Guest editorial

Citation

Hasan, H. and Linger, H. (2016), "Guest editorial", Information Technology & People, Vol. 29 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-08-2015-0200

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Information Technology & People, Volume 29, Issue 1.

1. Introduction

Social Information Systems (SIS) are the basis of an emerging phenomena of significant interest to researchers in the discipline of information system (IS). Historically, IS began at a time when business systems were being developed and implemented on mainframe computers to support organisational processes. While the social aspects of these business IS have always been recognised, there is reason to believe that there are now IS that are essentially social and fundamentally different from those of business. If this is the case, there are implications for the IS discipline as a whole for the research direction of IS scholars.

In this special issue we explore the following questions: first, what are “SIS”, second, how do they fit within the IS discipline and third, why is the phenomenon of SIS an important topic for discussion among IS scholars.

In order to investigate these questions, and the underlying issues they represent, a workshop on SIS was held at the European Conference on IS (ECIS) in 2014[1]. The intention was that the workshop would guide the development of papers for the special issue. Two conceptual papers presented at the workshop (Schlagwein et al. and; Hasan) provided direct input into discussion among the participants that is reflected in the understanding of SIS presented in this editorial and is exemplified in the papers in this special issue.

This editorial presents the editors' position in respect to the three questions posed above using evidence from the workshop discussion, the four papers published in the special issue and other sources. The position of SIS within the broader purview of the IS discipline is considered from both a theoretical and practical perspective.

2. What are SIS?

In the call for papers of this special issue, we opened the discussion on this question by broadly characterising SIS as IS whose main purpose is to make a social contribution, which may simply be to socialise, but may also support social wellbeing. The papers presented in this special issue all describe research which makes a contribution to significant societal issues.

We endeavoured to avoid the common assumption that SIS is a synonym for social media (SM) and that SIS are simply “information systems based on social technologies and open collaboration” (Schlagwein et al., 2011). Although this assumption is common (see e.g. Theotokis and Doukidis, 2009; Kreps, 2010), the relationship of SIS and SM is not so simple. Indeed, IS scholars are wary of defining a system solely by its technological components. SM provide platforms that have revolutionised global social interaction and communication via online systems which allow for commenting, rating, “friending”, “following” and similar social functions. However, these applications are not always beneficial to individuals in civil society (see e.g. the Australian Government warnings to its citizens on the use of SM for socialising at StaySmartOnline[2]).

The term SIS has been used by IS scholars in a business context where it is commonly associated with the firm's use of SM applications which are now increasingly adopted in their interactions with customers, partners and suppliers for competitive advantage (Bughin et al., 2011; Feller et al., 2008; Majchrzak and Malhotra, 2013; Hasan and Pfaff, 2012; Quast and Handel, 2012). In the business context, Quast (2012, p. i) proposes that “the aim of social information systems [SIS] is both to improve the overall consistency and governability of the enterprise information system and to leverage the collective intelligence and energy of the corporation towards maximum business agility”. This special issue challenges the notion of whether such a description of SIS adequately captures the societal dimension of SIS. We argue that the use of SM alone is not a sufficient condition to label such systems as SIS. Moreover, we would suggest that while SM can enable and support SIS, so can other technologies. It may be that more generic online systems not normally classed as SM, (e.g. digital repositories, files sharing systems, open source applications and e-mail lists) may provide the functionality that enable beneficial and safer collaboration among communities, groups or social network in civil society.

In our characterisation of SIS as IS whose main purpose is to make a social contribution we were influenced by the call for papers for an SIS track at the Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS) 2013 which stated that SIS are “concerned with how IT/IS has become intertwined in our daily lives and the impacts that this has”. This description has the advantage of being technologically agnostic and not limiting SIS to SM. One of the papers in our special issue (Letch) notes that the “social” in SIS can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand it can refer to the communicative aspects of IS and how technologies facilitate interaction and communication within networks of participants. On the other hand the term “social” can simply refer to society at large. Such formulations point to a duality in SIS: on the one hand SIS are IS with a societal and socially oriented purpose as distinct from organisational IS that have an operational and/or strategic purpose with a “business” concern with efficiency and effectiveness; on the other hand SIS enhance social activity and collaboration without necessarily having a productive purpose in a business sense. These orientations are not mutually exclusive and often co-exist so that there are multiple ways SIS can potentially make substantial beneficial contributions to society at large.

We realise that there are many attributes that distinguish SIS from other IS. We mentioned above that two conceptual papers were presented at the ECIS2014 SIS workshop[3] to promote discussion to clarify these attributes. Hasan's paper noted that “information systems are everywhere and serve many purposes. Those that serve a societal purpose have characteristics that can be quite different to organisational IS and it is important to recognise, understand and consider these”. However the clear understanding at the workshop was that we would not produce a definitive list and that the actual meaning of SIS still evolving.

Hasan's emphasis was to contrast SIS with organisational systems saying that “SIS are more social than technical, have ill-defined objectives that are difficult to articulate and measure, have diverse but intersecting social aspects and may never reach a stable finished state but continue to be self-directed and follow an independent evolutionary development process”. This supported Schlagwein et al.'s idea that SIS are co-created and managed by the user community. Schlagwein et al.'s paper went further in identifying and defining characteristics that make SIS distinct from traditional IS (Table I) based on a review of the literature.

At the ECIS2014 workshop particpants decided to augment Table I and suggested an additional set of characterisitc of that are likely to describe SIS in contrast to traditional IS. The result of this is Table II staying with the term “traditional” as a label for our point of comparison as the antithesis to SIS. It was acknowledged that there may be more relevant characteristics not identified here and that these are only tendencies for distinction not absolute defining ones.

The distinguishing characteristics listed in Table II were suggested and discussed by knowledgeable participants at the workshop. They are indicative only but are proposed as a useful guide. We do not suggest that this list is in any way comprehensive, complete or definitive. Rather the listed characteristics express disciplinary concerns about the nature of IS.

The diversity in IS has been recognised since its inception so that IS is aptly characterised as a fragmented adhocracy (Banville and Landry, 1989). Theorizing this fragmentation in traditional IS, Hirschheim et al. (1996) propose a “federated” IS matrix where one axis covers the domains that are changed by IS; technology (the artefacts), language (all forms of communication) and the organisation. Along the other axis are the three orientations that signify the purpose of the change brought about by IS, namely, control, sense making (communicative) and argumentation (discursive). This typology is also reflected in the modification of Giddens' original model of structuration theory, developed by Orlikowski (1992). Table II suggests how SIS may modify and extend the traditional characteristics of IS in various domains to be more relevant to the complex context of SIS.

An inspection of the two contrasting sets of characteristic in Table II reveals a tendency to order for traditional IS and what Snowden (2002) would call “unorder” for characteristics of SIS. Following Snowden's (2002) Cynefin sense-making framework, systems in the ordered domain may be complicated but essentially understandable and manageable through careful analysis. Unordered systems are essentially emergent self-organising phenomena whose behaviour cannot be predicted in advance. They are complex adaptive systems (Lansing, 2003; Holland, 1998).

The conclusion from the ECIS2014 SIS workshop was that the complexity that the social imperative brings to SIS poses challenges in the choice of methodologies for SIS research. In the fragmented adhocracy of IS most IS scholars regard IS as a social science. As described below, research into phenomena associated with SIS is likely to follow this form of inquiry, applying and adapting theories and methods from the social sciences in innovative ways as befits the complexities of the field.

3. How do SIS fit within the IS discipline

IS, as a discipline or field of research, involves the study of the “IS artefact” which includes all its technical and non-technical components, together with their development, use and impact (Sidorova et al., 2008; Hirschheim et al., 1996). IS scholars have investigated phenomena associated with the evolution of digital technologies since the 1970s. Their use by individuals for their own purposes came with the advent of personal computers in the 1980s and in the 1990s the internet underpinned inter-personal connections over the World Wide Web. Over the most recent decade, SIS have emerged from applications generally referred to as Web 2.0 built on this platform.

The social orientation of SIS echoes the principles of social informatics (SI) (see e.g. Kling, 2000), an established field of research, whose principles were established by Rob Kling over a decade ago. The Rob Kling Centre for SI defines SI as “the study of social aspects of computerization, including the role of information technology (IT) in social and organizational change, the use of information technologies in social contexts, and the way that the social organization of information technologies is influenced by social forces and social practices”. (see http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/). We believe that SIS compliments SI. On the one hand, SI can be approached from the perspective of societal benefits, that stem from the impact of IS on institutional engagement with civil society, including corporate social responsibility. On the other hand the complex entanglement of the social and technical, inherent in SIS, brings into focus the co-creation of these systems and the collaborative activities sustained by those systems.

Traditionally IS research has focused on organisational IS and, although these have a social dimension, their primary purpose is to serve organisational purposes. Now IS are everywhere and serve many purposes. The transformative changes to digital technologies, bringing us personal computers, the internet, multifunctional mobile devices and SM, have given power to users wherever they are and whatever they are doing. The technological transformation has also expanded IS from the province of MIS department, within corporations, to the public and private sphere as well as blurring the boundary between corporate, public and private. As the papers in this special issue show, research in SIS is becoming more mainstream, extending the scope of IS research to cover emerging areas that are of concern to SIS. Such research determines the scope and thematic content of SIS and enables researchers to recognise, understand and consider the characteristics that define SIS. The imperative for IS scholars to focus on the social contribution of IS was captured by prominent IS scholar and Leo Award recipient Rick Watson's keynote at ACIS 2013 where he exhorted researchers to go beyond academic concerns of theory development and adopt an orientation towards using IS to solve problems concerning the grand challenges facing society. This does not mean such research should be atheoretical (Miller, 2007) only that the contribution should go beyond theory building for academic publication.

Additionally, as we are advocating a research agenda for SIS, appropriate research methodologies and theories, more suitable for investigations of SIS, need to be explored. Attention from IS scholars on SIS should aim to generate new theory to accommodate the development and use of SIS.

When discussing the fit between SIS and the IS discipline among participants at the ECIS2014 SIS workshop four main issues were raised as follows.

3.1. Theoretical considerations for SIS research

One concern is the under-developed theoretical foundations of SIS both the use of appropriate existing theories to underpin SIS research and the development of empirically based new theory to provide new theoretical foundations for understanding and promoting IS-enabled social phenomena. There are many theories from social science and sociology already used by many IS scholars that can underpin SIS research. Table III lists some relevant high-level social theories identified by participants at the ECIS2014 workshop. It was suggested, however, that IS scholars should revisit the origins of these theories before applying the often diminished derivatives of these theories used in the extant IS literature.

While there is no application of these high-level theories in the papers of this special issue, some of the authors do rely on some lower-level theories. Hage et al. make reference to time displacement theory to compare time spent online with that spent in face-to-face interactions. Choy and Schlagwein synthesise affordance and motivation theories to investigate the relationship between technology and users. Levy et al. look at theories associated with online social networks (OSN).

As all the papers in this special issue show, there are opportunities for building new theory from exploratory and inductive SIS research, in addition to the application of existing social theories. As the SIS artefact often evolves in response to a social need, SIS research is likely to take the form of case studies of phenomena where there is self-organisation and emergence. In reference to traditional organisational IS research, Eisenhardt's seminal paper on theory building (Eisenhardt, 1989) positions this process as central to the larger context of social science. She describes an approach to building theory from single case studies that is appropriate in new topic areas and so would be highly relevant to SIS research. Her approach uses highly iterative analytical methods which are tightly linked to data so that the resultant theory is often novel, testable and empirically valid.

3.2. SIS and Information System development (ISD)

ISD is a major field within IS so consideration should be given to the fit of SIS in ISD. This could be an interesting area for IS, as unlike traditional IS, most SIS are either completely emergent or designed and created from very imprecise requirements. There is certainly a recursive relationship between the processes enabled by SIS and the design of SIS. In this respect, consideration should be given to some of the research into ISD as complex adaptive systems (Kautz, 2012; Benbya and McKelvey, 2006; Vidgen and Wang, 2006).

The intertwining of SIS design and use could lead to some interesting consideration of the fit of SIS to the area of design science. Design science claims to provide a theory ideally suited to IS, namely, the theory for design and action described by Gregor (2006) as Type 5 in her list of five types of theory. Design science gives explicit prescriptions (e.g. methods, techniques, principles of form and function) for constructing an artefact. We suggested that a challenge for IS scholars is to extend design science to included emergent, organic systems that are not designed but whose design emerges through the recursive process mentioned above. There may be IS scholars who argue that design science is only relevant to IS that are created by a formal planned design process and it is that process which is studied (Hevner et al., 2004; Gregor and Hevner, 2013). We may then need different theory, a science of the undesigned, for SIS research that studies emergent SIS phenomena when the system's design is only apparent at a later stage and continues to evolve. This will be a Type 2 “theory for explaining” (Gregor, 2006) which primarily explains “how” and “why” some phenomena occur. It is clear that work of this type occupies an important place in IS.

3.3. Methodological considerations for SIS research

Whether SIS research uses or builds theory the methodological challenges for SIS research are obvious. While all IS are socio-technical, SIS are more likely to have multiple intertwined social and technical elements, but emphasise the social dimension. They are complex adaptive systems with self-organisation and self-direction resulting in emergent, unpredictable outcomes. This brings into focus SIS research as complex adaptive systems and the study of complex, “wicked” problems with community, social and global significance. We call on researchers to be innovative and give consideration to research approaches that are relevant to this type of complex systems and processes. Ethnographic approaches and participatory action research methods will probably prove useful.

The papers in this issue adopt of range of methods. Hage et al. take the most traditional research approach, using survey results as panel data study to test four hypotheses. Choy and Schlagwein undertake an exploratory study using an iterative hermeneutic approach involving an ongoing literature review and data collection in a field study. Letch and Levy et al. both use a case study approach. Letch collected data from a variety of sources and presented his interpretation of the data as a narrative. Levy et al. adopt a participatory prototyping approach to the development of an SIS and then describe their interpretation of it effect.

3.4. Determining the success of SIS

Success and failure is a longstanding topic in IS research. For example the prominent DeLong and McLean (1992) model of IS for determining IS success is built of the assumptions of traditional IS. If, as we claim, the purpose of SIS is to make a social contribution how will this be determined? This is a substantive issue for SIS research as social interventions often do not have the ready to hand dependent and independent variables that often characterise traditional IS. The combination of SIS as a complex adaptive system together with its impact on the social system means that the success/failure duality needs to re-conceptualised. A new construct needs to take into account evolution, emergence, diverse and variable cohorts, concurrent and variable timelines and indeterminacy of the SIS. This is a challenge for SIS research that must be on the future SIS agenda.

4. Why is consideration of SIS important to IS?

The use of SIS is rapidly growing outside organisations which are the traditional context of IS. As previously mentioned, the use of SIS is also being tentatively being tried within organisations both for their internal operations and their broader social engagement. Organisational use of SIS tend to be driven by the platforms and technologies of SM that hold the potential to open new opportunities for organisations to engage with their customers and generate revenue. But the entanglement of the material with the social in such use also leaves the organisation open to emergent organising principles that may lead to new forms of organisations and social interactions.

In contrast, Watson's exhortation (at ACIS, 2013) is to investigate the role of IS in solving grand challenges such as inequality, globalisation and climate change. SIS research has an important role here to help researchers deal with the inherent complexity of these challenges. If we are to broaden the IS discipline and make it more relevant SIS needs to be an integral part of the informational infrastructure, that is already emerging and that supports global efforts to address the wicked problems that society faces.

5. Contributions to SIS research in this special issue

The ground-breaking collection of SIS papers in this special issue demonstrate four signature social challenges to which IS scholars can make a significant contribution. The papers use a range of different methodological approaches and theoretical considerations.

Eveline Hage, Hans Wortmann, Marjolein van Offenbeek and Albert Boonstra address the social challenges of the ageing population and associated social, health and economic issue in their paper “The dual impact of online communication on older adults' social connectivity”. This paper explores the use of SIS by older adults and its potential to enhance social wellbeing, and, as a consequence, improve health status and reduce healthcare costs associated with ageing. An empirical study was conducted on the use of e-mail and Facebook by people over 65 years of age. The research involved hypothesis testing using a panel data method with a survey of three rounds. Two types of social connectivity through the use of IT were identified: people within their neighbourhood and with friends.

The authors found that online communication in general does not enhance the social connectivity of older people. Rather, e-mail use negatively impacts on neighbourhood connectivity, and Facebook use on connectivity with friends.

The authors discuss theoretical and societal implications of their findings. They make the claim that conceptualizations of online communication tools and social connectivity demonstrate that initial social connectivity is an important explanatory variable. They refer to time displacement theory which posits that time spent online cannot be spent on “real” social interactions and, therefore, that internet use reduces social connectivity.

Katherine Choy and Daniel Schlagwein address the beneficial social practice of “charitable crowdfunding” in their paper “Crowdfunding for a better world: on the relationship between IT affordances and donor motivations in charitable crowdsourcing”.

They describe a contemporary mechanism that brings together charitable causes and potential donors through SIS. Because of the newness and complexity of the phenomenon of the authors adopt a hermeneutic epistemological approach with an inductive approach to theory development based on “emerging insights from the data and the literature review on these insights”. Their primary data consist of interviews and field notes combined with a range of secondary data.

The authors make use of affordance and motivation theories to theorise the relationship between IT affordances and the motivations of donors with powerful results.

Nick Letch provides some deep insights into SIS in his paper “Ecologies of interests in social information systems for social benefit”. His case study illustrates many of the reasons why we, as editors of this special issue, suggest that IS scholars should embrace SIS as a distinct field of interest that can take the IS discipline into an exciting and meaningful new direction.

The case study concerns a SIS called the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet which serves as a portal for information exchange among a variety of communities interested in different aspects of indigenous health. The author uses this case to illustrates that for complex social problems, there can be multiple interests embedded in an ecology of sub-networks. He shows that SIS can involve multiple actors pursuing different interests, in his case the network of actors concerned with one topic (Indigenous Road Safety (IRS)) supported by HealthInfoNet The relations among actors analysed occur within and across a range of state and federal agencies including collaborations with private sector organisations and local indigenous communities.

Data were collected from a variety of sources to develop an understanding of how HealthInfoNet operates and the efforts to integrate it within the IRS network. The findings are presented as an insightful narrative which describes how HealthInfoNet can be considered a SIS both in terms of its use of social and collaborative technologies, and the underlying principles and objectives of ameliorating the complex social problems associated with the health of indigenous Australians.

A key message from this paper is that systems which aim to address issues of societal concern, can be thought of in terms of networks of organisations. The author observes that “while communication in this wider range of networks may also be enhanced through the use of SM and technologies, key questions for SIS arise with regard understanding how the interests can be accommodated and use ICT to facilitate collaborations within and across networks of agencies, stakeholders and other actors”.

Meira Levy, Irit Hadar, Dov Te'eni, Naomi Unkelos-Shpigel, Sofia Sherman and Nassi Harel investigate the experience of an SIS within the IS community of scholars in their paper “Social networking in an academic conference context: insights from a case study”. They begin by theorising social network systems as web-based services that allows individuals to become part of a specific group and establish profiles within a closed system, manage connections with other users, and share activities, ideas, interests and events. This is extended to consider the benefits of an OSN among IS academics. Realising the limitations of Facebook and LinkedIn among academics the authors conduct a case study involving the development of an OSN platform and creation of a prototype used at the ECIS2014. This was examined as a SM tool for researchers to enable and encourage discussions around accepted papers, using a tagging system as means of connecting researchers to relevant discussions. This was the subject of the case study described in the paper.

This research aimed to understand how academics perceive OSN and its potential as a collaboration and knowledge sharing enabler around academic conferences; and offer a SM-based tool for facilitating collaboration among researchers prior, during and after the conference.

The authors present the lessons learnt from their study with directions for future research and practical suggestions for ways of restructure more productive ways we as a community of scholars can use SIS to conference and interact.

6. Conclusion

In this editorial we, and the papers of this special issue, have argued that SIS expands the purview of IS. In terms of the domains of the Hirschheim et al. (1996) framework described above, we believe that the impact of IS needs to be extended beyond technology, language and organisation to include a fourth domain; society. Moreover, we advocate that the domain of organisation be interpreted broadly to accommodate social activities organising and new modes of organisation, rather than just aspects of the formal physical organisation. In addition the technology domain needs to explicitly address SM, end-user developed technologies and mobility. The language domain also needs to accommodate new constructs that define SIS design, use and interaction between users as well as “success”. Most significantly, SIS shifts the emphasis of IS away from the control orientation towards the messy, unordered sense making and discursive orientation. The challenge for IS research posed by Watson is how this diversity can be harnessed to address the wicked problems that impact society.

In summary SIS research is an emerging area and needs the flexibility to accommodate emergent trends. Despite the obvious synergies between SIS and SM we affirm that the two are not synonymous, that SIS are not necessarily built on SM and that simply using SM does not result in an SIS. At this point in time, SIS is a phenomenon that is rapidly evolving so that fixed definitions are counter productive. What is required is rigorous research that will gain broad recognition of the distinctive characteristics of SIS by the IS academic community so that innovative “unordered” SIS research can be published in journals and presented at conferences.

Helen Hasan - Australian Health Services Research Institute, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, and

Henry Linger - Faculty of IT, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

https://socialisworkshopecis2014.wordpress.com/

www.communications.gov.au/what-we-do/internet/stay-smart-online/socialising

https://socialisworkshopecis2014.wordpress.com/

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