Information System Specialist Predispositions

During the entire dissertation process, I was affiliated with the Department of Computer and Information Sciences of the University of Tampere. It gave me an alternative context that helped me see the limits of the IS field.

Introduction 1

Different predispositions are one reason for problems in cooperation between IS specialists and users. Rather than analyzing IS research (as Iivari [1991] did, for example), I focus on IS specialists in practice.

The Central Concepts 6

Introduction 6

Predispositions 6

For example, "fisherman" and "net user" (of fishing nets, not the Internet!) illustrate this difference; one focuses on the human task or role and the other on the tool used in performing that task or fulfilling that role [Nurminen 1986]. For example, a technology-centric worldview would reduce everything to how it relates to technology.

IS Studies 7

• The Areas of IS Studies 8
• The Features of IS Research 12

Claver, González and Llopis [2000] also studied IS research areas and reached quite similar results. Most of the articles classified by Claver, González and Llopis belong to the IS management class (32

IS Specialists 14

• Defining the Concept of IS Specialist 15
• Studies of IS Specialists 17

In the last two categories, IS specialists spoke of human users, but their views were limited. IS specialists design and implement IS in the same way they like to use it.

Studies about Predispositions in the IS Field 20

• Underlying Assumptions of IS Development Schools 20
• Views of Technology 23
• The Masculinity of the IS Field 26

He states that the dominant paradigm in ISD is a "realist perspective" that "suggests that the external world consists of pre-existing solid, tangible structures that exist independently of individual cognition." [Wilson 1999, p. The difference between mainstream and alternative ISD schools is not limited to practice; there are also differences in research. In the ontological assumptions of ISD schools, there is one view of technology, by which Iivari means the view of the creation and design of technology [Iivari 1991, Iivari et al.

In addition to the dualism between the development and use of technology, another dualism is between the 'social' and 'technology' – or human and non-human elements, as Grint and Woolgar [1997, p. The disparity between women and men in the field of IS can be seen in the statistics. History has been described as a man's victory [e.g. case analysis of Finland by Vehviläinen 1999], although they were also pioneering in computing.

The masculine identity of technology is extremely clear in the display of technology mastery.

Summary of this Chapter 29

In the narratives, female systems developers are shaped by doing and behaving in ways that sometimes make them feel a kinship with other women, while in other contexts they feel more in common with men, especially, perhaps, with those in similar occupations. and areas of life have. Some women find it a pleasure to use new ICT at work, as Korvajärvi describes in the case of call centers [Korvajärvi forthcoming]. The first digital city in the Netherlands - it is an Internet IS - was designed by male hackers and they depict male, highly skilled and technologically interested users [Rommes 2000].

The designers characterized their users as primarily male, relatively young, and economically middle-class or above. This view of IS is limited in two ways: (1) IS is seen as a technical system and as a social system it is less interesting and rarely debated. 2) IS is analyzed from a business point of view, while other possible points of view are ignored - such as the point of view of state and community institutions and citizens. Furthermore, the view of technology - or IS - creation emphasizes the role of IS development, but users' shaping of technology is mostly forgotten.

The human view is a reduction where people are simply seen as users of ICT.

The Perspectives Reflected in this Study 31

• Introduction 31
• The Type of Study: Theory-creating 31
• My Own Background 35
• Using Individuals' Texts as Research Material 37

Since it matters who is knowledgeable – the researcher who studies and interprets the situation – I describe here the point from which I observe the IS specialist dispositions. My goal is to find out something about IS specialist culture so that when I study individuals, they must be placed in the context of the IS field as IS specialists. In the dimension of meaning, my aim is to study "discourse determination", which means that my interest is to deal with social reality.

In the second dimension, which concerns the scope of the discourse, my aim does not localize to either extreme, but it is more in the local, situated context. In the case of the two sets of texts, the essential claims are correctness and sincerity. The change is best seen in my discussion of the masculinity of the IS field.

At the beginning of the process, I knew that few IS specialists are women, but I hadn't realized that the IS thinking models also contain male biases.

The Dissertation Research Process 40

• Introduction 40
• Overview of the Two Text Sets 40
• The Subject of this Study: Visions of the Future 41
• The Type of Study: Interpretive Research 43
• The Situation of the Text Sets 45
• Geographical Situation 45
• The Situation among IS Specialists 48
• The Interview Part of the Study 49
• The Themes of the Interviews 50
• The Interviewees 51
• Analysis of the Interview Material (text set) 53

The final list of the top 10 key issues in the IS function is as follows [Brancheau et al. In my diploma thesis, I separately deal with the abstraction and generalization of the findings in the articles. Otto Karttunen, one of the Finnish pioneers of IS, describes the design of IS in the 1960s, which was our Finnish.

Nine of the interviewees worked in a user organization (private or public) in the position of director (in the field of IS), IS project leader or mentor. At least 13 of the interviewees are visible in the Finnish public discussion of the information society. It consists of essays by IS specialists on the future, published in Communications of the ACM in 1997.

Apart from the field of IS, the Finnish discussion of the information society also includes technological determinism.

The Papers in a Nutshell and the Integrating Thread 57

Introduction 57

I present the articles (chapters 6-10) individually, as they include concrete results, and I also describe the position of each article in the overall picture of IS professionals' predispositions. Third, I present an interpretation of the entire dissertation that suggests that seeing individuals without social relationships is a possible explanation for the results. Fourth, I discuss how the results of this study could be applied to the education of future IS professionals.

In the last three sections, there are research questions that should be investigated in the future.

Presenting the Articles 57

Although IS development schools say that technology is a matter of human choice, the discourse of some interviewed IS specialists follows the idea of ​​technological determinism. This kind of talk becomes understandable when you consider the context of the IS specialists interviewed. The difference between these two chapters can also be expressed in another way: where Chapter 9 focuses on technology, this chapter focuses on the attitude of IS specialists to people.

This analysis of the interviews showed several ways in which IS specialists limit users' freedom within technology. If we think of this chapter in the framework of predispositions, it describes IS specialists' attitudes towards people. In one way or another, all the papers deal with this theme, since the job of IS specialists is to create and mediate technology.

Since technological determinism gives people limited scope for action, in chapter 10 I present other ways in which IS specialists in their conversations limit the scope of user actions.

The Limitations of this Study 60

They addressed three types of issues: Basic assumptions of IS development schools, views of technology, and masculinity in the IS field. This is the main content of chapter 8, the article about the masculine world of IS that is disguised as gender neutral. Views of the shaping of technology are not only concerned with technology, but also with the opportunities that people have to participate in the processes in which technology is created and shaped.

For example, the description in this thesis describes that the view of IS specialists on users is limited. It is an issue that could be studied with ethnography: IS specialists and users work together in an IS development project. However, it can be criticized that the description is too general and does not contain everything relevant to my predisposition.

The third thing that can be seen as a limitation of this study is the method of analysis I used.

Emerging Research Questions 62

Many IS specialists believe that this course of action is the result of individuals' own choice and does not see it in a larger context. In studies of the relationship between IS and organization, IS specialists are portrayed as having the central role in shaping technology – and that they work in the interest of the organization [e.g. organizational imperative in Markus & Robey 1988]. The same idea emerges in the articles that aim to support IS specialists in acting as change agents [e.g. Markus & Benjamin 1996, Allen 1998].

Researchers are trying to teach IS specialists how to interact with users so that they quickly accept changes. However, we can find another explanation why the descriptions of persons by IS specialists are simplified in the IS work context. The limited view of human beings of IS specialists can be seen as a way of acquiring knowledge in the field of IM for IM specialists.

The outcome of this analysis is that more research needs to be done into the views of IS specialists on people.

Recommendations for Education 64

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Background Information on User Interfaces 78

Request for an Interview 79