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The aim of this paper is to provide insights into how information (IS) practitioners can develop further their awareness on ethical issues. In the context of the paper, awareness means able to identify and deal with issues of ethics in activities of information systems planning, development and use. The paper begins by presenting two areas which IS practitioners can initially explore to develop their ethical awareness. These areas are: (1) IS Methodologies and (2) Codes. The first area emphasises ethical awareness by using methodologies. The second element aims to encourage ethical awareness by following principles. In both areas, self‐reflection is identified as a key element for awareness. Using Foucault’s ideas on power and ethics, a critical understanding of ethical awareness based on self‐reflection is presented to complement ethical awareness developments. This understanding is defined in terms of two elements of inquiry: (a) Power relations analysis and (b) ways of being ethical. With these two elements, the paper argues that IS practitioners can exert their critical thinking and create their own ethics, while still following IS methodologies and codes.

This study aims to map the dynamics of e-government rhetoric through a discourse analysis. The discussion and understanding is based on an identification and interpretation of emerging concepts in e-government reports and research journals. The goal is to unveil established concepts that influence e-government policy development in the public administration context.

Institutional discourse and a policy cycle model are initially selected to guide an inter-textual meta-analysis and meta-synthesis of relevant e-government and public administration outlets. Key concepts are analysed based on their frequency in order of appearance and proximity to each-other. Themes emerging from concept-ideas feed-back to the theory by helping us to suggest a new e-government policy development framework informed by practice and research domains.

The findings suggest that although a number of concept-ideas are being institutionalized in the field of e-government, there are persisting differences and discourses between public administration and e-government reports and journals. Most of the conceptual gaps identified by this study are related to emerging issues like e-government evaluation, engagement with end-users and connection gaps between policy, practice and research.

This study advances the use of discursive institutionalism in e-government research by suggesting that concepts and ideas are institutionalized not only through discourse assimilation, but also by attracting and being able to keep other concept-ideas closely related into themes. Different policy development paths identified in e-government practice and research domains should be jointly considered by policy makers, managers and researchers to improve their implementation.

Companies increasingly find themselves under pressure to adopt socially responsible forms of operation. Since organizational change is crucially influenced by knowledge creation and sense‐making, this paper aims to determine how knowledge management (KM) processes can foster (or impede) progress towards corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The paper reviews the KM literature to identify areas of knowledge management that are particularly relevant to managing a company's social and environmental externalities.

Distinguishing between two related but analytically distinct approaches to knowledge management, namely an element and a process view, the paper develops a conceptual model of how knowledge management can impact on CSR.

Distinguishing between elements of knowledge and processes of managing these allows a more systematic and comprehensive approach to managing knowledge around CSR.

Qualitative research has made important contributions to social science by enabling researchers to engage with people and get an in-depth understanding of their views, beliefs and perceptions about social phenomena. With new and electronically mediated forms of human interaction (e.g. the online world), there are new opportunities for researchers to gather data and participate with or observe people in online groups. The purpose of this paper is to present features, challenges and possibilities for online ethnography as an innovative form of qualitative research.

Ethnography is about telling a story about what happens in a particular setting or settings. In order to do this online, it is important to revisit, adopt and adapt some ideas about traditional (offline) ethnography. The paper distinguishes online ethnography from other types of research. It draws some generic features of online ethnography and identifies challenges for it. With these ideas in mind the paper presents and provides a reflection of an online ethnography of software developers.

Online ethnography can provide valuable insights about social phenomena. The paper identifies generic features of this approach and a number of challenges related to its practice. These challenges have to do with to the choice of settings, use of online data for research, representation of people and generation of valuable and useful knowledge. The paper also highlights issues for future consideration in research and practice.

The ethnography helped the researcher to identify and address a number of methodological challenges in practice and position herself in relation to relevant audiences she wanted to speak to. The paper also suggests different orientations to online ethnography. Lessons learned highlight potential contributions as well as further possibilities for qualitative research in the online world.

Online ethnography offers possibilities to engage with a global audience of research subjects. For academics and practitioners the paper opens up possibilities to use online tools for research and it shows that the use of these tools can help overcome difficulties in access and interaction with people and to study a diversity of research topics, not only those that exist online. The paper offers guidance for researchers about where to start and how to proceed if they want to conduct online ethnography and generate useful and valuable knowledge in their area of interest.

E‐government initiatives are becoming common worldwide, but conceptual elements to understand their development, implementation and consequences are still lacking. Drawing on a contextualisation of e‐government in the information society and traditions in public policy, the aim of this paper is to offer three different patterns for thinking about e‐government. The paper's inter‐disciplinary and reflexive approach, as well as referencing a particular case (Colombian e‐government initiative Gobierno en Línea), seeks to unsettle the taken‐for‐granted aspects of the policy discourse of e‐government in ways that can illuminate practice.

From policy‐making and information systems, the authors review two dominant views on the information society to contextualise three patterns to think about e‐government. The first pattern (idealist) focuses on adopting a “vision” or “best practice” for government's use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The second pattern (strategic) emphasises the shaping of designs and uses of such technologies by different stakeholder groups. The third pattern (power‐based) conceives of any e‐government initiative as being the by‐product of power relations in a context, leading to different ways of thinking about e‐government (traditions). Analysis can then generate opportunities for the use of power by individuals and governments. The authors study these patterns in the Colombian e‐government initiative (Gobierno en Línea) by analysing relevant government policy strategic documents during the period 1997 to 2007 and validating these via a semi‐structured interview with the director of this initiative.

By using these patterns the authors are able to illuminate the complexity of e‐government initiatives, and how each pattern contributes a different way of understanding. In the Colombian case we find that these patterns are intertwined and require us to go deeper in thinking about the context of relations between individuals and their governments.

For public sector managers (and in particular for those in developing countries), the definition of these patterns can help them to assess critically the opportunities and limitations of the projects on e‐government in which they are involved. The findings also raise issues that can inform implementation strategies.

The paper presents an alternative and inter‐disciplinary perspective to the study of e‐government that unsettles taken‐for‐granted assumptions about it. Rather than accepting its idealist rhetoric uncritically, the paper provides individuals (citizens, researchers, policy makers) with ways to identify assumptions, strengths and weaknesses of our ways of thinking about it. The paper also opens opportunities to investigate contextual traditions that shape e‐government policy, implementation and use.