CALL FOR PAPERS

 

18th Americas Conference on Information Systems

 

Seattle, Washington, August 9-12, 2012

 

TRACK: Philosophical Perspectives in IS

 

MINI-TRACK: Socio-Technical Aspects of Information Systems

 

Description:

 

The traditional view of information systems (IS) and their development (ISD) has progressed significantly

since the early information systems developed under the technology-centric view; the hardware and its ‘user’.

There is growing acceptance that it is not solely the technical issues which are the major factor in their

successful development and use, but the other relevant (non-technical) human and social factors. These

combine with technologies to create the informated contexts in which IS are developed and operate;

effectively or otherwise. Within the IS field the ‘socio-technical’ movement (Mumford, {1995, 2003}) can be

seen to provide insights into this complex relationship between the technological artefact and the social

aspects in which they are situated (Avgerou et. al., 2004). As such they may be understood independently of

the actors that produced them in the first place but intimately situated within their contemporary contexts.

In doing so these technologies and their functionality may be seen to combine with humans and their actions

to constitute informated ‘socio-technical ensemble’ (Bijker and Law 1995) that exhibit a concerted agency. 

 

How such ensembles may be effectively created, maintained and changed – locally and globally- incrementally

and radically - is the subject of this mini-track.

 

Suggested topics:

 

• Social informatics

• The application of social theory to information systems (eg. Structuration Theory, Actor-Network Theory, StructurANTion Theory)

• Human and organisational aspects of information systems

• Balancing of social and technical factors in information systems development and information systems

• Critiques of the socio-technical approach

• Case studies of socio-technical analysis of information systems

• Socio-materiality and its implications for our understanding of information systems

• Comparative studies (ie. between sectors, countries, cultures, etc.) of socio-technical analyses of information systems

• Comparative analyses of socio-technical change and information systems

• Global/local (or ‘glocal’) balance of information systems within a socio-technical context

 

Mini-track chairs:

 

Laurence Brooks

Email: Laurence.Brooks@brunel.ac.uk

School of Information Systems Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, UK

Phone: +44 (0) 1895 266010

 

David Wainwright

Email: david.wainwright@northumbria.ac.uk

School of Computing, Engineering & Information Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Phone: +44 (0) 191 2437634

 

 

Submission Procedure:

 

Submit your manuscript using the manuscript central system at - http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amcis2012

 

Important Dates

 

*    January 3, 2012: Manuscript Central will start accepting paper submissions

 

*    March 1, 2012: (11:59 PM Pacific time zone): Deadline for paper submissions

 

*    April 2, 20012: Authors will be notified of acceptances on or about this date

 

*    April 20, 2012: (11:59 PM Pacific time zone): For accepted papers, camera ready copy due

 

_______________________________________________________

Laurence Brooks

 

Past President, UK Academy for Information Systems (UKAIS) President, UK Systems Society (UKSS)

 

Course Director, MSc Information Systems Management (ISM)

(http://www.brunel.ac.uk/siscm/disc/postgraduates/masters/information-systems-management)

Lecturer, Department of Information Systems and Computing School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics Brunel University Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK.

 

Tel: +44 (0)1895 266010 (direct)

Fax: +44 (0)1895 251686

Mobile: +44 (0)7866 726928

Email: laurence.brooks@brunel.ac.uk

Skype: laurencebrooks

Web: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~csstllb/

UKAIS: http://www.ukais.org

UKSS: http://www.ukss.org.uk