Introduction to Information Systems

1. Introduction to Information Systems Tony Cornford FAO Consultant Department of Information Systems London School of Economics t.cornford@lse.ac.uk

2. Questions Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

3. Information Systems (IS) • The study of information and communication activities (with technology) within and across organisational contexts and as part of a process of organizational change: some planned, some opportunistic, some emergent • Information and communication activity = information and communication technology (ICT) Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

4. Different understandings of IS • The technical elements that do particular jobs and support an efficient work environment • A specialist division to develop and provide such services within an organization • An institutional infrastructure to be built, nurtured, expanded and to co-evolve with an organization Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

5. Other views • A set of skills and competencies relevant to tasks, to be acquired and regularly practiced by people in their jobs. • An institutional memory – knowledge and data resources that can be contributed to and drawn on by members of the organization over time. • A public face/interface that provides visibility, and supports interconnections within the environment. Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

6. IS studies focus on change, where and how it happens • What kind of change? • planed and improvised; • radical change and incremental change; • from above and from below; • from the (technical) centre and from the (user) periphery Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

7. Where is change found? In organizations and how they work In work processes (tasks) that use or produce information In what people do, how they behave and respond In technology itself Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

8. Leavitt's Diamond: Change one, change all Policy Analysis Task People Organization Technology Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

9. Start from technology Task People Organization Technology Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

10. Considering Technology 1. • Where does ICT come from, what can it potentially do (in functional or strategic terms), what else does it it bring? • Linking back technologies and their ‘construction’ to diverse ambitions, interests and social forces – • Why do we get the technologies we get? Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

11. Considering Technology 2. • How is (or should) technology be acquired – • How in particular contexts are choices made, strategies set, plans and projects established, budgets and timetables agreed, technical works undertaken, training and skills developed, managerial arrangements set up, and new systems put to work. Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

12. Considering Technology 3. • What happens then? How do we respond or react to technology? • To its newness or strangeness – technology as an ‘ambiguous alien’. • With enthusiasm or resistance, with hostility or hospitality? How do we make it an ‘every day’ idea? Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

13. What kinds of consequences? Task People Organization Technology Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

14. What kinds of consequences might we be interested in? Some kind of change in: • Economic efficiency (ROI) • Task performance (effectiveness) • Organizational performance • Organisational/market structures • Work practices and jobs • People’s attitudes and values Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

15. Are there definite consequences? • Can we speak of “ICT’s consequences” – is it (more or less) deterministic? • Or is it situated and contextual – the same technology having different consequences in different places and times? • Consequences ‘worked out’ in use and shaping technology Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant

16. Questions Tony Cornford- FAO Consultant