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Phenomenology,
Organizational Politics,
and IT Design:
The Social Study of Information
Systems
Gianluigi Viscusi
University of Milan Bicocca, Italy

Gian Marco Campagnolo

University of Edinburgh, UK

Ylenia Curzi
Marco Biagi Foundation & University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Managing Director: Lindsay Johnston
Senior Editorial Director: Heather A. Probst
Book Production Manager: Sean Woznicki
Development Manager: Joel Gamon
Development Editor: Myla Harty
Acquisitions Editor: Erika Gallagher
Typesetter: Russell A. Spangler
Cover Design: Nick Newcomer, Lisandro Gonzalez

Published in the United States of America by

Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global)
701 E. Chocolate Avenue
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Tel: 717-533-8845
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E-mail: [email protected]
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Copyright © 2012 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher.
Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or
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Artwork within the cover image ©2009, by Mauro Bonaventura. Detail from “Multicolor glass sphere.” Flameworked.
www.maurobonaventura.com. Used with permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phenomenology, organizational politics, and IT design: the social study of information systems / Gianluigi Viscusi, Gian
Marco Campagnolo, and Ylenia Curzi, editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “This book offers a new look at the latest research and critical issues within the field of information systems by
creating solid theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical findings of social developments”-- Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4666-0303-5 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-0304-2 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-0305-9 (print & perpetual
access) 1. Information storage and retrieval systems--Design. 2. Information technology--Social aspects. 3. Social media.
4. Communication and technology. 5. Organizational sociology. I. Viscusi, Gianluigi, 1972- II. Campagnolo, Gian Marco,
1977- III. Curzi, Ylenia, 1976-
QA76.9.S88P49 2012
302.23’1--dc23
2011044983

British Cataloguing in Publication Data

A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the
authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.
Editorial Advisory Board
Chrisanthi Avgerou, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Giorgio De Michelis, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Paolo De Paoli, Luiss Rome, Italy
Tommaso M. Fabbri, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Giolo Fele, University of Trento, Italy
Giovan Francesco Lanzara, University of Bologna, Italy
Kenneth Liberman, University of Oregon, USA
Neil Pollock, University of Edinburgh, UK

List of Reviewers
Federico Cabitza, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Vincenzo D’Andrea, University of Trento, Italy
Paolo De Paoli, Luiss Guido Carli, Italy
Giolo Fele, University of Trento, Italy
Antonios Kaniadakis, Open University, UK
Andrea Resca, Luiss Guido Carli, Italy
Table of Contents

Preface...................................................................................................................................................xii

Section 1
Phenomenology and Information Systems Research

Chapter 1
Why Is Information System Design Interested in Ethnography? Sketches of an Ongoing Story........... 1
Giolo Fele, University of Trento, Italy

Chapter 2
Experiencing Information Systems Research and Phenomenology:
The Case of Claudio Ciborra and Martin Heidegger............................................................................. 31
Paolo Depaoli, LUISS Guido Carli, Italy

Chapter 3
Heidegger’s Notion of Befindlichkeit and the Meaning of “Situated” in Social Inquiries.................... 47
Kenneth Liberman, University of Oregon, USA

Section 2
Phenomenology and IT Design

Chapter 4
Communities of Practice from a Phenomenological Stance: Lessons Learned for IS Design.............. 57
Giorgio De Michelis, University of Milan, Italy

Chapter 5
Knowing and Living as Data Assembly................................................................................................. 68
Jannis Kallinikos, London School of Economics, UK

Chapter 6
“Whatever Works”: Making Sense of Information Quality on Information System Artifacts.............. 79
Federico Cabitza, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Carla Simone, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Chapter 7
About Representational Artifacts and Their Role in Engineering....................................................... 111
Hilda Tellioğlu, Vienna University of Technology, Austria

Chapter 8
Representations, Institutions, and IS Design: Towards a Meth-Odos.................................................. 131
Gianluigi Viscusi, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

Section 3
Phenomenology and the Social Study of Information Systems

Chapter 9
Studying Information Infrastructures................................................................................................... 143
Petter Nielsen, University of Oslo, Norway

Chapter 10
Prioritizing Packaged Software Implementation Projects: The Significance of Gaps......................... 159
Nicholas J. Rowland, Pennsylvania State University, USA

Chapter 11
The Role of Management Consultants in Long-Term ERP Customization Trajectories:
A Case from the Italian Local Government......................................................................................... 176
Gian Marco Campagnolo, University of Edinburgh, UK

Chapter 12
Accumulation and Erosion of User Representations or How is Situated Design
Interaction Situated.............................................................................................................................. 196
Sampsa Hyysalo, Aalto University School of Business, Finland

Chapter 13
Strategic Ethnography and the Biography of Artefacts....................................................................... 221
Neil Pollock, University of Edinburgh, UK
Robin Williams, University of Edinburgh, UK

Section 4
Phenomenology, Organizational Politics, and Organizational Design

Chapter 14
The Horizons of Experience: The Limits of Rational Thought upon Irrational Phenomena............... 252
Tony Hines, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Chapter 15
Social Practice Design......................................................................................................................... 273
Gianni Jacucci, University of Trento, Italy
Gian Marco Campagnolo, University of Edinburgh, UK

Chapter 16
IS-Related Organizational Change and the Necessity of Techno-Organizational
Co-Design(-In-Use): An Experience with Ethnomethodologically Oriented Ethnography................ 289
Chiara Bassetti, University of Bologna, Italy

Chapter 17
A Drifting Service Development:Applying Sociotechnical Design in an Ambient
Assisted Living Project........................................................................................................................ 311
Kai-Uwe Loser, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Alexander Nolte, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Michael Prilla, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Rainer Skrotzki, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Thomas Herrmann, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

Chapter 18
Organizational Learning and Action Research: The Organization of Individuals............................... 324
Roberto Albano, University of Turin, Italy
Tommaso M. Fabbri, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Ylenia Curzi, Marco Biagi Foundation, Italy & University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 343

About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 382

Index.................................................................................................................................................... 389
Detailed Table of Contents

Preface................................................................................................................................................... xii

Section 1
Phenomenology and Information Systems Research
Section 1 introduces the reader to the relationship between phenomenology and information sys-
tems research.

Chapter 1
Why Is Information System Design Interested in Ethnography? Sketches of an Ongoing Story........... 1
Giolo Fele, University of Trento, Italy
This chapter discusses the way information systems research, adopt, and encounter ethnography, focus-
ing on the tensions between the two disciplinary areas. Indeed, the analyses carried out in the chapter
shows how these tensions and “dilemmas” uncover an inedited research area for social scientists and
researchers in the human sciences; in particular, the relationship between information systems design
and ethnography presents items of interest.

Chapter 2
Experiencing Information Systems Research and Phenomenology:
The Case of Claudio Ciborra and Martin Heidegger............................................................................. 31
Paolo Depaoli, LUISS Guido Carli, Italy
This chapter aims at exemplifying the advantages of an in-depth examination of theories and practices
basic outlooks and assumptions capable of promoting novel methods and areas of investigation in IS
research. To address the issue, Ciborra’s journey in the information systems research world and his
“escalation” to Heidegger’s phenomenology are explored.

Chapter 3
Heidegger’s Notion of Befindlichkeit and the Meaning of “Situated” in Social Inquiries.................... 47
Kenneth Liberman, University of Oregon, USA
This chapter centers around the topic of situated knowledge, a growing concern in the field of informa-
tion systems. By adopting a phenomenological perspective, with a strong ethnomethodological orienta-
tion, the author discusses and presents his argument starting from an examination of Section 29 of the
fundamental text of Heidegger’s Being and Time.
 Section 2
Phenomenology and IT Design
Section 2 investigates how the concepts proposed by the phenomenological approach make it possible
to recast the idea and the use of formal representations as a challenge for the information systems
design. Indeed, a phenomenological perspective on information systems design must let the complex
infrastructure of intertwined phenomena behind the contraposition between formal representations and
situated actions emerge. Thus, the final aim of Part 2 is to provide a contribution to a phenomenologi-
cal foundation of design science rooted in the complex life world (Lebenswelt) of information systems.

Chapter 4
Communities of Practice from a Phenomenological Stance: Lessons Learned for IS Design.............. 57
Giorgio De Michelis, University of Milan, Italy
This chapter discusses how the current environment of information affluence and media convergence
is constructing a comprehensive living and knowing habitat that induces the framing of life issues in
terms of data availability and the concomitant data permutations this encourages. The analysis aims to
let emerge how this environment differs from the work and professional settings in which information
technology has been studied.

Chapter 5
Knowing and Living as Data Assembly................................................................................................. 68
Jannis Kallinikos, London School of Economics, UK
This chapter contributes to the debate about the concept of community of practice, considering the lat-
ter as a means for understanding the behavior of the people using in their practice artifacts and sharing
spaces. The experience they share makes them a community and, when the space they share is a work-
space, of a community of practice. What emerges from this analysis offers to designers of ICT-based
applications, such as information systems, knowledge management systems, etc., some new hints on
the nature of those systems.

Chapter 6
“Whatever Works”: Making Sense of Information Quality on Information System Artifacts.............. 79
Federico Cabitza, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Carla Simone, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
This chapter addresses the question of how to study and design a technological support of work in
organizational domains. The topic is addressed by investigating, on the one hand, the differences and
complementarities between Information Systems (IS) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
perspectives/approaches to systems design; on the other hand, it addresses the problems of sense mak-
ing in information quality management by providing evidence of these issues in the healthcare domain.

Chapter 7
About Representational Artifacts and Their Role in Engineering....................................................... 111
Hilda Tellioğlu, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
This chapter is about showing how artifacts impact engineering work processes by representing the
important issues of individual and collaborative design work. After summarizing the state of the art in
engineering as a design process, artifacts and their representational role in design and engineering, a
selection of rich descriptions of artifacts’ creation and use in engineering work including team-based
coordination and decision activities is presented. The studies are based on ethnographic research carried
out for several years in different design and engineering companies.

Chapter 8
Representations, Institutions, and IS Design: Towards a Meth-Odos.................................................. 131
Gianluigi Viscusi, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
This chapter discusses some issues emerging from the phenomenological analyses carried out by Claudio
Ciborra, in particular in the Labyrinths of Information. In particular, the chapter points out that concepts
such as Kairos, Drift, and Bricolage unveil a specific path (odos) for the information systems as a disci-
pline. This odos covers a meth-odos towards new opportunities offered to information systems design by
answering the provocation coming from considering information systems as infrastructures (Ge-stell).

Section 3
Phenomenology and the Social Study of Information Systems
Section 3 introduces a set of research projects, which the authors feel comfortable designating as being
social studies of information systems. The common denominator of the chapters enclosed in this sec-
tion is the search for the possibility of a sociology of technology, and of Information Infrastructures in
particular. Each chapter contains an Information Infrastructure concrete case study but it also leaves
space for a modification of sociology itself, and in particular to some sociological concepts inherited
by Information Systems studies from the ethnomethodological and micro-sociological tradition of study.

Chapter 9
Studying Information Infrastructures................................................................................................... 143
Petter Nielsen, University of Oslo, Norway
This chapter focuses on the Information Infrastructure’s shared nature, its openness, its always being an
extension of existing ones, the installed base, its heterogeneity, and its evolving nature.

Chapter 10
Prioritizing Packaged Software Implementation Projects: The Significance of Gaps......................... 159
Nicholas J. Rowland, Pennsylvania State University, USA
By making reference to the ‘fit-gap work’ taking place during ERP implementations, this chapter identifies
how participants found ways to manage the reflexivity of their understandings. In particular, the author
makes reference to the “prioritizing/de-prioritizing” work. What this study suggests is that it is true that,
according to ethnomethodology, people do not know what they mean when they produce accounts, but
it is also true that they know that, and by knowing that, people’s major occupation is to produce work-
arounds in order to reduce the noise of the reflexivity of understandings.

Chapter 11
The Role of Management Consultants in Long-Term ERP Customization Trajectories:
A Case from the Italian Local Government......................................................................................... 176
Gian Marco Campagnolo, University of Edinburgh, UK
A further modification of the received sociological notion of interaction via ethnomethodology concerns
the principle of seeking a perspicuous setting, with its emphasis on bilateral relationships. This chapter
recognizes the role of other spaces in stabilizing member’s local streams of activity: how key tensions
between distributed actors and social worlds contribute to the framing of a particular discourse on in-
formation technology development for the public administration, which affects workplace interactions
between consultants, management, staff personnel, and line workers in an Italian public sector organiza-
tion dealing with a large scale information system implementation.

Chapter 12
Accumulation and Erosion of User Representations or How is Situated Design
Interaction Situated.............................................................................................................................. 196
Sampsa Hyysalo, Aalto University School of Business, Finland
The empirical focus on technologies, such as Information Infrastructures, makes the authors regard them
as distinct and discontinuous with the technologies populating previous epochs of human history. As
stated by Sampsa Hyysalo in this chapter: “Zimbabwe water pumps, enterprise resource planning sys-
tems, and many health ICTs have more flexible compositions from any other particular time to another
than, for instance, pens, bicycles, or electricity grids.”

Chapter 13
Strategic Ethnography and the Biography of Artefacts....................................................................... 221
Neil Pollock, University of Edinburgh, UK
Robin Williams, University of Edinburgh, UK
Pollock and Williams maintain that local studies of immediate settings of action inevitably draw atten-
tion to the scope for discretion but provide a poor vantage point for exploring longer-term processes of
technology-organizational alignment. Thus, they attempt to develop the beginnings of a vocabulary to
capture what they describe as the biography of artefacts framework.

Section 4
Phenomenology, Organizational Politics, and Organizational Design
Section 4 investigates the consequences of the phenomenological orientation for action research, and
the possible alternative modes of approaching action research in organizations. The aim is twofold. On
the one hand, to continue on the path suggested by Ciborra, i.e. cultivating pluralism in information
systems and organizations research. On the other hand, to invite scholars and practitioners to reflect
on the approaches and methods (that might be) employed to guide ICT-related organizational change
consistently with organizational members’ needs.

Chapter 14
The Horizons of Experience: The Limits of Rational Thought upon Irrational Phenomena............... 252
Tony Hines, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
This chapter reflects on Husserl’s notion of ‘horizon of experience,’ and offers insights into the
possibilities for dealing with organizational change related to information systems by applying
phenomenology.

Chapter 15
Social Practice Design......................................................................................................................... 273
Gianni Jacucci, University of Trento, Italy
Gian Marco Campagnolo, University of Edinburgh, UK
This chapter discusses the core characteristics of Social Practice Design (i.e. a form of action research
based on phenomenology and counselling) through the description of its application into an electronic
small- and medium-sized enterprise.

Chapter 16
IS-Related Organizational Change and the Necessity of Techno-Organizational
Co-Design(-In-Use): An Experience with Ethnomethodologically Oriented Ethnography................ 289
Chiara Bassetti, University of Bologna, Italy
This chapter considers some aspects of an ethnomethodologically oriented ethnography carried out in
a medical Emergency Response Centre before, during, and after an IS-related organizational change.
Starting from that, it discusses the necessity of co-design(-in-use), and the possibilities provided by
ethnomethodological ethnography as a tool for action research in IT design and techno-organizational
change management.

Chapter 17
A Drifting Service Development:Applying Sociotechnical Design in an Ambient
Assisted Living Project........................................................................................................................ 311
Kai-Uwe Loser, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Alexander Nolte, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Michael Prilla, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Rainer Skrotzki, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Thomas Herrmann, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
This chapter discusses a multi-faceted approach to socio-technical design by presenting the case of an
action research carried out within an ambient assisting living project. Authors’ observations also show
the limitations of up-front process planning for complex environments such as service processes.

Chapter 18
Organizational Learning and Action Research: The Organization of Individuals............................... 324
Roberto Albano, University of Turin, Italy
Tommaso M. Fabbri, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Ylenia Curzi, Marco Biagi Foundation, Italy & University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
This chapter addresses the control and regulation of organizational change from the standpoint of a non-
dualistic view of the relation between individuals and organizations, rooted in Elias’s social theory, in
a theory of organizational learning, and in a conception of action research in support of organizational
learning, which are consistent with each other. The analysis of an action research project in a public
administration shows that the above-mentioned theoretical and methodological references can be com-
bined, leading to an original interpretation of organizational change, and to the identification of prior
rules to guide change accordingly to individuals’ needs.

Compilation of References................................................................................................................ 343

About the Contributors..................................................................................................................... 382

Index.................................................................................................................................................... 389
xii

Preface

“Our going back to the roots of phenomenology in order to restore the original notion of situatedness
and compare it with the contemporary debate on situated action leaves us with three main research
agendas. The first, leaning towards AI and cognitive science, states that situated action can be
implemented through computer programs interacting with the environment and processing symbolic
representations of what happens in the environment. The second, which claims to be an alternative
grounded in the social sciences (phenomenology via ethnomethodology) is based on a social ecology
of the mind: goals and plans are a vague guide to action. They must be complemented by the ad hoc
improvisations of humans exploiting the circumstances and what the world offers at the moment of
action. [...] Finally, we have Heidegger’s research program where the notion of situation includes at
all moments the inner life of the actor, his or her mind and heart, and where any form of
understanding is situated, meaning ‘affected.’ It is the pathos that characterizes the whole person in
his or her situatedness in the world (Heidegger, 2002, p. 192).” (Ciborra, 2006, p. 139)

INTRODUCTION

In February 2005, a composite group of scholars from different disciplines met in a nice Casa Rustica
close to the Antica Vetreria on the Sarca River, at the entrance of Val di Genova, a small valley in the
Italian Alps. It was the first of a series of events called Alpis: Alpine Ski Seminar on Information Systems.
Since 2005, the purpose of that gathering of people has been to promote the social study of Information
Systems in the Mediterranean region and the emergence of a European/Mediterranean identity for the
scientific community on Information Systems. The Alpis ski seminar has been an “Institute des Hautes
Ètudes” with a ludic/sport component, where high quality contributions from young researchers in the
field have been presented in four subsequent days of discussion with peers, in an environment enriched
by contributions of established senior researchers. Both the format, promoting interaction and social-
ity, and the scientific dimension, promoting interdisciplinarity while maintaining a specific focus, have
been the distinct trait of the Seminar series. According to the invitation of Claudio Ciborra and Gianni
Jacucci—the Scientific Coordinators of the Alpis Ski Seminars first edition—the research on Infor-
mation Systems being presented and discussed in the Alpis community has been characterized by the
reference to philosophical inquiry and to phenomenology in particular. The aim of this book is to be an
‘ideal prolongation’ of the endeavour brought forward by the Alpis community to analyze the concepts,
hypotheses, and research strategies proposed by the work of Claudio Ciborra. It will do so according
to the following three directions:
 xiii

• direction 1: how phenomenological concepts make it possible to recast the idea and the use of
formal representations in computer programming;
• direction 2: what are the changes in the practices of planning, designing, and deploying informa-
tion systems in the case of global Information Infrastructures implemented across multiple sites
within large branch-plan organizational structures, and how do these changes challenge core as-
sumptions embedded in received notions of phenomenology via ethnomethodology;
• direction 3: what are the consequences of the phenomenological orientation for the form of ap-
plied research which combines theory and practice, research and action for change; and what are
the possible alternative modes of approaching action research in organizations.

This aims to provide relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in
the mentioned three research directions of Social Study of Information Systems. Furthermore, the over-
all mission of this publication is to keep alive one of the most valuable teachings of Claudio Ciborra:
“addressing the cultivation of alternative modes of approaching organizations as benchmarks for infor-
mation system research.” Values expressed in these words include pluralism and interdisciplinarity of
scientific knowledge creation in the information systems research domain. This book proposal should
be intended as a significant step towards that direction. The target audience of this book is composed
of professionals and researchers working in the field of Organizations and Information Systems stud-
ies, especially those who are interested in a cross fertilization among different, yet complementary and
strictly connected domains of scientific knowledge, consisting of information systems research, science
studies, and organizational studies.
The book is structured in four sections: Phenomenology and Information Systems Research (Section
1); Phenomenology and IT Design (Section 2); Phenomenology and The Social Study of Information
Systems (Section 3); and Phenomenology, Organizational Politics, and Organizational Design (Section
4). Each section is introduced by a dedicated section of the preface.

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHENOMENOLOGY

AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH

The three chapters in Section 1 introduce the reader to the relationship between phenomenology and
information systems research. The first chapter, authored by Giolo Fele, discusses the way information
systems research adopts and encounters ethnography, focusing on the tensions between the two disciplinary
areas. In particular, the analyses carried out by Fele show how these tensions and “dilemmas” uncover
an inedited research area for social scientists and researchers in the human sciences; in particular, the
relationship between information systems design and ethnography presents items of interests, “which
may derive from long-standing inquiry but are still extraordinarily topical” (Fele, this volume). These
items come out from a dialectic between two forms of knowledge, that Fele let emerge through the dis-
cussion of the tension between pairs of concepts: on the one hand, the tension between metis (‘cunning
knowledge’ or ‘knack’) and techne; on the other hand between bricolage and engineering. Techne and
engineering mainly rest on universal principles organized analytically into logical, decomposable, and
verifiable steps. Whereas metis and bricolage rely on personal and tacit knowledge that resists simpli-
fication into transmissible and verifiable deductive principles. In a sense, this tension is reminiscent
of the dialectic between the science of the artificial and the science of the concrete. Notwithstanding,
xiv

the chapter claims for a critical approach to this tension grounded in the belief that “techne and metis,
engineering and bricolage, are intimately bound up with each other.” (Fele, this volume).
Liberman’s chapter centers around the topic of situated knowledge, a growing concern in the field of
information systems. Liberman adopts a phenomenological perspective, with a strong ethnomethodologi-
cal orientation. A student of Peter Berger, Herbert Marcuse, and Hubert Dreyfus (1990), but especially
of Harold Garfinkel (2002), Liberman discusses and presents his argument starting from an examination
of Section 29 of the fundamental text of Heidegger’s Being and Time. Essentially, this very complex text
deals with the question of the adequacy of our modes of representation of social forms and with the ways
in which these forms are experienced in our daily lives. It is well known that technological solutions
create patterns and structures of social organizations, which impose life forms completely outside of our
experience with which we must come to terms, often with difficulty. Much of the engineering culture,
which is at the base of these technological solutions, is not oriented towards a social or sociological
perspective. Recently, however, we have seen a growing interest in the social contexts of technological
innovations (see Giolo Fele, this volume). This shift of attention by the specialists in business sciences,
management, and information systems, has led to a deepening of social approaches into the constitu-
tive mechanisms and the fundamental forms of social life (Dourish, 2001; De Michelis, 2008). Here we
see the important role, on the theoretical level, of phenomenology and ethnomethodology, and on the
methodological level, of ethnography, in identifying, recognizing, and describing the most profound
and most subtle aspects of our social life (Fele, 2008). Heidegger’s philosophy provides the ideas for
a non-trivial reflection on the foundations of situated understanding (Dreyfus, 1995; Winograd, 1995;
Ciborra, 2004). The issue of situated knowledge covered by Liberman’s chapter goes far beyond the usual
(although by no means obvious) importance attributed to context in the processes of communication.
See the following passage from Winograd and Flores (1986): “The computer, like any other medium,
must be understood in the context of communication and the larger network of equipment and practice
in which it is situated. A person who sits down at a word processor is not just creating a document, but
is writing a letter or a memo or a book. There is a complex social network in which these activities make
sense. It includes institutions (such as post offices and publishing companies), equipment (including word
processors and computer networks, but also all of the older technologies with which they may coexist),
practices (such as buying books and reading the daily mail), and conventions (such as the legal status of
written documents)” (pp. 5-6). Winograd and Flores’s seminal perspective recognizes the role and value
of the network of relations within which social action acquires meaning. Liberman’s contribution invites
us to look further and deeper. From an ethnomethodological perspective (Garfinkel, 2002), Liberman
invites us to explore the depths of our ordinary social world, the primitive place of our experience. As
an anthropologist who spent two years with some Australian Aboriginal tribes (Liberman, 1985) and
three years in a Tibetan monastery (Liberman, 2004), he encourages us to reflect on that world taken
for granted that we call reality. Similarly, as philosopher (Liberman, 2007), he sees the limits of reason
and the difficulties we fall into when we overconceptualize our worldly relations, when we entrust
entirely to what he calls “the formal analysis,” when we don’t recognize the very carnal, practical and
experiential character of social life. Starting from this basis, the paper offers grounds for reflection on
the field of information systems.
The chapter by Paolo Depaoli exemplifies the advantages that an in-depth examination of the basic
outlooks and assumptions of theories and practices provide to promote novel methods and areas of in-
vestigation in IS research. The key argument is that researchers typically make reference to philosophy
when they wish to address issues and topics considered crucial, but inappropriately treated or neglected
 xv

by current theories and practice. Ciborra’s journey in the information systems research world and his
“escalation to philosophy” (and precisely to Heidegger’s phenomenology) is reconstructed, interpreted,
and proposed as an example of that. This journey starts from the empirical finding that the integration of
information technologies in organizations never takes place as it was originally planned. Drifts normally
occur. The theories and methodologies which dominate the scene of management, organization, and
information systems are however unable to account for that. In fact, and in so much as they are based
on the method of the natural sciences, and on the idea of prior absolute rationality, they aim at imposing
uniformity, rather than addressing the complex reality and heterogeneity of the research settings under
investigation. Depaoli discusses some directions that Ciborra drew from Heidegger’s phenomenology
to proceed in the study of organizations and information systems design and implementation. Firstly,
the idea that information systems in organizations are particular singular worlds. Furthermore, the
concept-word of aletheia as a methodological beacon to approach the way in which information and
communication technologies become integrated in the organizational life. This approach lies in “un-
veiling” the core characteristics of an organization, which typically remain unnoticed because of the
“veiling” effect produced by the concepts drawn from dominant theories and methodologies. Finally,
the assumption of the “human existence in organizational life” as a centre of gravity. This implies that
the points of view of all stakeholders involved in the integration of information and communication
technologies in organizations is the standpoint to assess the effectiveness of information systems design
and implementation. The chapter highlights that the last point is especially crucial for a novel research
area, i.e. individual information systems present in the workplace and addressed to the fulfilment of
individual specific work related information necessities.
The contributions in the following Sections of the book move from some open issues concerning
the relationship between phenomenology(ies) and the social study of information systems, namely the
relationship with formal representations, with global phenomena, and with organizational (re)design
and intervention for organizational change.

THE USE OF FORMAL REPRESENTATION UNDER

A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Section 2 investigates how the concepts proposed by the phenomenological approach make it possible
to recast the idea and the use of formal representations as a challenge for the information systems de-
sign. In this section, a definition of representation in its relation with information systems together with
a discussion of the perspective on phenomenology adopted in Section 2 are first presented. Then, the
contribution of the different chapters are introduced and discussed. The starting point is the identification
of the generic attributes of the current environment of information affluence and media convergence,
where design takes place (Kallinikos, this volume). Subsequently, the focus moves from the general
attributes of the environment to the analysis of what characterize our being in the world as different
subjects having mutual relationships. Thus, the analysis considers from a phenomenological stance the
general concept of community as the root of the concept of community of practice, as a relevant concept
for understanding the social dimension of human life. This dimension often referred as situatedness
open new paths and possibilities for design, as the practice through which something new is brought
to existence (De Michelis, this volume). The following discussion considers two chapters aiming on
the one hand to address the general problem of how to design and deploy effective computational tools
xvi

that support actors of an organization domain in making sense of the information they manage (Cabitza
and Simone); on the other hand, to show the roles artifacts and their representational role in design and
engineering collaborative processes, through case studies based on ethnographic research (Tellioglu,
this volume). Finally, the chapter proposing to integrate an archaeology and a genealogy of emergent
representations in the early phases of information systems design is analyzed. The goal is to consider
representations as a way to challenge the opposition of organisational and engineering/technological
perspectives as not reducible facets of design (Viscusi, this volume).
As pointed out by Kallinikos (1995) representation is technology in terms of “an overall world ori-
entation concerned with the objectification of the natural and social worlds in ways which render them
amenable to calculation and mastery.” Furthermore representation is technology in terms of “an ensemble
of diverse and minute techniques which embody and realize such an orientation” (Kallinikos, 1995),
namely an ensemble of representations (see Viscusi, this volume). As pointed out by Ciborra (2002):

“When approaching an organizational phenomenon we encounter at least two distinct forms of evidence.
First, we are ready to deploy a set of ideas and models taken for granted in the domain of organization
theories or consulting models. These ideas and models come almost to be identified with the phenomenon
we want to grasp, or at least they provide an unquestioned context in which to grasp it.”

A first challenge for information systems design is to deal with these formal representations, because
“information systems is concerned with representation in general” (Boland, 1999, p. 239). Whereas in the
literature formal representations are considered to be at odds with situated actions and analyses (Such-
man, 1987; Winograd & Flores, 1986). As to these issues, the work of Claudio Ciborra (in particular,
Ciborra 1999, 2002) shows how the adoption of phenomenological perspectives in information systems
design allows to 1) challenge reified notions, such as the one of “situation,” with living concepts as in
the case of situatedness (Ciborra, 2006); 2) let emerge relevant concepts that are peculiar to the infor-
mation systems domain, such as the critical concept of infrastructure (see also Section 3, this volume).
The above-mentioned contraposition between formal representations-situated actions reflects the
“hybrid” nature (Avgerou, et al., 2004, p. 1) of information systems discipline and design (Ciborra, 2002;
Currie & Galliers, 1999) as “an area of research positioned between management studies and applied
computing, where it is influenced by numerous kindred of reference disciplines” (Avgerou, et al., 2004,
p. 1). Despite this recognized hybrid nature of the field, it is still valid the claims that “a common and
unified paradigm has been adopted across the board to deal with its human and natural dimensions: the
paradigm of natural sciences and the collateral methodologies of measurement, formalization, and cal-
culation” (Ciborra, 2002). The lack of a common and unified paradigm for information systems design is
even more true if we consider the definition of design as science and the specific roles of representations
as ways to simplify the view on the complexity of the context for problem-solving activities:

“Design science is active with respect to technology, engaging in the creation of technological artifacts
that impact people and organizations. Its focus is on problem solving but often takes a simplistic view of
the people and the organizational contexts in which designed artifacts must function. As stated earlier, the
design of an artifact, its formal specification, and an assessment of its utility, often by comparison with
competing artifacts, are integral to design-science research. These must be combined with behavioral and
organizational theories to develop an understanding of business problems, contexts, solutions, and evalua-
tion approaches adequate to servicing the IS research and practitioner communities” (Hevner, et al., 2006).
 xvii

Thus, problem solving is the focus and the founding of design as science. Problem solving “simplis-
tic view” of people and organizational concepts is seen simply has a contingent issue, due to a lack of
integration with behavioral and organizational theories. Nevertheless, this claim for integration covers
the reified and taken for granted issues of problem solving and related representations. For representa-
tions are the fundamental challenge for a unified perspective on information systems design and must be
investigated as being reified and taken for granted concepts, having consequences on the context where
design takes place and designed artifacts are deployed (Bowker & Star, 1999; Suchman, 1987; Winograd
& Flores, 1986; Zuboff, 1988). Indeed, functional simplification and closure are not contingent issues
of technology and information systems, but they are rooted in representations as the “objective” roots of
problem solving as design focus and technology as self referential system (see Kallinikos, 2006). Thus,
the need for a phenomenological investigation of representations as the root of design aims to challenge
current design science perspectives. Furthermore, the relevance of the role and nature of representa-
tions as the root of design emerges from a preliminary investigation of what is named by design science
literature as behavioural-science paradigm, namely a set of several and different disciplines, such as
Anthropology, Organizational Behavior, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology (Bariff & Ginzberg,
1982). What is worth noting here, is the difference in classification of design science with respect to
behavioural science disciplines classification: while design science class refers to a unique discipline,
the behavioural-science class refers to at least five disciplines disregarding their internal (historical)
complexity, their “qualitative” articulations (at least in the case of Anthropology and Sociology), and
the difficult in framing them in a natural science paradigm (at its turn as taken for granted reification,
despite the multifacets debate and perspectives of the epistemology debate, as branch of philosophy).
What is expected these disciplines can provide to design science? Do they have to provide requirements
for “artificial worlds (e.g. the ‘enterprise models’) made of deceivingly univocal and objective entities,
data, processes, and activities” (Ciborra, 1999, p. 145)? How this requirements elicitation activity fits
with each disciplinary framework and scopes?
The consequence of the design science perspective of the disciplines classified as behavioural science
is once again a separation and a specialization of information systems research: the resulting information
systems field consists in studies which analyse, on the one hand, the socio-economic and organizational
aspects of information systems, thus reducing information systems to an organizational system; on the
other hand, aspects more closely connected with the processing of data and information by means of
technologies, thus reducing information systems to technological systems (Viscusi, this volume). As a
consequence, we have sociological, organizational, economic, or technological analyses in the informa-
tion systems area, but what an information systems research means remains veiled and forgotten. The
consequence is the design of good organizations for ideal systems or the design of complex systems for
unready organizations (Viscusi, this volume). Thus, a phenomenological perspective on information
systems design must let emerge the complex infrastructure of intertwined phenomena behind the con-
traposition between formal representations-situated actions: “the unveiling of the platform organization
required a different analytical approach from one common in industrial organization research” (Ciborra,
2002). Taking these issues into account, we have first to clear the position towards phenomenology
adopted by the editor in Section 2 of this volume.
As pointed out by Lyotard (1954) the terms ‘phenomenology’ received “full and singular meaning”
with the Phenomenology of Spirit of Hegel, where phenomenology is defined “the science of conscious-
ness…in that consciousness is, in general, knowledge of an object, either exterior or interior.” Here
consciousness is the immediate being of spirit, possessing two moments, namely “that of knowledge and
xviii

that of objectivity which is the negative with regard to this knowledge. When spirits develops itself in
this element of consciousness…this opposition occurs at each particular moment, and they all appear as
faces of consciousness. The science of this path is the science of the experience had by consciousness”
(Phenomenology of Spirit, Preface, sec. 36)1.
Thus as Lyotard claims “the very idea of phenomenology puts this question out of play: consciousness
is always consciousness of, and there is no object which is not an object for. There is no immanence of
the object to consciousness unless one correlatively assigns a rational meaning, without which the object
would not be an object for. Concept or meaning is not exterior to Being; rather, Being is immediately
concept in itself, and the concept is Being for itself” (Lyotard, 1954).
The reference to Lyotard recalls Hegel and his interpretation of phenomenology that allows the in-
troduction of a perspective that does not adopt as starting point the phenomenological reduction which
characterizes the Husserl phenomenology before the issue of the Crisis of European Sciences and Tran-
scendental Phenomenology where the “radical foundation of truth reveals itself in the end as a return to
Lebenswelt” (Lyotard, 1954). As noted by Giddens, the adoption of phenomenological reduction prevents
Shutz and sociologists (and I would add some information systems scholars) to reconstitute social reality
as an object-world (Giddens, 1976). This is a relevant point for information systems, where often scholars
have integrated Husserl and Heidegger perspectives, without considering the fundamental philosophical
differences and distances related to the issue of the phenomenological reduction2.
The above discussion aims to introduce the perspective who guided the choice of contributions
to Section 2 of this book, where “the term phenomenology refers only to the rules that will be found
operating in any perspective—scientific, religious, aesthetic, practical, etc.—whereby certain areas of
experience are regarded with a neutral attitude, i.e. are made non-relevant to the problem in hand, while
others are accorded the accent of affirmation and just so, i.e. the accent of relevant matter of facts”
(Garfinkel, 2008, p. 116).
Thus, the focus of the IS design from a phenomenological stance must not be on an individual
whole person considered as an “actor,” namely a problem solving situated perspective as the ones
above introduced for design science; the focus must be on the “rules on which the irreducible character
of data-experiences is based” (Garfinkel, 2008, p. 116) and to the conditions “under which the world
of an experiencer appears as a closed rather than a open set of possibilities (Garfinkel, 2008, p. 130).
As a consequence, Section 2 of the book deals with “Design as the practice through which something
new is brought to existence” (De Michelis, this volume). The adoption of a ‘phenomenological stance’
allows to go beyond the traditional idea of design as science, to capture its complex social nature (De
Michelis, this volume). Thus, the main goal of Section 2 is to provide a phenomenology of design of
Information systems that lets emerge its main constitutive attributes and rules. Current design science
considers information systems as characterized by Information Systems and the organizations they sup-
port as complex, artificial, and purposefully designed (Hevner, et al., 2006); thus, in some sense design
science points out a neutral representation of information systems that must be related and instantiated
(in and) by context representations coming from results of behavioral science. Contributions in Section
2 of the volume aim to challenge this neutral perspective by showing that Information systems and the
organizations they support are the challenge of design, considering that “social seems to be diluted ev-
erywhere and yet nowhere in particular” (Latour, 2005, p. 2) and that “no information is possible except
against the constancy provided by a background of invariant social expectations” (Garfinkel, 2008, p.
75). Thus, the final aim of Section 2 is to contribute to a further foundation of design science rooted in
the complex lifeworld (Lebenswelt) of information systems.
 xix

As a starting point, Kallinikos’s chapter considers how the current environment of information af-
fluence and media convergence is constructing “a comprehensive living and knowing habitat that in-
duces the framing of life issues in terms of data availability and the concomitant data permutations this
encourages” (Kallinikos, this volume). The analysis aims to let emerge how this environment differs
from 1) the work and professional settings in which information technology has been studied, and 2)
from the “early internet,” before the advent of social networks, the so called web 2.0 and mediated by
the diffusion of smart phones, location services (GPS), and augmented reality technologies. Indeed, cur-
rent information growth is characterized “by its remarkable ability to deeply penetrate the social fabric
and increasingly induce the framing of life issues in terms of data availability, and sense making based
on data, assembled into meaningful categories and structures by machines” (Kallinikos, this volume).
Furthermore, the analysis aims to identify and exhibit the generic attributes of this environment “that
cut across specific contexts of social and institutional life,” namely the prominence of cognition over
perception and the preponderance of information and computational principles in defining reality. These
attributes define the inedited role of representations as “outcome of technological advances of reality
documentation (satellite images, digital soil maps, weather forecasts), far beyond any human register
capacity” (Kallinikos, this volume).
As a consequence, the challenge for design of information systems is to understand the attributes of
the emerging prominence of “cognition qua computation” and the rendition of knowledge as outcome
of agnostic statistical permutations performed upon mass of disseminated and distributed data tokens:
“data comprehensively maps reality (the scans capture bone conditions) while computer-based data
mining discovers its underlying principles (the mechanism of bone loss)” (Kallinikos, this volume).
These attributes need to be studied and analysed in order to understand and expose “distinctive ways
through which they are manifested, change and fuse into the fabric of social practices” (Kallinikos, this
volume). Finally, the challenge for design is to understand the consequences and the way of acting on
these representations that “create and establish particular versions of the world possible to act upon,
perform, and manipulate. Kallinikos’s contribution allows one to clarify the definition of information
systems provided by design science as “complex, artificial, and purposefully designed” (Hevner, et al.,
2006) through the emerging constitutive attributes of the current information environment. In order to
understand the way these attributes manifest and intervene in social practices, a further investigation
must consider social practices and question them as “the social milieu where organizations are formed,
as well as the social dimension of learning.” (De Michelis, this volume).
De Michelis’s chapter investigates, from a phenomenological stance, the concept of community as a
relevant concept for understanding the social dimension of human life. In particular, the study focuses
on the concept of Community of practice as “a means for understanding the behavior of the people us-
ing in their practice artifacts and sharing spaces.” Despite its relevance and diffusion, the concept of
Community of a Practice (CoP) is characterized by an original ambiguity coming from its provenience
from market rather than the academic field; indeed, “it becomes unclear if CoP are an analytical concept
for understanding learning and practice or a powerful tool for developing effective education within
organizations or for improving the professional skills of their employees” (De Michelis, this volume).
As a consequence, the chapter aims to root the concept of CoP in a more general concept of com-
munity as the first way through which we encounter something as a CoP. This concept emerge from
the consideration by Jean Luc Nancy, “of ‘being in the world’ of Heidegger (Dasein) as a ‘being with’
(Mitsein), so that the community becomes ‘la position réelle de l’existence”’ (De Michelis, this volume).
Furthermore, sense making and individuals emerge from the social experience of ‘being with,’ where
xx

“human beings appropriate the world, in the same moment they emerge as individuals with a specific
identity” (De Michelis, this volume). Understanding social value as rooted in community as original
appropriation of the world, provide a way to overcome the above mentioned “simplistic view” of people
and organizational claimed by design science.

“On the one hand, information systems should avoid the separation between organizational perfor-
mances, like invoicing, ordering, producing, planning, monitoring, etc. and the practices within which
they are embedded. On the other, even if any practice is situated within a community (of practice), we
should remember that different human beings participate and contribute differently to any community of
practice: this sheds a new light on situatedness of human practice emphasizing its distributed nature”
(De Michelis, this volume).

Furthermore, the artificial character of information systems design emerges as grounded in the “being
with.” Indeed, formalization “is the move through which human beings are able to interact even when
they don’t share a context” (De Michelis, this volume) and formal models are representations of the
community: “modeling, de-contextualizing knowledge, allows to break the boundaries between com-
munities: formal models are typically boundary objects” (De Michelis, this volume).
The two discussed contributions of Section 2 of this volume point out the challenge of Informa-
tion systems design to question the prominence of cognition over perception and the preponderance
of information and computational principles in defining reality as emergent attributes, emerging from
community as a fundamental and original appropriation of the world. Taking these issues into account,
we have now to re-consider work and professional settings in which information technology has been
traditionally studied as an emergent human practice.
Cabitza and Simone chapter in this volume addresses the question of how to study and design a
technological support of work in organizational domains. The topic is addressed by investigating on
the one hand, the differences and complementarities between Information Systems (IS) and Computer
Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) perspectives/approaches to systems design; on the other hand, it
addresses the problems of sense making in information quality management, by providing evidence of
these issues in the healthcare domain.
The identification of a ground for ‘reassembling’ IS and CSCW perspectives is a relevant topic for
information systems design. Indeed, while both the perspectives show the combination of technological
concerns with the understanding of the setting in which the technology has to operate, fundamental dif-
ferences seem to characterize their approaches to organization and work as social phenomenon: “CSCW
focuses on users, as the sole source of knowledge about the cooperative settings and its needs; on the
other hand, IS focuses mainly on management, and when it recognizes a role for end-users, it sees them
mainly as one of the possible stakeholders at play, or social actors” (Cabitza & Simone, this volume). The
starting point of what we can define a second order contribution by the authors is the conceptualization
of work that is common to both IS and CSCW research:

“work is an intrinsically (and probably irreducible) social phenomenon – and argument that nevertheless
the phenomenon of collaboration is conceived differently in these two fields. This will bring us reconsider
the role of “artifacts” in organizations (for informative and coordinative purposes), by distinguishing
between the conceptualizations that see artifacts (and the representations they carry on)” (Cabitza &
Simone, this volume).
 xxi

IT artifact is a widely investigated and debated topic in both IS and CSCW areas, and Cabitza and
Simone propose a reconciliation that considers IT artifact as rooted “in a class of ‘tools’ that are widely
used within organizations, let’s say before any sort of digitalization: the paper artifacts that often take
the shape of semi-structured forms” (Cabitza & Simone, this volume). Furthermore, the digitization of
paper is an ‘event’ occurring along with the introduction of an information systems application, usually
with aims “to preserve and enhance the role of artifacts as information archives and information sources,
especially in their function of ‘gateways’ to the underlying information system.” (Cabitza & Simone,
this volume). Thus, the challenge posed by digitalization of paper as IT artifact is further rooted in the
information-intensive domain where “data are produced in the practice, during the practice and for the
practice itself” (Cabitza & Simone, this volume). Finally, through the discussion of the case study of a
prototypical Electronic Patient Record (EPR), authors show the emergence of “sense-making networks
of data that could reconcile their accumulation for the sake of coordination with the intrinsic (process
and data) quality requirements” (Cabitza & Simone, this volume). As a consequence, the chapter points
out how IS and CSCW perspectitves can be reconciled considering the emergent roles information
plays, namely the archival and the coordinative one, that belong to two different layers of the informa-
tion system. This connection is realized “by letting quality be interpreted differently in the two layers;
and by supporting this interpretative act by augmenting the artifacts with meta-information” (Cabitza
& Simone, this volume).
As to these issues, a relevant challenge is the role of artifacts in the work practices of people devoted
to the design and development of information systems. Tellioglu study in this volume focuses on artifacts
used in collaborative engineering processes. The aim is to understand work practices of engineers and
designers in order to identify and provide them more suitable IT-tools. Grounded in the CSCW per-
spective, the study first summarizes the state of the art of engineering as a design process, artifacts, and
their representational role in design and engineering. Then, the study analyses and discusses artifacts’
creation and use in engineering work, focusing on team-based coordination and decision activities. The
studies presented are based on ethnographic research carried out for several years in different design
and engineering companies. Furthermore, the case studies consider artifacts from their representational
role as visualizations of different kind. Visualizations emerge ‘network-organizing devices’ that “are
used to illustrate the design ideas to different actors involved in the project, such as the clients, external
professionals, or partners, convincing them of the design idea and mobilizing their cooperation” (Tel-
lioglu, this volume).
The final chapter of Section 2 authored by Gianluigi Viscusi considers the issues for information
systems design methods that emerge from the phenomenological analyses carried out by Claudio Ciborra
(2002). In particular, concepts such as e.g. Kairos3, Drift4, Bricolage5, unveil 1) a specific path (odos)
for the information systems as a discipline and 2) a meth-odos towards new opportunities offered to
design by answering the provocation of information systems considered as infrastructures (Ge-stell).
This meth-odos aims to provide a preliminary support to uncover the foundation of representations in
the readiness-to-hand of the being in the world. The aims is to define a way to move back from repre-
sentations towards the unit of Befindlichkeit (i.e., affectivity), Verstehen (i.e., the understanding), and
the Rede (i.e., speaking) (Viscusi, this volume). Thus, the chapter proposes to integrate this meth-odos
and state-of-the-art methodologies in order to challenge the bestand of schemas and representations in-
scribed in the technological and engineering facets of the information systems. In particular, the chapter
proposes to integrate an archaeology and a genealogy of emergent representations in the early phases
of information systems design; these paths must be introduced either (1) in the observation phase in the
xxii

social and participatory design oriented methods and (2) in requirements analysis in the engineering
oriented methods (Viscusi, this volume). In particular, the integration of meth-odos in the early phases
of systems design should support the uncovering of the opposition of organisational and engineering/
technological perspectives as not reducible facets, “which must be analysed and synthesized together
in an evolutionary design of information systems” (Viscusi, this volume).

ON THE FULLNESS OF SITUATION OR THE BIOGRAPHIC TURN IN

THE SOCIAL STUDY OF INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES

Section 3 introduces a set of research projects, which the authors feel comfortable designating as being
social studies of information systems. The common denominator of the chapters enclosed in this ses-
sion is the search for the possibility of a sociology of technology, and of Information Infrastructures in
particular. Information Infrastructures are long-lived complex technologies, that face the dilemma of
aligning multiple stakeholders over extended periods (Ciborra, 2001), often implemented across multiple
sites within large branch-plant organizational structures (Markus, et al., 2000). Uncomfortable with the
many sociologies that have been proposed to study the Information Infrastructure phenomenon (micro-
sociology and ethnomethodology in particular), the authors contributions in Section 3 seem to endorse
an “empirical turn” in the social study of information systems, which deeply analyzes case studies and
concrete issues concerning Information Infrastructure design and use. Assuming, according to many
science studies programs, that artifacts have an agency, they look at how these particular technologies
embed a view of interaction, society, and organization that may challenge core assumptions of received
sociological notions. Each chapter contains an Information Infrastructure concrete case study but it
also leaves space for a modification of sociology itself, and in particular to some sociological concepts
inherited by Information Systems studies from the ethnomethodological and micro-sociological tradi-
tions of study. The authors of the chapters collected in Section 3 demonstrate to share the basic tenets
of a phenomenological program in the social study of phenomena, in line with Ciborra (2006) and a
vibrant seek for capturing “the total situation” (Heidegger, 1993, p. 185 and 262; in Ciborra, 2006) of
the Information Infrastructure phenomenon. Therefore, social studies of information systems scholars
abandon the concept of system and replace it with the concept of Information Infrastructure. The concept
of Information Infrastructure drives our attention to its shared nature, its openness, its always being an
extension of existing ones—the installed base, its heterogeneity and evolving nature (see Nielsen, this
volume).
More specifically, the fact that each of the chapters concerns the same type of techno-scientific
practice (the work surrounding Information Infrastructure development) contributes to elucidate how
a specific research project of doing a sociology of Information Infrastructures might look like, in con-
trast with that of applying sociology to information systems studies or importing sociology to address
information systems concerns.
One of the key aspect of the Information Infrastructure’s phenomenological structure that is highlighted
in all the five essays, is its unique relation with space, time and materiality. This specificity of Informa-
tion Infrastructures puts some information system researchers at odds with sociologies that still give
prominence to place by assuming space naturalness and its essential “thereness,” and that underestimate
the difference between materialities and their different capacity to order social relations. As stated by
one of the contributors in this volume: “Zimbabwe water pumps, enterprise resource planning systems
 xxiii

and many health ICTs have more flexible compositions from any other particular time to another than,
for instance, pens, bicycles or electricity grids” (Hyysalo, this volume).
The empirical focus on technologies such as Information Infrastructures, makes the authors regard
them as distinct and discontinuous with the technologies populating previous epochs of human history.
One key assumption in social studies of interaction can be described, drawing on a concept from biol-
ogy, as being the isometric scaling of social phenomena. Isometric scaling occurs when changes in size
(during growth or over evolutionary time) do not lead to changes in proportions, i.e. types of interactions
between parts of the organism. On the contrary, the social study of information systems introduces the
notion of allometry in the understanding of social phenomena. Allometry is when changes in size can
lead to discontinuities in the relation between properties (e.g. to stay within the biological metaphor:
between mass and surface area-based properties or length-based properties). Therefore, the social study
of Information Infrastructures addresses the need of a change in the concepts describing social interac-
tions when the scale of their spatio-temporal distribution changes. Furthermore, given that each of our
mundane affairs is increasingly information infrastructured (i.e. imbued if not directly at least potentially
in larger-scale digitally-mediated social forms), the social study of Information Infrastructures may also
suggest a rethinking of the concepts by which sociologists interested in interactions have addressed the
way the orderliness of mundane affairs is achieved by members of a society.
The idea that Information Infrastructures embed modifications of sociology extends what Gian Marco
Campagnolo noted in his doctoral dissertation (Campagnolo, 2007) in relation with new technologies
of accountability with respect to the ethnomethodological distinction between “accountability” as what
people provide as a description of their context and behavior and “accountability” as an intrinsic part
of these activities. At least according to ethnomethodology, accountability belongs in the life-world
of each of us as a radical property of social action from the start, ‘since the immemorial,’ as a fact in
nature. However, some changes in the late modern conditions underscored by studies of new public
management in the turn of the century (e.g. Marilyn Strathern book on the ‘Audit Culture’ or Micheal
Power reflections on the ‘Audit Society’), may have revealed the historicality of accountabilities. Take
the example of an everyday conversation between a customer/client and an operator providing services
through a call centre. The interaction begins with a warning that the conversation might be recorded for
evaluation or training purposes. We know from then that the ways we will naturally act in order to make
things visible-and-reportable are not at all circumscribed to the practical purposes impinging upon the
present situation, but they will also be referred to in other context for other less practical purposes—
namely, statistics purposes, training purposes. Furthermore, government actions are in place that expect
to discipline subjects in being aware that their actions are not to be taken as having consequences only
locally, but also on the way important decisions will be taken in spatio-temporally distant circumstances
(e.g. with respect to socio-economic or environmental policies) with the help of technologies that record,
save and export information from place to place. It is assumed here that what was said for the ethnometh-
odological concept of accountability goes also for other ethnomethodological notions. A modification
of sociology that has been fostered by contemporary Information Infrastructures, as already suggested
by Giddens (1994), is thus the addition of an institutional, strongly calculative, material dimension to
the practice of making things visible-and-reportable for all practical purposes, as well as to the way
these accounts contribute to constitute the observability of a setting (i.e. reflexivity). Recognizing this
additional layer, makes it impossible an analysis of how members reflexively monitor their streams of
action without strongly referring to the increasing capacity of institutions to code information to control
action at a distance. One example of the heightened institutional appropriation of ethnomethod’s reflex-
xxiv

ive nature emerges from Nicholas Rowland study of Enterprise Resource Planning software usage in
American Universities (Rowland, this volume). His empirical case study demonstrates that the received
ethnomethodological transcendental interest that the social order is always a local accomplishment—
that is the result of a concerted activity of a community of co-operating fellows—requires some further
discussion. Rowland’s paper provides illustrations of how people involved in large-scale information
systems implementation do not know what they mean when they produce accounts. He does so by mak-
ing reference to the ‘fit-gap work’ taking place during ERP implementations, but he also identifies how
participants found ways to deal with these uncertainties, to manage the reflexivity of their understand-
ings. In particular, he makes reference to the “prioritizing/de-prioritizing” work. Something that cannot
be decided, or evaluated on the basis of a sufficiently accountable manner, gets de-prioritized. The most
useful feature of de-prioritization is that issues related to implementation that become de-prioritized are
“removed without removing” and remain in the purgatory of prospective possibilities.
The process of natural objectification of practices for organizing the orderliness of events produces
tools, instruments, artefacts, benchmarks that become available for future and distant accomplishments.
What the illustration deriving from the “fit-gap work” reminds us is that these commodities are certainly
re-enacted in each locale, but people do not re-invent the wheel all the same all the time. Prior than the
transcendent re-enactment of social order, the chief interest of social researchers in information system is
on the layers of customization encrusted in organizing artifacts and ordering systems that protect people
from being disbanded every time they encounter even the most routine task. What Nicholas Rowland
study suggests is that it is true that people do not know what they mean when they produce accounts,
but it is also true that they know that. And by knowing that, people’s major occupation is to produce
work-arounds in order to reduce the noise of the reflexivity of understandings (e.g. the ‘fit-gap work’).
These accomplishments, that take the form of routines, tools, instruments, artefacts and institutions, are
of central interest for a social researcher in Information Infrastructures.
A further specific aspect of Information Infrastructures phenomenological structure is that our ex-
perience of here and now in dealing with (and researching on) them has increasingly lost its immediate
spatio-temporal referents and has become tied to and contingent on actors and actions at distance (New-
mann, 2008). This allows for a further modification of the received sociological notion of interaction via
ethnomethodology with respect to the principle of seeking a perspicuous setting (Garfinkel, 2002, pp.
181-182), with its emphasis on bilateral relationships. Perspicuous settings are settings where parties
are actively engaged in making a situation intelligible (e.g. courtrooms, surgeries, classrooms, etc.). A
perspicuous setting has to be able to tell us more about our interests than what we are able to imagine
about it. However, to do ethnographic research, for example, on the social grounds that contribute to
the production of an Information Infrastructure requires different practices and opportunities than does
fieldwork among the situated communities (e.g. workplaces) such Information Infrastructures affect.
While the default assumption of interactionist studies is that the relevant ‘public’ is the body of imme-
diate co-present interactants, in the case of Information Infrastructures, the ‘public’ is a more diffuse
set of (potentially significant) others, often dispersed temporally and physically. Thus, very different
kind of research agendas are needed to address the multiple locations and the different timeframes in
which technology operates. By emphasizing the central importance of local redesign for the success
of information systems, interactionist studies of Information Systems implementation fail to recognize
the role of other spaces in stabilizing member’s local streams of activity: for instance, the production
chain, the developers, the physical environment, the competent authorities, legislators, interest orga-
nizations, industrial analysts, and the scientific community. Gian Marco Campagnolo’s chapter on the
 xxv

development of ERP systems addresses this problem by providing a map of how key tensions between
distributed actors and social worlds contribute to the framing of a particular discourse on information
technology development for the public administration, which to its turn affects workplace interactions
between consultants, management, Staff personnel and line workers in an Italian public sector organiza-
tion dealing with a large scale information system implementation. A concern with the space distribution
of design-use relation in Information Infrastructure development is also masterfully raised by Sampsa
Hyysalo contribution titled How is situated design interaction situated, when he says: “ we hope to open
up the question about the centrality of design process by examining what comprises the situated action
taking place in design, in other words, examining how design interaction is situated within design-use
relations that are temporally more long term and spatially more distributed” (Hyysalo, this volume).
The final chapter of Section 3 is authored by Neil Pollock and Robin Williams. Their argument relies
on the empirical illustrations deriving from the development of Connecting for Health, an UK health
infrastructure. There, Pollock and Williams maintain that local studies of immediate settings of action
inevitably draw attention to the scope for discretion (user workarounds, appropriation strategies, resistance,
etc.) but provide a poor vantage point for exploring longer-term processes of technology-organizational
alignment (for example around common business process templates within enterprise systems). They
find it odd that there is such a wide-ranging set of terms in sociological essays demonstrating interest
in information systems (including Science and Technology Scholars) to describe the way standardised
technologies are ‘imported’ (‘domesticated,’ ‘appropriated’ or ‘worked-around’) into user settings, while
there is a comparative lack of emphasis on the reverse process through which an artefact is ‘exported’
from the setting(s) in which it was produced. This is striking since the bulk of organizational software
in use today is produced in this way—the same systems are recycled from one context to another. Thus
they attempt to develop the beginnings of a vocabulary to capture this exporting, what they describe
as the practice of making software generic (generification work), including its various explicit and
revealed generification strategies, as the process of “generification.” Furthermore, sociological es-
says in information systems designed to focus on the ‘importing’ process are often accompanied by a
particular temporal framing, which has been identified as snapshot type of study. Snapshot studies are
often conducted a relatively short time after the introduction of a new technology, “arguably before
the complete consequences of an innovation can be reasonably assessed” as Pollock and Williams say.
According to our view, the research design and temporal framing of current sociological enquiries in
information systems embed a tacit determinism with respect to the nature and stability of the normality
structure, which derives from the interactionist perspective: it is a hidden naturalism, a tacit assumption
that everyone has the same basic normality structure (Lynch & Bogen, 1994). The interactionist studies
perspective derives from Garfinkel’s critique of Durkheim’s conception of the nature of social facts.
Contrary to Durkheim’s view that a fundamental principle of sociology is the objective reality of social
facts, the ethnomethodological perspective assumes that the reality of social facts is a process of con-
tinuous accomplishment in the concert of daily life. Although theirs is no longer Durkheim’s consensual
rule-governed society, the picture emerging from interactionist studies is that of a society consisting of a
vast but stable repertoire of fragmented micro-rules. As a consequence of the assumption of the stability
of the normality structure, interactionst studies informed sociological enquiries in information systems
may fail to fully realize that ambiguity of context in human societies is partially removed by a whole
gamut of tools of which they analyze only a part.
Pollock and Williams (via the biography of artifacts framework—BoA), as well as Hyysalo (via
the Biographies of Technologies and Practices study—BOTP), proposed modification of sociology is
xxvi

something that we can call a biographic turn in the social study of Information Infrastructures, which
consists in suggesting that Information Infrastructures have biographies. It is, we think, a concern to
reassemble macro and micro levels of analysis that explain the interest in biographical method by infor-
mation systems researchers. The biographic method, as it has been used in different branches of social
sciences, represents a way to clarify the connections between the personal and the socio/historical after
the flat ontologies of postmodernism (see Wengraf, Chamberlayne, & Bornat, 2002, for a review), and
so it does for the social study of information systems. Quoting Hyysalo, this turn in the social studies
of information systems assumes that when the unit of analysis is design work, its biography can span
different dispersed (in space) and successive (in time) organizations without loosing its unity:

“any moment in human conduct is simultaneously a part of the unfolding of a task, the development of
the individual doing it, the development of the work community, and the development of professional
practice” (Hyysalo, 2004, p. 12).

The biographic turn in information systems studies can also be seen as an attempt to write about the
fullness of the total Information Infrastructure situation, while refusing to resort on the analytical move-
ment from singular expressions to delocalized generalizations. The opportunity given by Information
Infrastructure to social sciences scholars to connect (often concretely, by social bonds, the internet or
global institutional affiliations) different social grounds into the same terrain of research (e.g. following
the biography), feeds back on the legitimacy of grounding the critical force of the arguments social stud-
ies of information systems aim at making: if we can find ways to make connections between disparate
events, we will have extended empirical analyses. While assuming that connections between historical
players and ideas must be shown in the local setting, the biographical turn is also suggesting that there
are no limits to the size of the analytical network we can create by concretely connecting multiple local
analyses.
One final aspect of the phenomenological structure of Information Infrastructures as a research topic
we want to flag is that of unifying different scholars from different countries into a common research
program. Based on the critical comparison and juxtaposition of empirical aspects of distant but con-
nected and converging phenomena, the social study of Information Infrastructures can solidify into its
own specific methods and proposals of modifications of social science, of which the biographic turn is
just an initial manifestation.

PLURALISM IN ACTION RESEARCH FOR TECHNO-

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Section 4 investigates the consequences of the phenomenological orientation for action research, and
the possible alternative modes of approaching action research in organizations.
Action research can be generally defined as a form of applied research distinctively characterized by
the intertwining between theory and practice, so that to shape an epistemology of knowing by changing
and vice versa; a participative approach, according to the idea that all people involved in the social prac-
tices under investigation should actively cooperate in all research phases in order to produce knowledge
actually able to change social practices; and participation extended to all decisional levels, according to
the idea that change should concern the overall organizational design and regulation of social practices.
 xxvii

In the organizational field, the core characteristic of action research is the attempt of connecting the
organizational analysis of empirical work settings, organizational change, and the evaluation of organi-
zational re-design with each other.
In this framework, the chapters enclosed in Section 4 presents a number of methods and approaches
for dealing with organizational re-design, and particularly with organizational re-design associated
with the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in work settings. And
they provide examples of their application in different research settings, such as a medical Emergency
Response Centre (Bassetti, this volume); an electronic small and medium sized enterprise (Jacucci &
Campagnolo, this volume); an ambient assisted living project (Kai-Uwe, et al., this volume), a public
administration (Albano, et al., this volume). In so doing, they leave space for reflections on the pos-
sible spaces for organizational re-design in such cases where: a) the action research starting point is the
focus on concrete collective processes of work, each of which is seen as unique and unrepeatable (i.e.
constantly different from itself, over time, and from other processes, at the same time); and b) the aim
of action research is the organizational change effectiveness from the standpoint of the agents of the
research setting under intervention.
The fist common denominator of the contributions enclosed in Section 4, thus, is that they are concerned
with the issues of whether and how organizational re-design associated with the introduction of ICTs in
work settings is still possible even though the starting point is the focus on unique and singular worlds.
In this section, I argue that answering the above questions requires a reflection on two further distinct,
yet connected, controversial points. The first concerns the cognitive strategies employable to deal with
ICT-related organizational change. The second one refers to what might be meant by organizational
re-design.
With regard to the first point, the assumption that work processes are unique and unrepeatable should
imply that they could not be organizationally re-designed accordingly to universal laws. As a consequence
of that, answering whether and how ICTs-organizational re-design is still possible starting from that
assumption requires first to reflect on the possible cognitive strategies that might be employed in place
of the positivistic one for researching organizational change related to ICTs; and then to grasp which
spaces they leave for organizational design.
Tony Hines’s contribution offers preliminary insights to move some steps towards this direction of
reflection. The chapter attracts attention on the phenomenological cognitive strategy rooted in the no-
tion of “horizon of experience” drawn from Husserl’s work. The premises are that social researchers
consciously and intentionally set out to know the phenomenon of human existence that finds expres-
sion in human endeavours and human organizations. Knowing is understanding, i.e. making sense and
meaning, through the lived experience, of the spatio-temporal relations between subjects and between
subjects and objects. Knowing/understanding is an intentional and conscious act. One first experiences
the world, and then conceptualizes it to understand personal experience. Every experience/knowledge
has its own horizon, which, at least in part, limits it. According to Husserl, living together defines the
horizon of the subjective experience. The researcher interested in the organizational change associated
with the introduction of information technologies in work settings, should therefore adopt a natural stand-
point. S/he should live in and experience the research setting, by setting aside any preconceptions and
prior theories. His/her aim is to understand the understanding of change by people in the organization.
Through understanding, change becomes an object of consciousness for the subjects, and the change
in the research setting, as well as the subjects become objects of consciousness for the researcher. Both
for the latter and for organizational members, understanding is the reconstruction of the points of view,
xxviii

and the subjective meanings of the agents in their relationships with other subjects and with objects. The
researcher, and the research “objects” should therefore proceed in a way similar to Aristotle’s “Posterior
Analytics.” A consistent application of this strategy for researching ICTs-related organizational change
should therefore imply that the phenomenon at hand might be justified ex post only. Therefore, any
possibility of guiding ICTs- related organizational change according to prior rules should be ruled out.
With regard to the latter point, a couple of contributions in Section 4 of this book points out that two
cognitive strategies provide a chance for maintaining the possibility of guiding ICT-related organizational
change in accordance with prior rules. One is that which typically underlies socio-technical systems
approaches, and newer systems theories (cf. the chapter authored by Kai-Uwe Loser and colleagues in
this book), that is the positivistic cognitive strategy. As I stated before, this strategy should face many
difficulties in coping with the ICTs- related organizational re-design of unique and unrepeatable processes
of work, and, indeed, Loser and colleagues’ contribution in Section 4 of this book precisely attracts at-
tention on the ways in which the method of socio-technical walkthrough, which is rooted in the above
theoretical and methodological references, tries to overcome those difficulties. The other cognitive strategy
which provides chances for guiding the ICTs- related organizational change accordingly to prior rules is
the Weberian one. This epistemology underlies the approach to action research discussed in the chapter
authored by Roberto Albano, Tommaso M. Fabbri, and Ylenia Curzi in this book. As this contribution
highlights, the basic assumption of this approach is that work processes are ever changing processes.
As mentioned above, the second controversial point on which one should reflect to answer to whether
and how ICT-related organizational re-design is still possible even though the starting point is the focus
on unique and unrepeatable collective processes of work is “what the concept-word design might mean.”
A number of contributions in Section 4 of this book suggests that the meaning of ICT-related orga-
nizational re-design varies accordingly to the cognitive strategy used for researching the ICT-related
organizational change. They further suggest that this meaning, to its turn, strongly affects the way to
proceed in real world work settings to organizationally re-design work processes affected by the intro-
duction of ICTs.
The chapters enclosed in Section 4 of this book move from different epistemological viewpoints/
cognitive strategies. Therefore they provide different conceptualizations of ICT-related organizational
re-design.
In the study by Chiara Bassetti in this book, the word “design” refers to the order(s) of the activi-
ties related to technologies, which emerge in the field through improvisation and become established
gradually. In accordance with that, the “design” is recognizable/visible only after the fact. In particular,
the author uses the word “design-in-use” to emphasize that techno-organizational design is a practical
activity, concomitant to the use of the technology, and the word of “co-design-in-use” to stress that the
improvisational process of techno-organizational change is collaborative, situated, interactional, and
based on the workplace natives’ collective know-ledge/how, which is both exploited and increased in
the process.
Gianni Jacucci and Gian Marco Campagnolo’s contribution in this book proposes to maintain the
concept of design even thought the researcher assumes that social practices emerge by individuals’ and
groups’ social construction, rather than being designed in an engineering way. The word should be used
to emphasize the core characteristics of any process of organizational innovation, such as i.e. intention-
ality, proactive-ness, deliberation, and planning.
The study by Kai-Uwe Loser and colleagues in this book shows the limitations of upfront planning
in coping with the complexity of technology-supported services processes for elderly people. This com-
 xxix

plexity is related to the fact that the same service process conducted by different stakeholders results
in different processes, and to the fact that even with the same stakeholder, the service process changes,
because the conditions and requirements of technology usage change rapidly. In such circumstances, the
design of the technology, and of the coordination of cooperative work involved in the offer of domestic
services to elderly people, should not be intended as the search for a complete and durable solution, for a
strict control, and planning of every aspect of the process. Rather, it should include change, and provide
the different stakeholders involved in changing environments and complex processes with a guidance,
a point of orientation for local adaptations during processes conduction.
Finally, the last contribution in Section 4 of this book, authored by Roberto Albano, Tommaso
M. Fabbri, and Ylenia Curzi, considers organizational phenomena as products of the intentional and
bounded rationality of human beings. Accordingly, it conceives organizational design as the process
of actions and decisions aimed at ordering, co-defining means and ends in accordance with bounded
and intentional rationality, and with a logic of mutual consistency. “Organizational design” is a search
under condition of uncertainty, embedded in any work processes and distributed among all those who
are directly involved in it.
In connection with different conceptualizations of ICT-related organizational re-design, the chapters
in Section 4 of this book propose different approaches to techno-organizational re-design.
Bassetti’s study proposes a form of critical and dialogic action research, where the researcher
lays the groundwork for the cooperative and emergent accomplishment of new order(s), and the self-
reorganization of the setting. His/her task is to make explicit and intelligible to the other actors of the
techno-organizational change process the tacit logics underlying the organization of the operators’ prac-
tices of work. The author particularly stresses the role of ethnomethologically oriented ethnography as
an useful methodology for analysing how different groups of people (i.e. designers, managers, future
users) make sense of tools and artefacts, of the everyday technology-mediated work practices, and of
the techno-organizational change process. The action researcher should therefore provide all subjects
involved in the change process with additional understanding of themselves, of the relevant others, and
of the specific ways in which orders are collaboratively and improvisationally achieved. This additional
knowledge would increase their ability to identify, or to deal with techno-organizational problems, and
to innovate work practices and instruments on their own.
The chapter authored by Jacucci and Campagnolo attracts attention on Social Practice Design (SPD).
SPD is a form of action research based on phenomenology and counselling, which can be considered an
extension of Participatory Design to the implementation phase of information systems. It creates a space
for the design of social practices, and for the social design of organizational practices in the application
of Participatory Design techniques in organizations with the final aim of “making room” for technology.
Moreover, it is an approach to design based on improvisation, the latter intended as the reduction of the
period of time between design and implementation. Within this approach, three external experts play a
key role for the activation of staff and management people in the process of co-construction of innovation.
The ethnographic researcher, who contributes to the identification and description of the social practices
of the actors involved in the innovation process, and to the qualitative assessment of the change sustain-
ability. The counsellor, who assists people in developing an attitude oriented to change, thereby fostering a
process of co-construction of innovation in which all parties are involved and learn, and, finally, the action
researcher, who supports the realization of innovation, by making people involved in the research group the
authors of the organizational change, and by creating paths that the users of new technologies can follow
to conceive and implement the visions of solutions for current problems in the social practice of work.
Exploring the Variety of Random
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- i Adams, E. Davenport • 2 Adderley, Hon. and Rev. J. • i Alexander,
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Cunningham, J. G - -23 Dalby, W. E. - - - 28 De Vere, Aubrey - - 15
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