Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Web services are frequently discussed as “the next big thing” in information technology architecture. The picture painted by pundits, practitioners, IT vendors, and academics is appealing technically: Web service applications “exposed” to one another through standard protocols, navigating through an open infrastructure to search out counterparts over the Internet, with “seamless” integration across business processes and enterprises, without human intervention. However, the vision of a computing architecture that takes “people out of the network” has troubling social implications. In this paper, we utilize deconstruction as an analytic approach to examine a paper that promotes Web services, entitled “Your Next IT Strategy” (Hagel and Brown 2001). Our analytic purpose is to generate interpretations of the text that surface assumptions about how this IT innovation may influence the social organization of IT-related work. Our interpretation suggests that the Web services architecture could contribute to reproduction and consolidation of control among already powerful socio-economic actors, while restructuring and automating the work of IT professionals and other knowledge workers. We conclude with a discussion of deconstruction as a research approach to investigate issues of social inclusion and IT innovation.

A community computing center was established in late 2001 in a city council high-rise apartment block in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city. The center was one of five computing hubs (centers) of the Smart Newtown Project, established with economic and social inclusion objectives, in the lower socio-economic suburb of Newtown. The project aim was to reduce inequalities of access to information and communications technology (ICT). A partnership approach was adopted that included multiple stakeholders: city council employees and councillors, a communications trust, universities, staff of a computer corporation, and some apartment residents. After 4 years of operation, the center was closed and remains so at the time of writing. Using a theoretical framework that includes Warschauer’s (2003) model of ICT for social inclusion, the concept of social capital, and Oldenburg’s (1991) third place, this paper examines reasons for the center’s closure. The main findings reveal that low social capital and the inadequate support of social resources in the form of the community and an institution were key factors in the closure of this initiative. Recommendations are made for implementing future projects.

This paper describes findings from the Penceil Project, which aims to explore the experiences of nonusers and minimal users of ICTs, how nonuse affects their inclusion or exclusion from society, and how they can learn to use ICTs to meet their personal goals. The paper considers the applicability of the technology adoption model (TAM) to understanding the experiences of this group of people. By looking at theories of social exclusion and the project research findings, the paper argues that TAM is limited in the range of social conditions it anticipates and, thus, presumes a facility in formulating aspirations for use that people excluded from the use of ICTs cannot have. We argue that we need to consider engagement with technology rather than just adoption. We consider the implications of these findings for designing a revised basic ICT curriculum and describe the piloting of a new curriculum. We argue that, as ICTs in general—and Internet use in particular—are experienced technologies, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use need to be reformulated to recognize limitations on people’s ability to construct plans for future action since an actor’s world is disclosed through action not given in advance.

The mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion may operate among professionals within organizations and communities of practice. These mechanisms can be embedded into formal organizational structures, and exert powerful control over who the members of organizations and communities will deem to be acceptable and unacceptable within their society. Using capital theories as a theoretical lens, we analyze the texts of interviews with knowledge leaders in a software development organization. The analysis reveals how a threshold event operates to bring inclusion of newcomers to a collection of social communities. Until the threshold event, communities of newcomers are socially excluded. The existence of the threshold event, and the nature of the threshold event, is an unspoken and unacknowledged structure used in creating the social fabric of the organization or community. It is collectively, yet implicitly, decided when such an event occurs, and the social inclusion triggered without any explication otherwise.

This paper discusses some of the difficulties and challenges that an information technology (IT) firm in a developing country faces in its attempt to become a global player. In 1999, the firm KnowICT embarked on a strategic project called Knowledge Management (KM), whose main purpose was to unify and integrate knowledge that resided in the various organizational business units into one strategic knowledge infrastructure. By combining the knowledge resources dispersed in the various organizational business units, KnowICT managers hoped that KnowICT could be transformed into a leading global IT consultancy firm, rather than be seen just as a provider of routine outsourcing jobs. Although at a basic operational level the KM project has been deemed a success, the attempt to combine the knowledge resources from the various organizational business units proved more difficult than anticipated. We use postcolonial theory to explain the difficulties and challenges that KnowICT faces. Postcolonial theory draws attention to issues of power, ownership, control, and identity. We suggest postcolonial theory can meaningfully enhance our understanding of the development and use of information and communication technologies in developing countries.

In this paper we argue that software development methods represent theories on how best to engage the impressively complex and inherently socio-technical activity of making software. To help illustrate our points we draw on examples of three software methods: the waterfall approach, packaged software development, and free/libre and open source software development, In doing this, we highlight that software development methods reflect—too often implicitly—theories of (1) how people should behave, (2) how groups of people should interact, (3) the tasks that people should do, (4) the order of these tasks, (5) the tools needed to achieve these tasks, (6) the proper outcomes of these tasks, (7) the means to make this all happen, and (8) that these relations among concepts are further set in specific social, cultural, economic, and industrial contexts. We conclude by highlighting three trends in conceptualizing these eight elements.

Web services are frequently discussed as “the next big thing” in information technology architecture. The picture painted by pundits, practitioners, IT vendors, and academics is appealing technically: Web service applications “exposed” to one another through standard protocols, navigating through an open infrastructure to search out counterparts over the Internet, with “seamless” integration across business processes and enterprises, without human intervention. However, the vision of a computing architecture that takes “people out of the network” has troubling social implications. In this paper, we utilize deconstruction as an analytic approach to examine a paper that promotes Web services, entitled “Your Next IT Strategy” (Hagel and Brown 2001). Our analytic purpose is to generate interpretations of the text that surface assumptions about how this IT innovation may influence the social organization of IT-related work. Our interpretation suggests that the Web services architecture could contribute to reproduction and consolidation of control among already powerful socio-economic actors, while restructuring and automating the work of IT professionals and other knowledge workers. We conclude with a discussion of deconstruction as a research approach to investigate issues of social inclusion and IT innovation.