Information Technology & People: Volume 19 Issue 1

Introduction: Taking complexity seriously in IS research

Edoardo Jacucci, Ole Hanseth, Kalle Lyytinen

To give an overview of the papers contained in this Special Issue.

Toward a complexity theory of information systems development

Hind Benbya, Bill McKelvey

Existing literature acknowledges information systems development (ISD) to be a complex activity. This complexity is magnified by the continuous changes in user requirements due to…

Interpreting socio‐technical co‐evolution: Applying complex adaptive systems to IS engagement

Richard M. Kim, Simon M. Kaplan

This paper seeks to understand how software systems and organisations co‐evolve in practice during an IS engagement. Seeks also to argue that complex adaptive system theory (CAS…

Fluids or flows? Information and qualculation in medical practice

Ingunn Moser, John Law

Seeks to explore the assumptions and limitations of current programmes for the creation of electronic patient records by comparing ICT programme statements with hospital uses of…

Self‐destructive dynamics in large‐scale technochange and some ways of counteracting it

Bongsug Chae, Giovan Francesco Lanzara

Seeks to raise the question of why large‐scale technochange is difficult and often failure‐prone and to attempt to answer this question by viewing technochange as an instance of…

Information out of information: on the self‐referential dynamics of information growth

Jannis Kallinikos

The paper seeks to develop a theory of information processes that invokes three major explanatory factors to account for the escalating patterns of information growth that have…