Systems Practice in the Information Society

José-Rodrigo Córdoba-Pachón

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415992305
• eBook ISBN: 9781135850869
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

As a collection of ideas and methodologies, systems thinking has made an impact in organizations and in particular in the information systems field. However, this main emphasis on organizations limits the scope of systems thinking and practice. There is a need first to use systems thinking in addressing societal problems, and second to enable people involved in developing the information society to reflect on the impacts of systems and technologies in society as a whole. Thus, there are opportunities to review the scope and potential of systems thinking and practice to deal with information society-related issues.

Systems Practice in the Information Society

provides students of information systems as well as practicing Inofrmation Systems managers with concepts and strategies to enable them to understand and use systems thinking methodologies and address challenges posed by the development of information-based societies. This book brings experiences, ideas, and applications of systemic thinking in designing and evaluating socio-technological initiatives. Using a number of cultural contexts, this book explores how organizations, including governments, can enable better access to information and communication technologies and improve the quality of life of individuals.

1
Introduction

This chapter lays out the context of use of systems-thinking and systems methodologies in terms of what is happening in the information society. It presents a number of challenges for practitioner audiences and suggests how these can be tackled. Finally it lays out the general structure of the book.

Objectives

• To describe a number of assumptions that inform the implementation of the information society in different realms of activity.

• To highlight the importance of being aware about unintended consequences on the information society.

• To introduce systems-thinking as a set of ideas and methodologies that can be used to support information society developments.

The Information Society

As individuals, we now live in a world surrounded by information and communication technologies or ICTs. Life without computers is for many a thing of the past or something that they did not experience at all. Mobile phones, computers and other devices have come to stay in our lives. They are essential for our lives (just remember the last time you needed the internet and it was not available!).

For some people not only technologies but also information is a key to success. They have built companies and new ways of working based on the possibility of electronically exchanging information. Wireless technologies also make exchange of information faster and immediate. Ability to process large amounts of data in real time and communicate it efficiently to other parties can give companies the edge over their competitors. It can also make life easier for citizens and their governments.

These and other possibilities and opportunities are not entirely new but not easily made available. Governments and many organizations strive to bring the benefits of ICs and information to people in societies. In different parts of the world, plans have been defined and implemented to exploit the potential offered by technologies at economic, cultural and social levels. Skills and knowledge are required from information systems practitioners, planners and policy makers. We see a number of policies and initiatives, plans and investments being laid out, some of which we have contributed to in our practice without us fully knowing why they need to be done. Their effects can now be seen but remain to be fully assessed.

What is emerging, to some, is a ‘new societal order’, in which almost every aspect of life will be based on the use of information. They have called this the ‘information society’. This type of society promises to offer a greater benefit than any being foreseen before: improving the quality of life of individuals. To achieve such improvement, a number of ‘preconditions’ need to be achieved. These include for instance

• deregulating markets of information-based products and services, as well as that of telecommunications, to enable companies to compete with cheaper and better information offers, and ultimately to benefit the end user;

• building communication infrastructures capable of enabling fast and reliable electronic information exchange;

• promoting development of electronic content industries;

• encouraging use of ICTs in different sectors (education, health, logistics, etc);

• enabling the acquisition of knowledge to master technologies and offer opportunities for employment and with it the renewal of knowledge.

Information systems practitioners, students or policy makers might consider that their activity has little to do with enabling these preconditions to take place. Nevertheless, and with the pervasiveness of ICTs in different realms of life, preconditions and plans are now part of our daily agendas. Among other activities that constitute our practice, we are called to initiate projects, select appropriate software, build databases, set up communication networks; formulate policies for enabling access to information and protect it; facilitate the creation of companies operating on and with the internet; etc. These examples should give us a flavor of our practice as being part of the development of the information society.

This book is about improving our practice in the information society. As the reader will discover, it not only has to do with facilitating the implementation of information systems and technologies but also is about working with people in exploring activities to facilitate societal improvements, so that the use of technologies and systems becomes more effective and sustainable in the long term. In this book we aim to provide ideas and experiences to help the reader appreciate and deal with the complexity of implementing projects, plans and initiatives related to the information society.

We begin by conceiving of the information society as a ‘system’, i.e. with a number of elements, issues, stakeholders and their needs; these elements are interconnected and interacting together. This leads us to formulate a number of questions: What is the purpose of such a system? What is it generating and what should it produce? How can we engage with this system? We intend to provide some answers to these and other fundamental questions with the help of systems-thinking.

A brief account of the information society as a system highlights a number of phenomena to be observed. These are:

• transformations

• engagement(s)

• unintended consequences.

Transformations

Castells (2001) provides a very comprehensive analysis of the development of the network society as a new and radical way of relating people. This comes about due to the technological evolution experienced worldwide during the 1990s. There are similarities between the information society and the network society, but in the latter, the negative aspects are made more explicit. For Castells, the network society comes about because old hierarchies in organizations are being flattened. What matters now, according to Castells, is not traditional bureaucracies that allow production and service to occur but the flows of information that emerge in these processes, with the additional feature that many processes occur in the virtual world. Goods and services are now assembled around and with information flows, requiring the participation of people across widespread geographical locations. Societies are being relocated geographically as people move to be part of ‘nodes’ of production and servicing of these information flows. As individuals living in the information society, we need to understand these transformations, and inform our practice by the possibility to contribute to (or challenge) them.

Engagement(s)

Those individuals and organizations participating in any of the types of information flows described above (e.g. by storing, producing, or mediating in their exchange) can access ‘knowledge’ and gain other benefits derived from being part of a network. Those being excluded can find it difficult to benefit. Governments are called to ensure that people get access to education, knowledge and skills to participate fully on the information society (CEC, 1997). However, the continuous development of new technologies, their accessibility via markets of information-related products and services, and existing socioeconomic conditions can all contribute to perpetuate existing gaps between those who have the resources and knowledge required to survive and those who do not.

This continuous perpetuation has been called marginalization (Beck et al., 2004) and could be manifested in various forms. It can have features to be considered a macro-phenomenon (structural conditions of societies that make marginalization a consequence of the economy, the education, and the formulation of policies). It can also have a more ‘micro’ set of features in which organizations and individuals experience difficulties with or lack of access to information services, products and technologies. At this micro level, inclusion and marginalization in the information society is very dynamic, as Beck et al. (2004) portray. Because of this dynamic nature, any plan or policy to facilitate access to the information society should considered that through time, those being excluded from access might be included, and those being included might be excluded later on.

This shows the importance of continually engaging with people in the information society. Not only are there opportunities to offer new products and services with information systems and technologies, but also these opportunities need to be revisited continually to assess who is benefiting and who could benefit in the near future.

About the potential existence of situations of marginalization, Castells (2001:282) sees that the use of information systems and technologies needs a political act from individuals. He says:

So, either we enact political change (whatever that means in its various forms), or you and I will have to take care of reconfiguring the networks of our world around the projects of our lives … If you do not care about the networks, the networks will care about you. (original parenthesis)

This should encourage individuals (in different realms of practice) to become aware of how this new order is affecting them, and what they need to do about it. As practitioners, citizens or policy makers, we need to prepare ourselves and others to be able to engage with possibilities of inclusion and marginalization generated by information society initiatives. In this book, we will look at different types of strategies that have been used to engage with others to bring the information society to place. Some of these, it will be argued, can help people to start thinking about more inclusive and effective ways of planning.

Unintended Consequences

As mentioned above, situations of use of information systems and technologies in the information society continually change, and we need to be prepared to act on the face of unintended consequences. Castells (2001) speaks about the dynamics of the information society and how change often takes place in unintended directions. He shows how the internet was initially conceived of to suit military purposes, but then became a tool to facilitate communication around the world and later on a medium to generate business and education opportunities. Changes develop as individuals engage with the use of information systems and technologies to address their own concerns as business entrepreneurs, community members or citizens.

One of Castells’ examples is the Zapatista movement in Mexico, where the Zapatistas (left-wing guerrillas) used the internet to get their cause known and respected, and gained international support for it. These individuals managed to create an image of their group which appealed to worldwide audiences. Another example is that of a group of individuals in the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, who established an online community to provide advice and support. After a few years, this community became embedded into a private organization and thus lost most of their community-oriented goals.

The above two examples also show that the use of information systems and technologies by different groups in society becomes embedded in a kind of network o...

Table of contents

• Routledge Series in Information Systems
• Contents
• Tables
• Figures
• Permissions
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Information Society
• 3 Systems-thinking
• 4 Applied Systems-thinking
• 5 The dealist Pattern for Practice in the Information Society
• 6 The trategic Pattern for Practice in the Information Society
• 7 The Power-based Pattern for Practice in the Information Society
• 8 A Dynamic Practice Framework for Living and Working in the Information Society
• 9 Conclusions
• Notes
• References
• Index