Rethinking Systems Analysis in A New View of Organizations

The effectiveness of IT investments is known to depend on intangible assets such as work practices. However current systems analysis has no concern about them due to the mindset of rational organization and functionalism. We rethink systems analysis in a new view of organizations proposed by Kay and colleagues who apply autopoiesis and complex theories to reconstruct the basis of organizational theories, and we make theoretical clarifications of the problems and issues of the current systems analysis. Among others, the absence of a frame has prevented people from seeing their work practices and at the same time made it practically difficult to take them into consideration in systems analysis, leaving rational systems analysis and design to be still in use. There is a need to develop a practical frame that business professionals can use to see their work practices.

[1]  Steven L. Alter.  Making Work System Principles Visible and Usable in Systems Analysis and Design , 2004, AMCIS.

[2]  Y. Engeström,et al.  Activity theory and individual and social transformation. , 1999 .

[3]  Kurt Ludewig.  Maturana, Humberto R. , 2005 .

[4]  Larry S. Seligman,et al.  Adoption as sensemaking: toward an adopter-centered process model of IT adoption , 2000, ICIS.

[5]  J. Lemke.  Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values , 1990 .

[6]  M. Cole,et al.  Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. L. S. Vygotsky. , 1978 .

[7]  Richard J. Boland,et al.  Knowledge management technology and the reproduction of knowledge work practices , 2000, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[8]  Richard Baskerville,et al.  Growing systems in emergent organizations , 1999, CACM.

[9]  Lucy A. Suchman,et al.  Making work visible , 1995, CACM.

[10]  Mikko Korpela,et al.  Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Activity Theory Based Practical Methods for IT-Design, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2-3, 2004 , 2004 .

[11]  Robert Kay.  Are organizations autopoietic? A call for new debate , 2001 .

[12]  Takeshi Kosaka,et al.  Introducing Collective Identity into Information Systems Research: Collective Identity as a Bridge between IS Researches and Practitioners , 2006, PACIS.

[13]  V. V. Davydov.  Perspectives on activity theory: The content and unsolved problems of activity theory , 1999 .

[14]  Jeffrey L. Whitten,et al.  Systems Analysis and Design Methods , 1986 .

[15]  K. Weick.  The social psychology of organizing , 1969 .

[16]  K. Kuutti.  Activity theory as a potential framework for human-computer interaction research , 1995 .

[17]  Barbara Czarniawska,et al.  Weick, Karl E. , 1998 .

[18]  John Mingers,et al.  Self-Producing Systems , 1994, Contemporary Systems Thinking.

[19]  Peter Checkland,et al.  Systems Thinking, Systems Practice , 1981 .

[20]  C. Hardy,et al.  Discourse and Collaboration: The Role of Conversations and Collective Identity , 2005 .

[21]  Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic,et al.  Organizational knowledge and autopoiesis: towards a new view , 2003, ECIS.

[22]  Jorgen P. Bansler,et al.  Improvisation in Information Systems Development , 2004, Relevant Theory and Informed Practice.

[23]  H. Maturana,et al.  The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding , 2007 .

[24]  Steven L. Alter.  Desperately Seeking Systems Thinking in the Information Systems Discipline , 2004, ICIS.

[25]  Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic,et al.  Toward an Autopoietic Perspective on Information Systems Organization , 2002, ICIS.

[26]  Chris Goldspink,et al.  Organizations as self-organizing and sustaining systems: a complex and autopoietic systems perspective , 2003, Int. J. Gen. Syst..

[27]  H. Maturana.  The tree of knowledge , 1987 .

[28]  F. Blackler.  KNOWLEDGE AND THE THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONS: ORGANIZATIONS AS ACTIVITY SYSTEMS AND THE REFRAMING OF MANAGEMENT* , 1993 .

[29]  Chris Westrup,et al.  Transforming Organizations Through Systems Analysis: Deploying New Techniques for Organizational Analysis in IS Development , 1996 .

[30]  C. Goldspink,et al.  Developing Information Systems in the Absence of Purpose: A complex and autopoietic view , 2004 .

[31]  K. Weick.  FROM SENSEMAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS , 2021, The New Economic Sociology.

[32]  Carol V. Brown,et al.  Nibco's "Big Bang" , 2000, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[33]  H. Maturana,et al.  Autopoiesis and Cognition : The Realization of the Living (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Scie , 1980 .

[34]  Robert Kay.  Organizational Knowledge & Autopoiesis : Towards a new view , 2003 .

[35]  H. Maturana.  Biology of Language: The Epistemology of Reality , 2014 .

[36]  Elizabeth S. Guy,et al.  Appropriating patterns for the activity theory toolkit , 2004 .

[37]  B. Latour.  On Recalling Ant , 1999 .