Impacts of information systems: four perspectives

Abstract The paper reviews the information systems (ISs) literature to show that much work on ISs has been based on the perspectives of determinism (viewing the impacts of ISs on individuals, organizations, and society as a function of the technology alone), mechanism (viewing organizations and ISs as machines), and systems (founded on the analogy of organization with organism). These perspectives are inadequate to understanding the impacts of ISs and, consequently, to determining their value to the business. Work in the area of ISs requires an interactionist perspective, taking the effects of information technology (IT) to be a product of neither the technical nor the organizational aspects alone, but of their interaction. The interactionist approach has important implications for the management and appraisal of IT.

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