Designing Information Systems Jonas Sjöström Designing Information Systems A Pragmatic Account Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Auditorium Minus, Gustavianum, Uppsala, Monday, October 25, 2010 at 13:15 for the degree of Doctor of Phi- losophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Abstract Sjöström, J. 2010. Designing Information Systems. A pragmatic account. 268 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-506-2149-5. Information technology (IT) plays an increasingly important role for individuals, organiza- tions, markets, and society as a whole. IT systems are artefacts (human made objects) de- signed for various purposes. Given the multiple-purpose characteristics of computers, such artefacts may, for example, support workflows, perform advanced calculations, support hu- man communication and socialization, enable delivery of services and digital products, facili- tate learning, or simply entertain. The diverging application areas for IT present a challenge to designers who, as a consequence, have to address increasingly divergent design situations. There have been numerous arguments suggesting that the IT artefact has been 'taken for granted', and needs to be understood and conceptualized better within information systems (IS) research. This thesis is based on the pragmatist notion that one important value of IT resides in its potential to support human collaboration. Such a belief has implications for the development of (1) knowledge aimed for action, change and improvement; (2) knowledge about actions, activities and practices; and (3) knowledge through action, experimentation and exploration. A view of the IT artefact is outlined, showing it as part of a social and techno- logical context. IT artefact design is explained in relation to the induction of social change. The notion of stakeholder-centric design is advocated, along with practical theory to promote a situated understanding of use qualities and design ideals. A set of meta-theoretical implica- tions for design-oriented IS research is proposed. The research process consisted of five inquiries into different IT-reliant social contexts. In the first four inquiries, social and communicative qualities of IT artefacts were assessed, governed primarily by Dewey's notion of inquiry as a theory of knowledge. The fifth inquiry was a largescale action research project, including interventions into the social setting, and the design and implementation of a new IT artefact into that setting. Keywords: information systems, design, pragmatism, design research, it artefact Jonas Sjöström, Department of Informatics and Media, Box 256, Uppsala University, SE- 75105 Uppsala, Sweden © Jonas Sjöström 2010 ISBN 978-91-506-2149-5 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-130661 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-130661) Printed in Sweden by Universitetstryckeriet, Uppsala 2010. Dedicated to my beloved girls, Hannah, Linnea and Helene Acknowledgements The process of writing a thesis is by no means an isolated endeavor. I owe great thanks to many people who supported me in the completion of this work. First and foremost, my tutors Pär J. Ågerfalk, Göran Goldkuhl and Else Nygren deserve my deepest and most sincere gratitude for being my colleagues and mentors in the research process, and for continuously feeding me (knowingly or unknowingly; in mysterious ways) with motivation to keep walking the path of academia. A tribute to my colleagues at the department of Informatics and Media in Uppsala, and my former colleagues at the Informatics department at Jönköping International Business School. Many of you have been supportive and inspiring in a number of ways. This tribute is also valid for various participants in Forskarskolan Management och IT (MIT), and in the VITS research network. During the research process, I have cooperated with a number of fellow researchers and PhD students in projects. Therefore, a special thanks to Stefan Cronholm and Emma Eliasson, with whom I collaborated in the first period in my doctoral studies. Also, big thanks to members of the Swedish collaboration platform for municipalities (Sambruk), with special thanks to Janne Dicander, the late and missed Gunilla Hallqvist, Inger Larsson, Claes-Olof Ohlson, and Lennart Östblom. Thanks to my mother for proof-reading, and to my father for helping me debug a corrupted document in the final hours of writing my licentiate thesis, and for support in general. A greeting to all my musician friends for feeding my spirit with much needed creativity and inspiration. Rock on, Leo. Most importantly, I thank my beloved family, Hannah, Linnea and Helene, with hope they will forgive me for my unreasonable amount of late night work. Contents Part I: Introduction 1 Introduction . 13 1.1 The IT Artefact . 13 1.2 A Scattered Notion of Design Ideals . 15 1.3 Design-oriented IS research . 19 1.4 Research Problem . 20 1.5 Motivation . 22 1.6 Research Collaboration Context . 24 2 From Signs to Socio-Instrumental Action . 27 2.1 On Signs and Communication . 27 2.2 Socio-Instrumental Pragmatism . 30 2.3 Information Systems Actability Theory . 34 2.4 Philosophical and Ontological Manifesto . 39 3 Research Design . 41 3.1 Research Design at a Glance . 41 3.2 Inquiry as a Theory of Knowledge . 43 3.3 Design-oriented Action Research . 45 3.4 Research Ideals . 51 3.5 Overview of Inquiry Situations . 54 3.6 Inquiry Processes . 57 Part II: Five Cases of Inquiry 4 Evaluation of the Scheduling System . 63 4.1 Overview . 63 4.2 Theory Base and Theoretical Concerns . 63 4.3 Inquiry Details . 66 4.4 Inquiry Results . 68 4.5 Contributions to Theory Development . 74 5 Evaluation of The Syllabus Database . 77 5.1 Inquiry Overview . 77 5.2 Theory Base and Theoretical Concerns . 77 5.3 Inquiry Details . 81 5.4 Inquiry Results . 86 5.5 Contributions to Theory Development . 93 6 Evaluation of The Library Search System . 95 6.1 Inquiry Overview . 95 6.2 Theory Base and Theoretical Concerns . 98 6.3 Inquiry Details . 100 6.4 Inquiry Results . 106 6.5 Contributions to Theory Development . 111 7 Evaluation of The Social Web Shop . 115 7.1 Inquiry Overview . 115 7.2 Theory Base and Theoretical Concerns . 115 7.3 Inquiry Details . 118 7.4 Inquiry Results . 120 7.5 Contributions to Theory Development . 122 8 The LSS Inquiry . 125 8.1 Inquiry Overview . 125 8.2 Theory Base and Theoretical Concerns . 135 8.3 Inquiry Details . 140 8.4 Inquiry Results . 155 8.5 Contributions to Theory Development . 160 Part III: Theory Development 9 Pragmatics of the IT Artefact . 165 9.1 IT Artefacts as Communication Media . 165 9.2 IT Artefacts as Rule-Based Agents . 170 9.3 The Compound IT Artefact . 173 10 Pragmatics of Information Systems Design . 179 10.1 A Pragmatic View of Design . 179 10.2 Stakeholder-centricity . 183 10.3 The Use Quality Matrix: A Typology Of Use Qualities . 185 10.4 The Use Quality Matrix in Action . 188 11 Design-oriented IS Reseach . 197 11.1 Representation of Design Knowledge . 197 11.2 An Analytic Framework for Design-oriented Research . 202 11.3 Guidance for Adopting the Analytic Framework . 205 11.4 Pragmatic Design Theory . 205 Part IV: Conclusions and Implications 12 Concluding Discussion . 217 12.1 Re-visiting the Research Questions . 217 12.2 Implications for Practice . 220 12.3 Implications for Research . 221 12.4 Research Outlook . 228 Part V: Appendices Appendix A: Action Diagrams . 247 Appendix B: Inquiry #3 Interview Template . 249 Appendix C: LSS Inquiry Design Examples . 253 Part I: Introduction 1. Introduction This study aims at conceptualizing the IT artefact, its design ideals, and re- search into IT artefact design. A background to these three issues is discussed in sections 1.1 - 1.3. The problem domain, the purpose and the research ques- tions are presented in section 1.4. Section 1.5 introduces the philosophical approach and its rationale, and section 1.6 depicts the collaborative character- istics of the research process, and gives credits to the author’s research part- ners. 1.1 The IT Artefact Information Technology (IT) is doubtless an integral part of the shaping of modern society, increasingly intersecting business life and our everyday ex- periences. In the midst of this, the academic field of information systems (IS) searches for its identity as a discipline. Benbasat and Zmud (2003) propose that the identity of the IS discipline is vague due to too much "borrowing" of theory from neighbouring disciplines (e.g. computer science). They claim that there is a need for IS researchers to identify the core of the discipline, and pro- pose such a core in the form of a nomological net for IS research, consisting of the following concepts and their relations: IT artefact, IT usage, Impact of usage on the social setting, IT managerial, methodological, and operational practices, and IT managerial, methodological, and operational capabilities The term artefact refers to any human-made object. The IT artefact, in the view of Benbasat and Zmud, is regarded as a tool, used to perform tasks within some social setting. They propose that IS research needs to address the con- cepts in the nomological net as a strategy to promote the cognitive legitmacy of the IS field – and to establish a distinction in the way phenomena are stud- ied in IS and in other disciplines. The interest paid in the artefact is related to a recent call to ’theorize the IT artefact’ in IS research (Orlikowski and Ia- cono, 2001). Orlikowski and Iacono point out that IS researchers have taken the artefact for granted, and assert five premises1 for theorizing the IT artefact. 1The five premises will be further discussed (section 3.4) and operationalized (section 12.3) in the thesis. 13 Benbasat and Zmud’s nomological net has provoced a number of responses from other scholars. For example, Alter (2006) challenges Benbasat and Zmud’s nomological net, proposing that the concept of a work system, rather than IT artefact, constitutes the core of IS, since it better explains phenomena addressed in IS research.