theoretical perspectives are already present in the IS field, for example in identifying the economic trends within which business innovate for competitiveness. But, as I argued in this paper, ISDC research introduces in the IS field the interdisciplinary macro-theoretical complexity concerning questions on IS innovation and ‘development’.
Second, the transformative interventions discourse has a kind of criticality that is unprecedented in the IS field. The literature that discusses the developmental potential of ICT and associates IS innovation initiatives with social, political, and economic change articulates critical views about the power relations within specific developing countries and the world at large. The IS field, though familiar with critical discourses, mainly regarding the organizational level politics of the work place (Howcroft and Trauth, 2005), has rarely engaged in macro-political analyses regarding ICT and institutional change. A noticeable exception is the critique of the government policy proposals for identity cards in the UK by IS scholars (Whitley et al., 2007). But the ISDC studies that concern the role of ICT in the struggle for the transformation of the life conditions of the billions of poor – with implications for the lives of the affluent – inevitably come to refer to political ideologies of development (such as the ‘Washington consensus’ or ‘basic needs’ views), and to policies and actions of development institutions (such as the World Bank, the aid agencies of ‘Western’ countries, international NGOs). Analyses of the IS innovation context include controversial government policies, such as liberalization of telecommunications for extending connectivity, or the filtering of internet information by national governments.
In short, in this paper I argued that ISDC research has expanded the IS research agenda and developed new understanding of IS innovation phenomena, mainly through its attention to social context and strategic concerns associated with socio-economic development. As it encounters questions on policy and practice of development, it is confronted with critical issues associated with the role of ICTs in the transformation of social relations and macro-level institutions. I hope that the IS research community will recognize the significance of this enlargement of its domain of inquiry, encourage and foster it.
A panel at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) in 1997 discussed the question ‘why should IS academics and professionals devote attention to developing countries?’ The answer the panellists mostly elaborated on was that developing countries are a huge and yet untapped market. In contrast, Walsham has repeatedly pointed out the ethical significance of researching the way ICT may come to bear on improving the life conditions of the vast majority of people who are born in non-affluent regions of the contemporary world (Walsham, 2001). These views demonstrate the varying motives of researchers from Western countries. But, with an increasing number of IS researchers from developing countries and an increasing number of IS professionals working on global IS infrastructures that include DCs, ISDC research is in less need of justification as a field of enquiry concerned with the way ICT may benefit ‘others’. The value of this research area can be judged in terms of its contribution to understanding IS innovation and its socio-economic consequences across an increasingly interlinked world. To that end, I conclude this outline of ISDC research with some comments on the knowledge it has added, or can potentially add to the IS field. First I summarize the contributions made through the diffusion and social embeddedness discourses, and highlight their potential for developing further analytical capacity to understand IS innovation in the contemporary development context. Then I discuss the potential of the transformative discourse, which, although the least developed in comparison to the diffusion and social embeddedness, I believe is the most novel and challenging for the IS field.
Both the diffusion and the socially embedded discourses are well established in the general IS research. The ISDC studies have enriched them substantially. At the very least they have increased awareness that in different countries and regions the circumstances of IS innovation are different. This is demonstrated by the particular issues and new themes that came to comprise the ISDC research agenda. In different parts of the contemporary world IS innovation is found to be associated with different hopes and expectations, concerns and fears, observed behaviours and reflections. And both the diffusion/adaptation and the social embeddedness discourses share the assumption that these differences matter, they do not disappear by the force of technology or managerial logic alone. But their approach to understanding and acting upon the differences of the IS innovation context differs.
The diffusion discourse does so by further assuming that the material/cognitive entities that comprise ICT and associated best practices of organizing are adequately independent from the social circumstances that give rise to them to be transferable, more or less intact, into any other society. Consequently, subject to suitable adaptation, these entities can make a desirable impact. Such research, therefore, traces the particular factors that capture the differences of the recipient country and organization that are likely to affect the innovation process – such as economic conditions, technology competences, people's attitudes to IT, institutionalized work place habits. Consequently, it designs modifications of the technologies and interventions in the recipient institutions to make them hospitable to the intended innovation.
The social embedded innovation discourse finds this assumption about the nature of IS oversimplifying and misleading. It has developed more elaborate ontologies of IS innovation as socially constructed entities, and therefore contingent in their perceived significance and their interplay with human actors and their social institutions. The focal point of the research is the process of innovation in situ, thus tracing the cognitive, emotional, and political capacities that individuals nurtured in their local social institutions bring to bear on unfolding innovation attempts. Through this approach the socially embedded innovation discourse sheds light on what, regarding an attempted innovation, is locally meaningful, desirable, or controversial, and therefore how innovation emerges (or is retarded) from the local social dynamics. With attention to local concerns, situated meanings of ICT, and courses of reasonable action that often differ from the taken-for-granted rationality of IS innovation, ISDC studies reveal a much more complex picture of the IS innovation effort than the general IS field has constructed, see for example Miscione (2007).
A more challenging task following the recognition of the significance of contextual contingency, that both the diffusion and the social embeddedness discourses share, is to identify the context that matters and develop theory capable of addressing the interrelationship of context with IS innovation. To my judgement the social embeddedness discourse is in a better position to do so. As it has been developed in close association with contemporary social theory, its elaborate socio-technical concepts address more effectively the dynamic interplay between the artefacts/cognitive constructs of IS innovation and the multiple and changing social dimensions in developing countries.
The third discourse, the transformative IS innovation intervention, introduces new elements in the IS research field. First, it expands the domain of IS research beyond the organization or inter-organizational links and addresses questions related with institutions of broader social collectivities. This is discernible in the literature that examines the developmental potential of ICT and the way such potential can be exploited. For example the transformative discourse on telecentres is cast primarily in terms of the developmental needs of a society and seeks relevant insights from macro-societal theories. Some macro-theoretical perspectives are already present in the IS field, for example in identifying the economic trends within which business innovate for competitiveness. But, as I argued in this paper, ISDC research introduces in the IS field the interdisciplinary macro-theoretical complexity concerning questions on IS innovation and ‘development’.
Second, the transformative interventions discourse has a kind of criticality that is unprecedented in the IS field. The literature that discusses the developmental potential of ICT and associates IS innovation initiatives with social, political, and economic change articulates critical views about the power relations within specific developing countries and the world at large. The IS field, though familiar with critical discourses, mainly regarding the organizational level politics of the work place (Howcroft and Trauth, 2005), has rarely engaged in macro-political analyses regarding ICT and institutional change. A noticeable exception is the critique of the government policy proposals for identity cards in the UK by IS scholars (Whitley et al., 2007). But the ISDC studies that concern the role of ICT in the struggle for the transformation of the life conditions of the billions of poor – with implications for the lives of the affluent – inevitably come to refer to political ideologies of development (such as the ‘Washington consensus’ or ‘basic needs’ views), and to policies and actions of development institutions (such as the World Bank, the aid agencies of ‘Western’ countries, international NGOs). Analyses of the IS innovation context include controversial government policies, such as liberalization of telecommunications for extending connectivity, or the filtering of internet information by national governments.
In short, in this paper I argued that ISDC research has expanded the IS research agenda and developed new understanding of IS innovation phenomena, mainly through its attention to social context and strategic concerns associated with socio-economic development. As it encounters questions on policy and practice of development, it is confronted with critical issues associated with the role of ICTs in the transformation of social relations and macro-level institutions. I hope that the IS research community will recognize the significance of this enlargement of its domain of inquiry, encourage and foster it.
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