Research Talk: Alienation as a Central Problem of IS Theorizing

Abstract

Alienation is now a fundamental problem of IS theorizing, which affects the ontological, epistemological and axiological foundations of IS theories. Some core challenges which the IS discipline faced since the late 1980's are: (1) IS theorizing does not deal with the complexity of the phenomenon of information systems; (2) IS theories proposed are too simplistic; and (3) IS theories fail to deal with the duality of digital technologies and their negative implications for humanity. Even though the name of the field is Information Systems, and in the 1970's and early 1980's we understood that IS were sociotechnical systems embedded in larger systems (business, industries, society), but by the late 1980's the focus of IS theories contracted and became alienated from the complex social reality of digitalization by narrowing focus to the individual level (i.e. adoption research). Furthermore, the worldview of IS research is largely oriented to instrumental economic value rationality of efficiency and effectiveness in the service of profit maximizing. This value orientation and the contracted view of IS phenomena and their empirical contexts led to poverty in our theorizing, which we must now address. However, it is now clear that this approach to IS research has impovrished social scientific knowledge of digitalization with profound effects for global society.

About

Ojelanki Ngwenyama’s research focuses on a critical social theory analysis of societal digitalization. He is Professor and Director, Institute Innovation and Technology Management, and a Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada; Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Ojelanki is a Member of the South African Academy of Science, and a Fellow of The Association for Information Systems. He is a regular visiting professor, Nantes Université, France. Ojelanki has a PhD in Computer Science from Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering, State University of New York, Binghamton, USA; and D.Phil from the Faculty of Engineering and The Build Environment, University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is a Senior Editor of European Journal of Information Systems.

Organised by Technologies in Practice, Digital Business Innovation, and Digitalisation, Democracy and Governance.