Actor-network Theory and Information Systems |
| A sound understanding of the embedding of information technology in its social and organisational context is critical to Information Systems Research. Actor-network theory is an especially promising basis for theories of information and communication technologies because this theoretical framework provides a vocabulary and a conceptual apparatus that allows us to analyse the role of technology without resorting to simplistic and deterministic searches for causal connections. |
| Theorising technology is relevant in order to increase our general understanding of Information Systems' core topics: how to facilitate and improve design, organisational implementation and use of information systems. Current trends in technology development make a profound understanding of technology in its context increasingly more pertinent: information and communication technologies are becoming more complex, interlinked and more deeply interwoven into the fabric of society as well as into the performance of the organization. This implies an unprecedented degree of complexity for systems development. When it comes to global information systems, scale, complexity and the interdependencies between systems may give rise to major emergent phenomena with threshold effects. Issues that previously could be assigned to either "micro" or "macro" dimensions and handled separately, turn out to be closely interrelated and connected in unexpected ways. It is important to attempt to understand these interactions, and we feel that actor-network theory is particularly promising as it ignores the micro-macro dichotomy and includes all relevant entities irrespective of scale. |
| For this special issue of Information Technology and People the editors (Marc Berg, Ole Hanseth and Margunn Aanestad) invite researchers to submit work that explores the potential for ANT to address these challenges in IS research. We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers; literature reviews as well as original work. Papers should seek to contribute to the understanding and theorising of IS or global IS, and we are particularly interested in work where the use of ANT "makes a difference". The paper should be 5-8000 words long, and should be submitted via the ITP review website. Any questions can be directed to Marc Berg, Ole Hanseth, or Margunn Aanestad |
Submission deadlines: |
| Submission of paper outline/abstract by September 1st 2002 (at this stage, no formal selection will take place, although suggestions that are unlikely to be accepted at a later stage will be discouraged to submit a full paper). |
| Full paper submission for review by December 1st 2002. |
| Notification of acceptance by April 1st 2003. |
| Final version of accepted papers due by June 1st 2003. |