UNIVERSITY OF UME
Institute of Information
Processing - ADB
|
Postal
address: S-901 87
UME (Sweden) |
Tel
(direct dialing): +46 90
166030 |
Telefax: +46 90
166126(166688) |
Email
(Internet): kivanov@cs.umu.se |
Professor
KRISTO IVANOV
Chair,
Administrative Data Processing
The
motivation for writing the following outline for a research program in
information technology and administrative data processing springs forth from
three main circumstances: 1) The availability of many young researchers who are
eager to identify important issues and to work on them; 2) The emphasis that is
being given in research planning and funding to the issue of
technical-industrial aspects of information technology, including lately
interest for work environment, and 3) The accumulation durings the last 25
years of a wealth of intuitions and experiences in which it is easy to drown if
they are kept too long time in an unformulated state. They obviously overtax
the shortlived capacity of one man, and must be left in heritage to as many
engaged students as possible who will not need to rediscover the gold mines of
available knowledge, and who would like to discuss and share the task of
investigating the suggested avenues of research.
Having
being written in the research and education milieu of a university, what is
presented here is necessarily already the result of a conversation that has
been going on between a fair number of people since a long time ago but the
responsibility for the statements found in this work is the author's. The
labeling of the work as a program does not assume that there is a wide
consensus about what should be done. It should be rather seen as an invitation
to a dialogue and debate about desirable research tasks in the long run, and
reconsideration of present priorities in the short run. It could not be
otherwise considering that what is being presented here as a program is rather
a "reader" covering a great amount of literature and ongoing efforts.
The
work is kept very short and in general offers a minimum of details. In many
cases what is stated about the literature cannot be entitled to be called an
abstract or review. A rough estimate of the time that would be required to
thoroughly read the referenced literature will probably show that it is not to
be expected that the author has been able to do it. Strong intuitions based on
personal and shared experience, have sometimes taken the place of a thorough
reading. What is attempted is to understand the "mechanisms" of the
ongoing process of computerization of society in general, and of administration
in particular. A better formulation, instead of using the word mechanisms, will
state that the attempt is striving to foster personal and collective action
through an understanding of the "driving forces" that co-produce
computerization or increased use of information technology.
The
text is organized under several headings that correspond roughly to various
disciplinary views of computer usage. There are several overlappings and
partial repetitions of arguments which sometimes are unavoidable because of the
artificial subdivision of a scientific problem that more than never should be
seen as a whole. Besides that it has been aptly remarked that every scientist
in the most fortunate case has one main idea, a very personal
"confession" that represents his unique personality, and that is
repeated all over again in slightly different versions during a whole lifetime.
In this case the repetitions will unavoidably make clear which is the main
idea.
A
review of the material that is presented will show that such a work must
navigate between the Scylla of eclectical relativism for presenting too many
works of too many authors and the Charybdis of monistic authoritarianism for
referring to a few of them too often. The tendency today is in favour of the
former while this work may be paradoxically accused of coming too near to both.
Concerning the former this is the right place for remembering a known quotation
from T.S. Eliot "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all
our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the
first time".
Some
of the "messages" or hypotheses conveyed by this work, and
corresponding to its main idea can spontaneously be arranged as follows:
1) Information technology challenges
the division of traditional disciplines, and puts to the fore not only the
political but also the ethical aspects of science.
2) Information science and systems
science, if they should be called disciplines at all, represent new concerns,
and as all new disciplines they are must be still transdisciplinary in their
character. Nothing can grow except on the basis of its historical ground. Our
historical ground is, besides philosophy seen as historical
"processing" of information, i.e. knowledge, mathematics, logic,
psychology, statistics, economics, physics, and others.
3) The study of the use of computers
exposes very clearly the inherent shortcomings or limits of knowledge and
intellect in the sense that it is felt that no man in his lifetime can be hoped
to learn what would be necessary to learn for "understanding" what is
happening and what should happen with the computer revolution. Modesty,
psychological self-insight and collective efforts, i.e. new forms of
understanding, are called for.
4) From the previous point follows
that difficulties will make it probable that studies of the use of computers
will, in some sense, "fail". This should lead funding agencies to a
better understading of the meaning of failure (Churchman, 1982, pp. 36-49) and to a conviction that failure
may require increased efforts and grants to an amount that is at least
comparable with the amounts invested in purely technical applied research.
5) There are some original basic
research efforts that deserve support in the context of planning of the
development of information technology, leading to applied research that can
even result in marketable industrial products. In the pragmatist perspective
theory and practice cannot be isolated in the process of research.
6) Some of these efforts because of
their transdisciplinary character create a readiness for dialogue between
people with far different disciplinary outlook, such as mathematics,
engineering, economics, statistitics, logic, psychology, theology, etc.
Concerning theology one point that may emerge from the proposed inquiry is that
science leads to philosophy and philosophy leads to religion and new forms of
understanding with all their practical consequences (Acharya, 1917, p. 242).
The
historical dimension is perhaps the most explicit and recurrent in the whole
work and therefore it deserves particular attention As it was pointed out above, every new discipline or effort
for knowledge must, so to say by definition of "new", be related to
what has existed earlier. In this sense every new knowledge must by definition
be multisciplinary, interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary. Pure delimitation
or specialization will not do, as testified by numerous
"specializations" like biochemistry, astrophysics, etc, that are
rather recombinations of existing disciplines.
New
knowledge, including the field of ethics (Lewis, 1988, pp.65ff) must be created by accepting,
working out, changing or rejecting existing knowledge or given data about the
world. There may have been times and places in which this historical interest
and search for roots took an extreme
character that was inimical to creativity and innovation (Nietzsche, 1988). There is an obvious danger of
recurring to history as an unlimited reserve of reading and complications that
ultimately hamper the individual capacity to live, think for himself, feel, and
take stand on life issues. The attractiveness of phenomenology, that stands
quite close to the pragmatist approach dominating this essay (Kaufmann, 1940; Hood, 1982; Edie,
1987; Rosental, 1987; Pressman, 1989) may be based on this feeling. In
short: the historical approach may be misused and lead to a relativization and
neutralization of "the true" and so it happened often during the
Enlightenment (Nordin, 1987, about E.G. Geijer's
"true" versus "false" Enlightenment).
Considering
the status of present research and education, however, it seems that such a
danger of misusing history is minimal since it is absent from most concerns.
Under such circumstances a recall of history can only contribute to a justified
slow down of the speed of activities and improve the trial-and-error process by
adducing by means of dialogue with our predecessors a wealth of thoughts and
experiences that should be as relevant to us as we wish that our own should be
to our children.
The
importance of dialogue and communication today is well recognized in developing
data banks and communication networks. On the average, however, it seems that
the Anglo-Saxon computer world has payed scanty attention to the historical
dimension of inquiry. It certainly stood at the basis of one of the most
influential debates on the continental European scene, the issue of
Geisteswissenschaften and Naturwissenschaften.(Dilthey, 1989). One particular contribution of
this research program is, then, the attempt to integrate this historical
approach with philosophical pragmatism into the context of computer and
information science. In this sense the proposed program may be termed as
philosophical. In spite of this word being often used today as a denigrating
epithet when evaluating grant proposals, we think of it in its sense of how
inquiry would look like if philosophy did not split up in many isolated
disciplines while their implementation problems are relegated to a synthetizing
generic "user".
Let
us re-emphasize that such a research program is not intendend to be one man's
job, not even one group's. Its long run purpose is rather to contribute to the
build up of a community of researchers on a national or international scale,
perhaps an outgrowth of earlier comprehensive research programs comprehensive
research programs on information systems which have been formulated or
described by business and organizational researchers (Mason, & Mitroff, 1973;
Swanson, 1976; Kling, & Scacchi, 1980; Kling, 1980; Ives, Hamilton, &
Davis, 1980; Mitroff, 1981; McFarlan, 1984, esp. pp. 97ff and 109ff; Docherty,
Werngren, & Widman, 1984; Cash, McFarlan, & McKenney, 1988; Ulrich,
1988 and an outgrowth of those communities that today are flourishing under
such names as social systems science, soft system methodology and critical
liberating systems theory [Churchman, 1989 #1096; Checkland, 1988; Ulrich,
1989), expanded into the political and ethical domain (Ivanov, 1986), and with particular emphasis on
information technology. What would be shared is ethical concerns and historical
consciousness.
We
do not claim that the outlined research effort will help to produce in a more
effective way software products beyond the prototype stage. We do rather claim
that it will produce people with a unique original understanding and competence
about opportunities and problems with the use of information technology, and
who will be needed as consultant partners in the economic and social planning
of the use of this technology.
One
ideal image of how the result of such efforts would look like within some
twenty years from now is the following. A number of theoretically and practically
active research groups that have not necessarily read the same books, do not
finance themselves in the same way, and are not necessarily concerned with the
same issues or with the same scientific traditions. Still these groups will
have researchers that believe that it is necessary to deepen the basis of their
research by listening and helping each other to strive towards some ultimate
ethical truth with the conviction that pluralism is not for relativism or for
"the poison of subjectivism" (Lewis, 1988, pp. 98ff.) Or, as the Veda put it:
"Truth is one. The sages speak of it by many names".
It
should be finally remarked that obviously this work is not complete but is
under work. It is a part of a more encompassing proposal for research on
information technology. Because of the phase in of a new computer program for
referencing, the literature list may still be incomplete and it contains
inaccuracies. This is one more reason why the author welcomes any comments,
criticism, or observations about editing and omissions.
Acharya,
S. A. (1917). Prolegomena till Arya Metafysik. Stockholm: Norstedts. (Frelsningar
vid Stockholms Hgskola 1915-1916.)
Cash, J., McFarlan, F. W., &
McKenney, J. L. (1988). Corporate information systems management: The issues
facing senior executives
(2nd ed.). Homewood, Ill.: Irwin
Checkland, P. B. (1988). Soft systems
methodology: An overview. J. of Applied Systems Analysis, 15, 27-30
Churchman, C. W. (1982). Thought
and wisdom. Seaside,
CA.: Intersystems
Dilthey, W. (1989). Introduction to
the human sciences: An attempt to lay a foundation for the study of society and
history. Selected works, vol. 1.
Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Trans. by R.J. Betanzos, vol.1 of Gesammelte
Schriften, Leipzig:
Teubner, 1923.)
Docherty, P., Werngren, C., &
Widman, A. (1984). Forskning om informationsteknologins anvndning inom
fretag och myndigheter.
Stockholm: Ekonomiska Forskningsinstitutet vid Handelshgskolan
Edie, J. M. (1987). William James
and phenomenology.
Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press
Hood, W. F. (1982). Dewey and
technology: A phenomenological approach. Research in Philosophy and
Technology, 5, 189-207
Ivanov, K. (1986). Systemutveckling
och rttsskerhet : Om statsfrvaltningens datorisering och de lngsiktiga
konsekvenserna fr enskilda och fretag
[Systems development and rule of law]. Stockholm: SAF:s Frlag. (ISBN 91 7152 404 5.)
Ives, B., Hamilton, S., & Davis,
G. B. (1980). A framework for research in computer based management information
systems. Management Science,
26(9), 910-934.
(With a bibliography of 65 entries.)
Kaufmann, F. (1940). Truth and logic. Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research,
1, 59-69
Kling, R. (1980). Social analyses of
computing: Theoretical perspectives in recent empirical research. Computing
Surveys, 12(1, March), 61-110
Kling, R., & Scacchi, W. (1980).
Computing as social action: the social dynamics of computing in complex
organizations. Advances in Computers, 19,
249-327. (With bibliography.)
Lewis, C. S. (1988). Christian
reflections. Glasgow:
Collins. (Walter Hooper, Ed. First
published in 1967.)
Mason, R. O., & Mitroff, I. I.
(1973). A program for research on management information systems. Management
Science, 19(5, Jan.), 475-487
McFarlan, F. W., (Ed.). (1984). The
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Press
Mitroff, I. I., & Mason, R.O.
(1981). Dialectical pragmatism: A progress report on an interdisciplinary
program of research on dialectical inquiring systems. Synthese, 47, 29-42
Nietzsche, F. (1988). Sull'utilit
e danno della storia per la vita
(7th ed.). Milano: Adelphi. (S.Giametta, Trans. Originally published as Unzeitgemasse
Betrachtungen (Zweites Stck): Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fur das
Leben, 1876.)
Nordin, S. (1987). Romantikens
filosofi: Svensk idealism frn Hoijer till hegelianerna. Lund: Doxa
Pressman, T. E. (1989). In pursuit of
the goal of science through a synthesis of systems inquiry and phenomenology.
In Proc. of the ISSS Int. Society for the Systems Sciences, 33rd Annual
Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2-7 July 1989. Vol. 1 (pp. 279-295)
Rosental, S. B. (1987). Pragmatic
meaning and the phenomenological perspective: Some common denominators. J.
of Spec. Philosophy, 1(2), 119-133
Swanson, E. B. (1976). Information
system approaches: Directions for research and practice. Management
Datamatics, 5(4), 155-163
Ulrich, W. (1988). Systems thinking,
systems practice, and practical philosophy: A program of research. Systems
Practice, 1(2), 137-163
Ulrich, W. (1989). Liberating systems
theory: Four key strategies. In Proc. of the ISSS Int. Society for the
Systems Sciences, 33rd Annual Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2-7 July 1989.
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