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Article
Publication date: 30 October 2017

David Kreps

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Burmeister’s paper on Professionalism in information and communication technology.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Burmeister’s paper on Professionalism in information and communication technology.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a short and simple response to an issue that seemed central to Burmeister’s paper.

Findings

A key conundrum between the definitions of professionalism and corporations needs addressing.

Originality/value

This conundrum is a global political situation outwith the ability of the profession to address.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 15 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1998

Terry Burke

Uncertainty means that transaction costs have to be incurred by organisations whenever they make an agreement. These costs include time and money spent searching, drawing up and…

Abstract

Uncertainty means that transaction costs have to be incurred by organisations whenever they make an agreement. These costs include time and money spent searching, drawing up and enforcing contracts and in dealing with contingencies. The concept of transaction costs is traced from its originator, economist Ronald Coase, to its more recent development by David Kreps. Good reputations, themselves a product of successful corporate communications activities, tend to reduce internal and external transaction costs. Given a competitive environment those firms with lower transaction costs, as a result of high reputations, will tend to survive better than those with weak ones.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

David Kreps and Kai Kimppa

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the broad phases of web development: the read-only Web 1.0, the read-write Web 2.0, and the collaborative and Internet of Things Web 3.0…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the broad phases of web development: the read-only Web 1.0, the read-write Web 2.0, and the collaborative and Internet of Things Web 3.0, are examined for the theoretical lenses through which they have been understood and critiqued.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual piece, in the tradition of drawing on theorising from outside the Information Systems field, to shed light on developments in information communication technologies (ICTs).

Findings

Along with a summary of approaches to Webs 1.0 and 2.0, the authors contend that a more complex and poststructuralist theoretical approach to the notion of, and the phenomenon of Web 3.0, offers a more interesting and appropriate theoretical grounding for understanding its particularities.

Originality/value

The discussion presages five further papers engaged with ICTs in a changing society, each of which similarly addresses novel theoretical understandings.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 28 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 26 July 2018

Harvey A. Hornstein

791

Abstract

Details

Strategy & Leadership, vol. 46 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1087-8572

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Janne Lahtiranta, Jani S. S. Koskinen, Sari Knaapi-Junnila and Markku Nurminen

Service alignment between health service provider and patient is changing. Instead of placing responsibilities into the hands of a provider, new forms of co-operation are emerging…

Abstract

Purpose

Service alignment between health service provider and patient is changing. Instead of placing responsibilities into the hands of a provider, new forms of co-operation are emerging in which patients are regarded as a resource and a partner. In order to see this vision come to life, mechanisms that: first, support patient’s health decision making; and second, integrate matters of health into a wider ensemble that is health space; the overarching state of health-related affairs, are needed. In the following, these kinds of mechanisms are investigated and their applicability is discussed in relation to a national project. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

The work is exploratory and conceptual, focussing more on people than on technology. In the work, findings related to a concept of a health navigator; an artefact of personal health decision support, are assembled into a framework that bases on key sociological theories. The empirical elements focus on observations made on applicability of the concept, and the underlying framework of citizen-centric electronic health services.

Findings

The authors argue that the discussed concept, when applied to personal health decision making according to the underlying framework, has a potential to change health service provisioning. In addition to stimulating new kind of co-operation between the health service provider and the citizen, the concept gives form to, somewhat idealized, notions of patient choice and empowerment.

Research limitations/implications

The work described here is exploratory and forward-looking. Even though the concept and the framework are tested to a degree in a national project, more practice-oriented work is needed in terms of real-world applicability. It follows from this that the work is a conceptual elaboration on the future of personal health decision making.

Originality/value

The findings, including the discussed challenges and needs, stem from real-world observations; from the needs of citizens. As such, they indicate a direction into which the development of personal health records and health decision support aids should go.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 28 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2006

Alison Adam and David Kreps

The purpose of this article is to analyse the continuing problem of web accessibility for disabled people as a critical information systems issue.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to analyse the continuing problem of web accessibility for disabled people as a critical information systems issue.

Design/methodology/approach

The ways in which the web is used by disabled people, and problems that can arise, are described and related to the development of critical disability theory from older models of disability, including the medical and social models, noting that the social construction of disability model may tend to mask the embodied, lived experience of disability.

Findings

The lack of interaction of the critical disability approach and dominant discourses of web accessibility and internet studies, particularly in relation to embodiment, is a major contributor to the continuance of an inaccessible Worldwide web.

Research limitations/implications

The paper does not offer a comprehensive set of web accessibility issues, concentrating instead on the most common problems as exemplars.

Practical implications

The paper raises awareness of web accessibility.

Originality/value

The paper brings the topic of accessibility of technology by disabled people into the critical information systems arena and also incorporates social construction of disability and theoretical considerations of embodiedness in its analysis.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2000

James E. Alvey

Mainstream economists now consider their discipline to be a technical one that is free from ethical concerns. I argue that this view only arose in the twentieth century. In this…

4139

Abstract

Mainstream economists now consider their discipline to be a technical one that is free from ethical concerns. I argue that this view only arose in the twentieth century. In this paper I set out a brief history of economics as a moral science. First, I sketch the evolution of economics before Adam Smith, showing that it was generally (with the exception of the mercantilists) conceived of as a part of moral philosophy. Second, I present elements of the new interpretation of Smith, which show him as a developer of economics as a moral science. Third, I show that even after Smith, up to the beginning of the twentieth century, a number of leading economic theorists envisioned economics as a moral science, either in theory or in practice. Fourth, I sketch the decline of economics as a moral science. The key factor was the emergence and influence of positivism. Overall, I show that the current view of the detachment of economics from morals is alien to much of the history of the discipline.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 27 no. 12
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Arthur Tatnall

It is widely acknowledged that the computer has caused great societal changes over recent years, but the purpose of this paper is to relate specifically to those due to the use of…

3740

Abstract

Purpose

It is widely acknowledged that the computer has caused great societal changes over recent years, but the purpose of this paper is to relate specifically to those due to the use of computers in education and teaching about computing. The adoption and use of computers in education was very much a socio-technical process with influence from people, organisations, processes and technologies: of a variety of human and non-human actors.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper makes use of actor-network theory to analyse these events and their educational and societal impact. Data were collected from published sources, interviews with those involved at the time, discussions and from personal experience and observations.

Findings

Computers have, of course, had a huge impact on society, but particularly in relation to the use of computers in school education there was a different societal impact. Some of this related directly to education, some to school administration and some to student attitudes, experiences and knowledge.

Research limitations/implications

The paper investigates the development of early courses in computing in universities and schools in Victoria, Australia. The paper does not, however, consider the use of computers in university research, only in education.

Practical implications

The paper describes the significant educational events of the era from punch-card tabulating machines in the 1930s to micro-computers in the late 1980s, and investigates the relationship between the development of courses in the Universities and those in the more vocationally oriented Colleges of Advanced Education. It examines whether one followed from the other. It also investigates the extent of the influence of the universities and CAEs on school computing.

Social implications

The advent of the computer made a significant impact on university and school education even before the internet, Google, Wikipedia and smart phones in the late 1990s and 2000s. Computers in schools cause a rethink of how teaching should be handled and of the role of the teacher.

Originality/value

This paper investigates the history of computers and education in both universities and schools in Victoria, Australia over the period from the 1930s to the early 1990s. It considers how and why this technological adoption occurred, and the nature of the resulting educational and societal change this produced. Primary and High School use of computers did not commence until the 1970s but prior to this there is a considerable and interesting history associated with the development of Higher Education courses relating to computing.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 28 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Norberto Patrignani and Diane Whitehouse

This discussion paper focuses on a notion of information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair that the authors call Slow Tech. The purpose of this paper…

3156

Abstract

Purpose

This discussion paper focuses on a notion of information and communication technology (ICT) that is good, clean and fair that the authors call Slow Tech. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Slow Tech approach in order to explain how to create a suitable bridge between business ethics and computer ethics.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper’s approach is discursive. It provides a viewpoint. Its arguments are based in an examination of literature relevant to both business ethics and computer ethics. Justification is produced for the use of Slow Tech approach. A number of potential future research and application issues still to be investigated are also provided.

Findings

Slow Tech can be proposed, and used, as a bridging mechanism between companies’ strategies regarding computer ethics and business ethics. Three case studies illustrate the kind of challenges that companies have to tackle when trying to implement Slow Tech in concrete business context. Further study need to be undertaken to make progress on Slow Tech in applied, corporate settings.

Practical implications

ICT companies need to look for innovative, new approaches to producing, selling and recycling their services and products. A Slow Tech approach can provide such insights.

Social implications

Today’s challenges to the production and use of good, clean, and fair ICT, both conceptual and concrete, can act as incentives for action: they can further applied research or encourage social activism. Encouraging the study, and the application, of Slow Tech provides a first step in the potential improvement of a society in which information technology is totally embedded.

Originality/value

The value of this paper in not only for academics and researchers, but also for practitioners: especially for personnel working in ICT companies and for those involved with designing, developing and applying codes of conduct at both European and globally.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 28 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Thomas Taro Lennerfors, Per Fors and Jolanda van Rooijen

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of information and communication technology (ICT) for promoting environmental sustainability in a changing society. Isolated…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of information and communication technology (ICT) for promoting environmental sustainability in a changing society. Isolated studies exist, but few take a holistic view. Derived from a Marxian tradition, the authors propose Ecological World Systems Theory (WST) as a holistic framework to assess the environmental impact of ICT. The theory is adapted responding to theoretical critiques of absence of change, namely state-centrism and structuralism.

Design/methodology/approach

Theoretical study. Empirical examples derived from already published literature.

Findings

Ecological WST focuses on the unequal distribution of environmental degradation, sees technological development as a zero-sum game rather than cornucopia and holds that technology is often seen as a fetish in today ' s society. The findings are that popular discourses on ICT and sustainability are since the 1990s becoming increasingly cornucopian, while conditions in the ICT value chain are less cornucopian.

Research limitations/implications

Theoretical contributions to Marxian critiques of ICT, with more environmental focus than earlier Marxian critiques, for example Fuchs’ work. Develop a theoretical framework for ICT and sustainability which could be compared with works of e.g. Hilty, Patrignani and Whitehouse. The work is mostly based on existing empirical studies, which is a limitation.

Practical implications

This theoretical framework implies that unequal environmental degradation in different parts of the world should be taken into account when assessing environmental impact, for example by means of LCA.

Social implications

The framework brings together questions of environmental effects of ICT and global justice.

Originality/value

The authors apply a rarely discussed theoretical framework to ICT and environmental sustainability. By doing this the authors suggest how the discourses and the value chain of ICT is intrinsically tied to the world system.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 28 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

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