| 1. |
- Aakhus, Mark, et al.
(författare)
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Symbolic Action Research in Information Systems : Introduction to the Special Issue
- 2014
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Ingår i: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 38:4, s. 1187-1200
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This special issue introduction explores the need to study information systems as symbolic action systems, defines broadly the research domain and related assumptions, notes the origins of this perspective, articulates its key lines of study, and discusses the state of the field in light of published research. The essay also positions the three papers of the special issue in the broader Information Systems (IS) discourse and notes their specific contribution in bridging so far unconnected streams of research and expanding research methods amenable to symbolic action research. This introductory essay furthermore observes some unique challenges in pulling together the special issue that invited the editors to combat against the tendency to approach communicative processes associated with information systems as primarily psychological processes. In closing we note several lines of inquiry that can strengthen future studies of symbolic action including better design theories, more flexible and open use of methods, and attentive use of rich traditions that inform symbolic action research in IS.
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| 2. |
- Baygi, Reza Mousavi, et al.
(författare)
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Everything flows: Studying continuous Socio/Technological Transformation in a fluid and dynamic digital world
- 2021
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Ingår i: MIS Quarterly. - : University of Minnesota, Management Information Systems Research Center. - 0276-7783. ; 45:1, s. 423-452
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ongoing digital innovations are transforming almost every aspect of our contemporary societies rendering our lives and work evermore fluid and dynamic. This paper is an invitation to likewise remake our theorizing of socio-technological transformation by shifting from actor-centric orientations toward a flow-oriented approach and vocabulary. Such a shift from actors to the flows of action allows us to offer an innovative theory of socio-technological transformation that does not rely on self-contained actors or technologies as originators of transformation. To do this, we turn to the work of social anthropologist Tim Ingold to advance a theoretical vocabulary of flowing lines of action and their correspondences. We expound three modalities of correspondence, namely: timing, attentionality, and undergoing, which together explain the dynamics of creation, sensing, and actualization of (trans)formative possibilities for action along socio-technological flows. We demonstrate the application and utility of this vocabulary through an empirical illustration and show how it reveals novel insights for research vis-a-vis existing theoretical alternatives. Finally, we outline the implications of our approach for research and suggest some guiding principles for studying and theorizing digital phenomena through this orientation. In addition to theory, our vocabulary also provides practitioners an alternative approach on managing digital transformation-one that emphasizes cultivating favorable conditions under which transformative possibilities can be created, sensed, and actualized at timely moments. As such, we invite both scholars and practitioners to engage with our approach to develop novel ways of understanding, theorizing, and engaging with socio-technological phenomena along our increasingly fluid and dynamic digital world.
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| 3. |
- Eaton, Ben, et al.
(författare)
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Distributed Tuning of Boundary Resources : The Case of Apple’s iOS Service System
- 2015
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Ingår i: MIS Quarterly. - Minneapolis, MN : M I S Research Center. - 0276-7783. ; 39:1, s. 217-243
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The digital age has seen the rise of service systems involving highly distributed, heterogeneous, and resource-integrating actors whose relationships are governed by shared institutional logics, standards, and digital technology. The cocreation of service within these service systems takes place in the context of a paradoxical tension between the logic of generative and democratic innovations and the logic of infrastructural control. Boundary resources play a critical role in managing the tension as a firm that owns the infrastructure can secure its control over the service system while independent firms can participate in the service system. In this study, we explore the evolution of boundary resources. Drawing on Pickering’s (1993) and Barrett et al.’s (2012) conceptualizations of tuning, the paper seeks to forward our understanding of how heterogeneous actors engage in the tuning of boundary resources within Apple’s iOS service system. We conduct an embedded case study of Apple’s iOS service system with an in-depth analysis of 4,664 blog articles concerned with 30 boundary resources covering 6 distinct themes. Our analysis reveals that boundary resources of service systems enabled by digital technology are shaped and reshaped through distributed tuning, which involves cascading actions of accommodations and rejections of a network of heterogeneous actors and artifacts. Our study also shows the dualistic role of power in the distributed tuning process.
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| 4. |
- Ellinger, Eleunthia, Wong, et al.
(författare)
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Skin in the Game : The Transformational Potential of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
- 2024
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Ingår i: MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems. - : Management Information Systems Research Center. - 2162-9730 .- 0276-7783. ; 48:1, s. 245-272
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)—collectively owned human-machine systems deployed on a blockchain that self-govern through smart contracts and the voluntary contributions of autonomous community members—exhibit the potential to facilitate collective action in managing digital commons. Yet the promise of decentralization and collective action is difficult to sustain. To this end, this paper critically examines the transformational potential of DAOs in the case of decentralized finance. Using a polycentric governance lens, we contribute to the literature on technology-enabled forms of organizing with a model explaining the transformational potential of DAOs to facilitate collective action in digital commons. Our study highlights that (1) DAOs are a new form of organizing enabled by blockchain technology in which individuals are free to pursue their objectives within a general system of rules enforced by smart contracts, (2) collective action for managing digital commons can be sustained through a set of three mechanisms—sustained participation, collective direction, and scaled organizing, and (3) DAOs tend to strike a balance between centralized and fully decentralized or community-based governance by implementing a polycentric governance system involving a combination of human and machine agency that creates skin in the game.
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| 5. |
- Essén, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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How technology-afforded practices at the micro-level can generate change at the field level : Theorizing the recursive mechanism actualized in Swedish rheumatology 2000-2014
- 2019
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Ingår i: MIS Quarterly. - : University of Minnesota, Management Information Systems Research Center. - 0276-7783. ; 43:4, s. 1155-1176
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The information systems literature has paid a great deal of attention to how macro-level structures shape local technology enactments. Less research has focused on the mutual shaping of situated technology enactments and such extra-organizational structures. This study explores how technology-afforded human action at the micro-level may transform field-level social structures and thus generate institutional change. We use a critical realist approach and institutional logics lens and draw on empirical data about the development and implementation of an e-health service in Swedish rheumatology between 2000 and 2014. We identify a recursive mechanism consisting of three recursive practices-material reconstruction, discursive reconstruction, and emergent use-that fostered a shift in the field's constellation of institutional logics, moving from a competitive to an additive relationship between logics.
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| 6. |
- Kohler, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Co-Creation In Virtual Worlds : The Design Of The User Experience
- 2011
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Ingår i: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 35:3, s. 773-788
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Emerging virtual worlds, such as the prominent Second Life, offer unprecedented opportunities for companies to collaborate with co-creating users. However, pioneering corporate co-creation systems fail to attract a satisfying level of participation and engagement. The experience users have with the co-creation system is the key to making virtual places a vibrant source of great connections, creativity, and co-creation. While prior research on co-creation serves as a foundation for this work, it does not provide adequate guidance on how to design co-creation systems in virtual worlds. To address this shortcoming, a 20-month action research project was conducted to study the user's experience and to identify design principles for virtual co-creation systems. In two action research cycles, a virtual co-creation system called Ideation Quest was created, deployed, evaluated, and improved. The study reveals how to design co-creation systems and enriches research on co-creation to fit the virtual world context. Practitioners receive a helpful framework to leverage virtual worlds for co-creation.
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| 7. |
- Leidner, D. E., et al.
(författare)
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THE CARE THEORY OF DIGNITY AMID PERSONAL DATA DIGITALIZATION
- 2021
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Ingår i: Mis Quarterly. - : MIS Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 45:1, s. 343-370
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the rapidly evolving permeation of digital technologies into everyday human life, we are witnessing an era of personal data digitalization. Personal data digitalization refers to the sociotechnical encounters associated with the digitization of personal data for use in digital technologies. Personal data digitalization is being applied to central attributes of human life-health, cognition, and emotion-with the purported aim of helping individuals live longer, healthier lives endowed with the requisite cognition and emotion for responding to life situations and other people in a manner that enables human flourishing. A concern taking hold in manifold fields ranging from IT, bioethics, and law, to philosophy and religion is that as personal data digitalization permeates ever more areas of human existence, humans risk becoming artifacts of technology production. This concern brings to center stage the very notion of what it means to be human, a notion encapsulated in the term human dignity, which broadly refers to the recognition that human beings possess intrinsic value and, as such, are endowed with certain rights and should be treated with respect. In this paper, we identify, describe, and transform what we know about personal data digitalization into a higher order theoretical structure around the concept of human dignity. The result of our analysis is the CARE (claims, affronts, response, equilibrium) theory of dignity amid personal data digitalization, a theory that explains the relationship of personal data digitalization to human dignity. Building upon the CARE theory as a foundation, researchers in a variety of IS research streams could develop mid-range theories for empirical testing or could use the CARE theory as an overarching lens for interpreting emerging IS phenomena. Practitioners and government agencies can also use the CARE theory to understand the opportunities and risks of personal data digitalization and to develop policies and systems that respect the dignity of employees and citizens.
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| 8. |
- Lindgren, Rikard, et al.
(författare)
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Design principles for competence management systems : A synthesis of an action research study
- 2004
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Ingår i: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - : University of Minnesota, MIS Research Center. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 28:3, s. 435-472
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Even though the literature on competence in organizations recognizes the need to align organization level core competence with individual level job competence, it does not consider the role of information technology in managing competence across the macro and micro levels. To address this shortcoming, we embarked on an action research study that develops and tests design principles for competence management systems. This research develops an integrative model of competence that not only outlines the interaction between organizational and individual level competence and the role of technology in this process, but also incorporates a typology of competence (competence-in-stock, competence-in-use, and competence-in-the-making). Six Swedish organizations participated in our research project, which took 30 months and consisted of two action research cycles involving numerous data collection strategies and interventions such as prototypes. In addition to developing a set of design principles and considering their implications for both research and practice, this article includes a self-assessment of the study by evaluating it according to the criteria for canonical action research.
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| 9. |
- Lindgren, Rikard, et al.
(författare)
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The Dialectics Of Technology Standardization
- 2021
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Ingår i: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 45:3, s. 1187-1212
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Technology standardization unfolds as a dialectic process marked by paradoxical tensions. However, standardization research has yet to provide a dialectic analysis of how tensions and management responses interact recursively over time, and with what effect. In this paper, we apply dialectics to analyze an action research study of a Swedish initiative that developed and diffused a technology standard to facilitate the integration of disparate IT systems in road haulage firms. Drawing on the technology standardization literature and our empirical analysis, we engage in midrange theorizing to capture the recursive dynamics through which standard-setters construct and respond to manifestations of three latent tensions: development versus diffusion activities, private versus public interests, and local versus global solutions. Our resulting dialectic theorizing explicates how standard-setters bring these latent tensions into being; how they construct salient tensions through the oppositional logics of polarization, complementarity, and mutuality; how they manage these tensions through splitting, integrating, and suspension responses; and how consequential functional, architectural, and organizational standardization outcomes produce a new social order in which new tensions emerge. These theoretical insights contribute to both the technology standardization and dialectics literatures.
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| 10. |
- Lindgren, Rikard, 1973, et al.
(författare)
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THE DIALECTICS OF TECHNOLOGY STANDARDIZATION
- 2021
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Ingår i: Mis Quarterly. - : MIS Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 45:3, s. 1187-1212
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Technology standardization unfolds as a dialectic process marked by paradoxical tensions. However, standardization research has yet to provide a dialectic analysis of how tensions and management responses interact recursively over time, and with what effect. In this paper, we apply dialectics to analyze an action research study of a Swedish initiative that developed and diffused a technology standard to facilitate the integration of disparate IT systems in road haulage firms. Drawing on the technology standardization literature and our empirical analysis, we engage in midrange theorizing to capture the recursive dynamics through which standard-setters construct and respond to manifestations of three latent tensions: development versus diffusion activities, private versus public interests, and local versus global solutions. Our resulting dialectic theorizing explicates how standard-setters bring these latent tensions into being; how they construct salient tensions through the oppositional logics of polarization, complementarity, and mutuality; how they manage these tensions through splitting, integrating, and suspension responses; and how consequential functional, architectural, and organizational standardization outcomes produce a new social order in which new tensions emerge. These theoretical insights contribute to both the technology standardization and dialectics literatures.
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