IS Theory

Diversity

Real world is diverse and theory should embrace that

Don't worry about unification - problem is engagement

Features

Distinguishing feature of IS is that it is practice led

Criticsim: THis could be a problem - need to take step back from practice

Timescale - what's useful to practitioners different to what's useful to students

Change means theory can be tied to old technology

IS writers have zero impact in outside world - people from outside IS more widely quoted

Do practitioners value theory?

Do they know about it? "I wish I'd known about that before..."

What do practitioners do?, IT practitioners not framing their work as IS

Decision makers not educated in IS - no background. May be admin, finance, marketing etc..

Core no longer sexy?

Sits at intersection - cross fertilisation / always on the edge

Design via analysis: should not be one way

Approach

Just making sense is valuable

Lot's of fields r based around practice - don't need to search for a theory eg. law

Theory may exist but not be so important

Core theory / Directions

Checkland

KM taking over? new terms, same old stuff

Criticism: Still deterministic

Freidman economic analysis: Black boxing

INfo science has substance - why?

Understanding information rather than a specific tech problem

Critical realism

Structuralist: Identify a number of levels at which you're working, But they don't call themselves structuralist

What are we?

IS just an ethos, that's why fuzzy

Cyborg discipline - neither fish nor fowl. Continually changing / no boundary

Teaching

Useful theories may come from outside IS (economics, sociology) tools for thought.

Theory as range of possible approaches to a problem "thinking tools". Techniques derived from these

The IS Wiki data

Look at it by year of paper

How many practitioners wrote the papers as opposed to academics?