User:KYPark/1995/Hirschheim

Rudy A. Hirschheim, Heinz K. Klein and Kalle Lyytinen (1995). Information Systems Development and Data Modeling: Conceptual and Philosophical Foundations.
 * Cambridge Universty Press.


 * Preface

Though the fields of information system development, in general, and data modeling in particular [...] have amassed an impressive amount of research knowledge during the past two decades, they currently lack a global perspective and interpretation. In this context we define information systems development as the application of information technologies (computers and telecommunications) to solve and address problems in managing and coordinating modern organizations. Data modeling is concerned with describing, organizing and analyzing the properties of the 'rawware' of information systems -- data. A wealth of research in these fields has produced an astonishing array of empirical results and practical insights, conceptual and terminological diversity and confusion, and a large suite of tools and methods. But as many researchers and practitioners alike feel, these form an isolated, disjoint, and often contradictory amalgam of knowledge. In such a situation, the synthesis of the existing knowledge is at least as valuable as the addition of more detail in the form of further empirical results, new methods and tools, and refinements in vocabulary, etc. The need for synthesis to decrease the confusion in the area has motivated us to write this book: we seek out the principal, contradictory lines of research in information systems; describe and interpret them and their results in a way which does not deny or hide their differences, but in fact highlights the differences; and thereby hope to make these lines of research understandable. At the same time we strive to shed light on similarities where they exist and to discuss possible directions for improvement.

To accomplish our task, we need an intellectual tool to penetrate beneath the 'surface structure' of individual pieces of IS research and to organize them in some intelligible manner. We believe we have found such a tool in the form of a philosophical framework for analyzing the assumptions which guide different lines of research on IS and which points out the ways in which each line of research is somehow limited but at the same time brings order into chaos by making visible which assumptions make the approaches so different and what the implications for adhering to alternative assumptions are. We point out that all systems development methodologies make implicit assumptions which we feel may be problematic. Let us take a concrete example. Most (but not necessarily all) modeling techniques focus on functions, data or objects as elementary building blocks. The implicit and/or explicit underlying assumptions are that:


 * 1) these building blocks exist in the world (realism) and
 * 2) there is an objectively definable set of things whose definition is independent of the perceptions of the developer (objectivism).

The implication of the first assumption is that it is the developer's job to 'find' those objects as though they were the treasures of a sunken ship washed up on shore just waiting to be picked up by the first one to come along. The implication of the second assumption is that any two developers should come up with the same model (because they will find the same treasures) and if there are differences they are resolvable. If two developers do see things differently, assumption (2) suggests that one developer is not seeing the application as clearly as the other, or that one developer is simply not as good as the other.

As our analysis reveals alternative standpoints are possible as well. What if the objects are not given, but are to be constructed out of the pieces on the shore with the flotsam and jetsam of many cultures (the different user languages and views)? What if there are no universals, e.g. what are shells to one culture is money to another? Thinking along such lines, in this book we shall show:


 * 1) that most studies on information systems development rely on a specific standpoint which we call here a functionalist world view,
 * 2) that this view amounts to a distinct philosophical position, and
 * 3) this position is problematic in understanding and engaging in many facets of systems development.

If this point is accepted, then it is logical to ask what alternative philosophical positions are possible and what their implications for systems development and data modeling could be.

It will turn out that at least four philosophical positions can be discerned in the literature and these can account for many of the contradictory results and insights in the field. Researchers or practitioners adhering to different philosophical positions simply see different objects on the beaches (or should we say in the trenches) while developing information systems. This observation sets the principal agenda for this book: to define the fundamental philosophical positions, and to explain how they apply to systems development in general and data modeling in particular. The refinement of these issues form the core of our argument in this book. This will be a long and involved argument, like a long and winding road with many paths, but we have found it rewarding through difficult at times to navigate. We hope that many readers will enjoy the same experience, and that they will never see the same beach again after closing this book. (pp. xi-xii) Rudy Hirschheim, Heinz Klein, Kalle Lyytinen Houston, Owego and Hong Kong


 * Acknowledgements

This book has been both a physical and metaphorical journey for us. It has been an intellectual journey as well. Physically, it started out over 7 years ago in London and then Oxford, but has wound its way through places .... Over the years we have had many deep philosophical discussions, some of which have led to considerable disagreement, others which have resulted in the three of us uttering in unison 'ah ha'. No matter what the outcome, these philosophical discussions were always intellectually inspiring.

We learned a lot in writing this book. But it wasn't easy. Not much attention has been given in the literature to the kind of philosophical analysis of an applied field such as Information Systems. We felt like a voice in the wilderness when we first started with this book. Metaphorically, we had to find a path through the wilderness which would lead us to fertile grounds to satisfy our intellectual hunger. In this way, we came to know many interesting places which are not commonly visited by IS researchers. In our search for intellectual sustenance, we were delighted to find a few kindred spirits (or travel companions so to speak) who also tried to articulate the most fundamental assumptions on which the discipline of IS in general or ISD in particular rests. Among these kindred spirits we include Boland's (1979): 'Control, Causality and Information system Requirements,' Winograd and Flores' (1986) 'Understanding Computers and Cognition', Iivari's (1991) 'Paradigmatic Analysis of ISD', Dahlbom and Mathiassen's (1993) 'Computers in Context', and Ehn's (1988) 'Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts'. (p. xiii)

1.1 Background
It is truism to say that computers have become ubiquitous in today's organizations. Since their application in administrative data processing in the mid-1950s, they have become one of the key instruments for improving the formal information processing activities of organizations. In less than four decades, computer-based information systems (IS) have evolved from supporting back office, already formalized, systems such as payroll, to penetrating the entire organization. New applications and technologies have emerged with great fanfare, and the enthusiasm for information systems continues to run high. Indeed, many enthusiasts conceive of information technology as the primary vehicle for organizational problem-solvers, increasing an organization's capacity to cope with external and internal complexity and improve its performance. Nor is there any doubt that information systems will play an even more vital role in tomorrow's organization.

The development of these information systems have received considerable attention in both the popular and academic literature. New methods for designing systems, new approaches for analysis, new strategies for implementing the developed systems, and the like, have proliferated over the past 30 years. Yet, a majority of information systems design approaches conceive of information systems development (ISD) with the assumption that they are technical systems with social consequences. This leads one to focus on IS design problems as problems of technical complexity. Proponents of this view assume that IS development problems can largely be resolved by more sophisticated technical solutions (tools, models, methods and principles).

In recent years, however, there has been a growing interest in viewing IS as social systems that are technically implemented. They serve as the agent for significant social interactions which implies their connection to human communication through the medium of language. Contrary to 'second wave technologies' (i.e. matter and energy transforming machines; cf. Toffler 1980), information technology is by its very nature a social technology because its existence depends on social institutions like language, the legitimation and control of power and other forms of social influence, and other norms of behavior. The proponents of this view also claim that in fact all technological solutions are social solutions. As a consequence they regard IS design problems as dealing primarily with social complexity and only secondarily with technological complexity. We can conclude that such a socially informed view of IS assumes that all technical designs constitute interventions in the social institution.

The 'paradigm shift' implied by the above has led to the proposal of new 'social approaches'. Most of these have come from academia but have not yet been widely employed in practice. An interesting feature in these new approaches is the bewildering variety of views and processes they propose in dealing with IS as a social design problem. This suggests that 'social complexity' should be distinguished from 'technical complexity' because the former is of a different sort and more ambiguous (Weinberg 1981). Accordingly the IS design problem is a far more complex phenomenon than is realized in most cases, because it affects the conditions of human existence in similar ways as law making or other social institutions. Yet the mainstream literature continues to deal with it as a one-dimensional technological issue.

It is our contention that all involved in the framing of IS development bring to bear certain assumptions and beliefs about what is 'social', and that it is these assumptions which generate the variety of design approaches. The diverse assumptions and beliefs about the nature of IS have led to methodological pluralism in the IS research community (Mumford et al. 1985; Nissen et al. 1991). This pluralism can be said to reflect the multidimensional nature of complexity of ISD that cannot be reduced to any type of well-defined technical complexity. In other words, the complexity of IS development cannot be captured in some formal model and finally resolved through improved formalisms.

An interesting question arises immediately. Can this type of social complexity be analyzed and can we systematically trace its origins? We believe that it can be done but it requires a different type of inquiry than is usually followed in circles that regard IS design problems as mainly technical problems. Simply put, we do not need more refined mathematical theories, models or new sophisticated technologies. Instead, what we need is the ability to pose and debate -- in a critical manner -- traditional philosophical questions in the context of IS design that have been the subject of discourse by philosophers and social thinkers. At the same time it requires critical assimilation and acquaintance with problems and questions addressed in the mainstream of social theory and philosophy so that the latter can be used to speak to the issues that are relevant in IS development.

To address these issues, we engage in a critical analysis of assumptions and beliefs about the nature of social phenomena as revealed in a number of design methods and approaches that have been proposed for ISD. In more specific terms we shall conduct a critical analysis of systems development methods and methodologies that have emerged during the last two decades. We interpret methods and methodologies here quite broadly as any process oriented prescriptions of how to go about developing an information system. In this sense our analysis covers process models, methods and tools, and ways to organize systems development (e.g. participation). A more detailed analysis of these concepts is provided in chapter 3. Another target of our examination is those methods that focus on describing, organizing and analyzing date that are stored and manipulated in the IS. This area, in general, is denoted as data modeling. A more detained description of the pertinent data modeling concepts is provided in chapter 3. The reason for choosing this as a specific area of interest in our book is that data modeling deals with concepts like information, knowledge, meaning, and language which cannot be handled without explicit (or implicit) recourse to philosophical analysis. We believe that this type of analysis can serve two important goals:


 * 1) to systematically trace the complexity of IS design problems and methods into a set of beliefs and assumptions about the nature of 'social' reality (and social knowledge), and
 * 2) to point out some principal alternative approaches in which IS design and data modeling problems can be framed depending on the assumptions and beliefs about the nature of social reality.  (pp. 1-3)

1.2 Purpose of the Book
It is our contention ... that it is not possible to develop information systems without bringing to the development task a set of implicit and explicit assumptions. The most basic assumptions concern the nature of the world around us (ontological assumptions) and how one inquires or obtains knowledge about the world around us (epistemological assumptions). Different sets of assumptions are likely to yield very different approaches to information systems development. Yt this kind of philosophical analysis of an applied field is a genre which has not received much attention in the IS literature. We do, however, note a few kindred companions who tried to articulate the fundamental assumptions on which the discipline of IS in general or ISD in particular rests. Among these kindred spirits are Boland (1979), Iivari (1991), Dahlbom and Mathiassen (1993), Winograd and Flores (1986), Ehn (1988), and Floyd et al. (1992).

For whatever reason the number of studies of this genre is small, and since its beginning the field of IS has not spent much effort to explore the different set of assumptions which consciously and unconsciously influence systems developers as reflected in their use of preferred methods and tools. The closest representative of this genre is perhaps Dalhbom and Mathiassen (1993) who tried to capture the issues emerging from the controversy between technical enthusiasts and social critics in information systems under the headings of mechanism and romanticism. From the romantic perspective, change is unpredictable and beyond human control, the expression of hidden and unknowable forces. The mechanist, on the other hand, believes in the power of good representations to predict and control social change. In this book, we shall build on different distinctions. Some of the key issues which we shall address include: what is the nature of social reality and social causation; how can we obtain information about it; what is the relationship between the inquirer and the object of inquiry in a social context; what is the meaning of meaning and how is it created through language; what are the fundamental values that are guiding IS development in practice (Kling 1978; Mowshowitx 1984; Burns 1981) and those underlying different methodologies (Klein and Hirschheim 1991), and finally: does merely a matter of faith and politics? (cf. Klein and Hirschheim 1993). By looking at different answers to these questions in social theory and philosophy we believe that we can shed light on the social complexity in IS development. In short, some of the origins of this complexity can be found in the eyes of the beholder, i.e. with what type of assumptions and beliefs he or she approaches the social reality of IS design.

This is a different answer than usually adopted in the IS research literature. Instead, it is usually taken for granted that there exists only one set of fundamental assumptions which are essentially the same for all. But is this true? The purpose of the book is to explore this belief and expose it as misguided. There is simply more than one set of assumptions guiding systems development and which have commonly been taken for granted. They are associated with the 'paradigm' of functionalism. The purpose of this book is to explain this in more detail, and in particular we focus on the following three claims:


 * 1) There are fundamentally different sets of assumptions about the nature of the world and how one obtains knowledge of it which have important implications for both information systems development and use. In this book we limit our discussion to IS development. In fact, we will show it is possible to see four different sets of assumptions yielding four paradigms of ISD, one of which is functionalism. Moreover, each paradigm has its own way of looking at information systems; highlighting certain aspects of the IS and de-emphasizing others.
 * 2) It is possible to see in the literature that radically different approaches exist to information systems development which are influenced by these paradigms. However the understanding of these different approaches has suffered because much of this literature is not well-documented, and hence not easily accessible. Also, the language of some of the literature is impenetrable without some understanding of philosophical principles. Therefore, a second purpose of this book is to provide a survey of this literature, articulating and clarifying its underlying, different philosophical assumptions. This is necessary for interpreting the diverse streams of research on information systems development.
 * 3) The relative inaccessibility of much of the literature informed by alternative paradigms had produced an imbalance in the way the field is defined. This bias has led to the overlooking of important issues: for example as IS are widely perceived as providing effective representations of organizational reality for the purpose of organizational control and problem solving, alternative paradigms highlight the information systems' role in the process of social reality construction through sense-making, or their contribution to the improvement to arguments in the organizational discourse with possible implications for emancipation. Depending on which issue is defined as the principal project goal, a rather different approach to ISD will be appropriate. If it turns out that the most popular approaches follow the tenets of only one paradigm, an imbalance arises.

We believe this book is a first step toward correcting the intellectual imbalance of the field in that we focus on those approaches informed by alternative paradigms which have received insufficient attention in the refereed research literature. Our book is more than an intellectual exercise as it contributes to emancipation: the book may help the IS community to question the legitimacy of its current practices and resulting social arrangements.

We would like to acknowledge that this book is not meant as a contribution to philosophy, but rather its purpose is much more modest: to simply supply the current state of discussion in information systems with a broad philosophical basis. (pp. 3-5)

1.3 Goals and Organization of the Book
More specifically, the principal goals of this book are:


 * 1) To develop a philosophical and conceptual foundation to analyze and discuss representative ISD and data modeling approaches. This foundation is based on recent debates in the philosophy of science and language and it helps to clarify the conceptual foundations upon which all development approaches rest.
 * 2) To suggest a way to analyze systems development and data modeling approaches which is consistent with the proposed conceptual foundation. This is based on a systematic analysis of several development approaches and data modeling schools in which the concepts of systems development and data modeling are elaborated and refined.
 * 3) To provide a useful inventory of archetypical development approaches and their conceptual and philosophical foundations. In particular we want to point out what the main underlying theoretical underpinnings in current ISD approaches are and what areas of ISD are less developed and in need of further refinement.
 * 4) To develop a critical synthesis of the current philosophical debate about IS
 * 5) To examine the implications of this debate for possible theoretical improvements in future approaches to ISD and data modeling.

Our grand goal in writing this book is to show that the IS community cannot remain aloof from the philosophical controversies that have washed over social research during the last two decades. There is much to be learned from the serious scholarly work in social theory and philosophy -- an issue that has been largely overlooked by the IS community as pointed out above. At the same time the scholarly work in social theory and philosophy teaches us that IS research is basically a study of our (possible) social conditions (of knowing and communicating) that is inspired and supported by the immense potential of information technology. The application of social theory and philosophy to social research in general, and IS research in particular, is beneficial because it permits us to be much more realistic about the potential and the likely impacts of information technology. It also helps us to become pluralistic and complex reality of ISD. (pp. 5-6)

Further readings

 * Hirschheim, R. and Newman, M. (1991). "Symbolism and information systems development: myth, metaphor and magic." Information Systems Research, 2(1): 29-62.
 * Anne Hamilton (2000). "Metaphor in theory and practice: the influence of metaphors on expectations." ACM Journal of Computer Documentation Vol. 24, Iss. 4  (November 2000): 237-253. ACM Portal