How to Do Things With Words

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

Extant literature has increased our understanding of specific aspects of digital transformation, however we lack a comprehensive portrait of its nature and implications. Through a review of 282 works, we inductively build a framework of digital transformation articulated across eight building blocks. Our framework foregrounds digital transformation as a process where digital technologies create disruptions triggering strategic responses from organizations that seek to alter their value creation paths while managing the structural changes and organizational barriers that affect the positive and negative outcomes of this process. Building on this framework, we elaborate a research agenda that proposes [1] examining the role of dynamic capabilities, and [2] accounting for ethical issues as important avenues for future strategic IS research on digital transformation.

Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda

Employees in many contemporary organizations work with flexible routines and flexible technologies. When those employees find that they are unable to achieve their goals in the current environment, how do they decide whether they should change the composition of their routines or the materiality of the technologies with which they work? The perspective advanced in this paper suggests that the answer to this question depends on how human and material agencies – the basic building blocks common to both routines and technologies – are imbricated. Imbrication of human and material agencies creates infrastructure in the form of routines and technologies that people use to carry out their work. Routine or technological infrastructure used at any given moment is the result of previous imbrications of human and material agencies. People draw on this infrastructure to construct a perception that a technology either constrains their ability to achieve their goals, or that the technology affords the possibility of achieving new goals. The case of a computer simulation technology for automotive design is used to illustrate this framework suggests that perceptions of constraint leads people to change their technologies while perceptions of affordance lead people to change their routines. I use this imbrication metaphor to suggest how a human agency approach to technology can usefully incorporate notions of material agency into its explanations of organizational change.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1607718_code1198457.pdf?abstractid=1607718&mirid=1

When Flexible Routines Meet Flexible Technologies: Affordance, Constraint, and the Imbrication of Human and Material Agencies

This article presents a review of the book “Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems,” by W.R. Scott.

Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems

In the last few years, leading-edge research from information systems, strategic management, and economics have separately informed our understanding of platforms and infrastructures in the digital age. Our motivation for undertaking this special issue rests in the conviction that it is significant to discuss platforms and infrastructures concomitantly, while enabling knowledge from diverse disciplines to cross-pollinate to address critical, pressing policy challenges and inform strategic thinking across both social and business spheres. In this editorial, we review key insights from the literature on digital infrastructures and platforms, present emerging research themes, highlight the contributions developed from each of the six articles in this special issue, and conclude with suggestions for further research.

/pdf/introduction-platforms-and-infrastructures-in-the-digital-2uxlfxvjle.pdf

Introduction-Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age

In this paper, we examine the challenges around the development and scalability of information infrastructures. We identify two possible solutions proposed in the literature, one emphasizing more top-down control and the need for a clear IT governance framework, and a second arguing for a more flexible approach since absolute control is impossible and only leads to drift and unintended outcomes. We suggest that there is a clear gap in the literature in better understanding how to govern the development of information infrastructures using a bottom-up approach. We build on research that approaches IS development as a collective action problem and focus on how different actors frame the infrastructure as a public and private good, and how the framing process is underpinned by actors' different ideologies. We use our theoretical approach to examine the framing of the development of a regional health information infrastructure in Crete. Our analysis examines how different actors frame the infrastructure as a collective action good and explore their ideological positioning. We explore the struggle around meanings attributed to the good over time as being a public or private one in establishing or sustaining relations of power, and how legitimacy is challenged or reinforced. Finally, we develop contributions on the collective action challenges in infrastructure development and suggest how a polycentric approach to governance might be further developed to promote the ongoing cultivation of information infrastructures from the bottom up.

Information Infrastructure Development and Governance as Collective Action

Negotiating ICT development and use: The case of a telemedicine system in the healthcare region of Crete

We illustrate the emergent spectrum of human–AI hybrids in digital platforms and discuss some implications for IS research by using one classof digital platforms: digital labor platforms. Recognizing the service orientation and the expanding role of AI in digital platforms, we definedigital labor platforms3 as online environments where digital services are sourced and delivered in exchange for compensation,4 with constituenttasks for the services determined, executed, and coordinated by human and AI agents. Work done on these platforms is, by definition, digitaland can thus be modularized into tasks which require a range of cognitive skills for execution and coordination, providing a rich context toillustrate human–AI hybrids and some key issues for next-generation digital platforms

Next generation digital platforms : toward human-AI hybrids

In this paper, we argue that any effort to understand the state of the Information Systems field has to view IS research as a series of normative choices and value judgments about the ends of research. To assist a systematic questioning of the various ends of IS research, we propose a pragmatic framework that explores the choices IS researchers make around theories and methodologies, ethical methods of conduct, desirable outcomes, and the long-term impact of the research beyond a single site and topic area. We illustrate our framework by considering and questioning the explicit and implicit choices of topics, design and execution, and the representation of knowledge in experimental research--research often considered to be largely beyond value judgments and power relations. We conclude with the implications of our pragmatic framework by proposing practical questions for all IS researchers to consider in making choices about relevant topics, design and execution, and representation of findings in their research.

/pdf/the-ends-of-information-systems-research-a-pragmatic-k880kgn3ya.pdf

Panos Constantinides

Papers

Introduction-Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age

Information Infrastructure Development and Governance as Collective Action

Negotiating ICT development and use: The case of a telemedicine system in the healthcare region of Crete

Next generation digital platforms : toward human-AI hybrids

The ends of information systems research: a pragmatic framework