An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems.

Human beings are described by many spiritual traditions as ‘blind’ or ‘asleep’ or ‘in a dream.’ These terms refers to the limited attenuated state of consciousness of most human beings caught up in patterns of conditioned thought, feeling and perception, which prevent the development of our latent, higher spiritual possibilities. In the words of Idries Shah: “Man, like a sleepwalker who suddenly ‘comes to’ on some lonely road has in general no correct idea as to his origins or his destiny.” In some religious traditions, such as Christianity and Islam, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness. Other traditions use similar metaphors to describe the spiritual condition of humanity:

The Human Condition.

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

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Qualitative Research in Information Systems

https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid%3A7bdae86a-0209-4e53-83d0-c531dd3465ec/datastream/OBJ/download

Artificial Intelligence (AI) : Multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges, opportunities, and agenda for research, practice and policy

This study draws on organizational semiotics models to analyze e-document as a composite digital sign. E-documents are increasingly becoming important in contemporary digital world. Yet research specifically focusing on analyzing it as an important information systems component remains limited. Moreover, in organizational semiotics research, semantic relationships between signs, objects and intepretants have traditionally been viewed from a single triangle perspective. This study therefore seeks to analyze e-document as a composite digital sign from multiple triangle perspective, using e-boarding pass as an illustrative case.

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Semiotic Analysis of E-Document as a Composite Digital Sign: The Case of E-Boarding Pass

Public Sector Procurement Digitalization and National Development: The Case of Ghana

The purpose of this study is to understand how digital process virtualization can be used to address problems with physical admission in a developing country university. Bright ICT research calls for solutions to practical problems in society including education. However, related studies in education have focused more on teaching and learning. Therefore, less is known about education management and administration. This study addresses this research gap through an action case study of a digital process virtualization project to address problems with a physical admission system in the University of Ghana. The research findings show that problems such as delays, inconvenience of submitting physical documents, difficulty of accessing lecturers in their offices to serve as referees and untimely feedback can be addressed by inscribing virtual functionalities into digital platforms for affordance actualization by users. However, in situations where personal knowledge is needed for providing academic references, additional functionalities are needed to promote digital interactions between actors.

Brightening Physical University Admission Through Digital Process Virtualization: An Action Case Study in Ghana

The purpose of this study is to understand how social structures shape the development of e-government portals and vice versa. E-Government portal research has focused on adoption, service delivery, accessibility, challenges, failures, evaluation and less on the co-shaping relationship between structure and interaction. Therefore, a knowledge gap exists on how social structure and interactions co-shape each other. This study focusses on the experiences of how the social structures shaped the development of a government-to-employee portal and vice versa in a developing country. It uses interpretive case study approach as methodology and the structuration theory (ST) as analytical lens to understand the how structure and interaction co-shaped each other. The findings show ST can explain the co-shaping relationship between structure and interaction from a developing country perspective. This study contributes to research, practice and policy by offering rich insights into how social structures and interactions co-shape each other.

John Effah

Papers

Semiotic Analysis of E-Document as a Composite Digital Sign: The Case of E-Boarding Pass

Public Sector Procurement Digitalization and National Development: The Case of Ghana

Brightening Physical University Admission Through Digital Process Virtualization: An Action Case Study in Ghana

Development of Government-to-Employee Portals: A Developing Country Case Study