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This article aims to add to the growing number of critical empirical studies and to reflect on the process of conducting this type of research, thereby addressing the lack of exemplars for those engaged with critical empirical information systems research.

Applies the critical lens to a multi‐year examination of variation in the career narratives of women in the American IT labor force. While an interpretive epistemology was initially chosen for this research project, over time, analysis of interview data took on an increasingly critical orientation. This, in turn, influenced subsequent fieldwork to become critical in nature.

One theoretical contribution is highlighting the role of power dynamics in understanding what sits beneath the surface of observations about these women's experiences in the IT workforce. The second theoretical contribution is helping to shift the focus away from predominantly essentialist theories that dichotomize men and women and toward a recognition of the diversity among women in the IT field.

Future research should include additional critical empirical studies of women in the IT field in other countries.

This research project can serve as a useful example for other critical IS researchers about to embark on empirical fieldwork.

This paper provides a concrete illustration of the way in which empirical research is altered as the epistemological lens shifts from interpretivist to critical.

Social exclusion as a result of gender, race, and class inequality is perhaps one of the most pressing challenges associated with the development of a diverse information technology (IT) workforce. Women remain under represented in the IT workforce and college majors that prepare students for IT careers. Research on the under representation of women in IT typically assumes women to be homogeneous in nature, something that blinds the research to variation that exists among women. This paper aims to address these issues.

The paper challenges the assumption of heterogeneity by investigating how the intersection of gender, race, and class identities shape the experiences of Black female IT workers and learners in the USA.

The results of this meta‐analysis offer new ways of theorizing that provide nuanced understanding of social exclusion and varied emancipatory practices in reaction to shared group exposure to oppression.

This study on the under‐representation of women as IT workers and learners in the USA considers race and class as equally important factors for understanding variation among women. In addition, this paper provides rich insights into the experiences of Black women, a group that is largely absent from the research on gender and IT.

Presents a theoretical approach to understanding the local culture of firms in the multinational information sector. Called situating culture, this approach holds that cultural understanding is locally situated, behavioral and embedded in everyday, socially negotiated work practices. The application of this theory is provided through cases from the workplace cultures of US multinational IT firms operating in Ireland. These examples show how the local culture of a global IT firm represents the interaction of industry, corporate and national contexts. It results in locally situated work practices and distinct socially negotiated realities that ultimately impact behavior in these settings. The theoretical approach of situating culture contributes to a better understanding of contextualism in the cross‐cultural IT environment. This understanding, in turn, has implications for future cross‐cultural IS research as well as for cross‐cultural IT practice.

This paper develops a theoretical perspective on gender and information technology (IT) by examining socio‐cultural influences on women who are members of the information technology profession in Australia and New Zealand. In‐depth interviews with both practitioners and academics give evidence of a range of socio‐cultural influences on the professional development and working lives of women IT professionals. The paper rejects the essentialist view of women and their relationship to IT that has been put forth in the information systems literature arguing, instead, the primacy of societal and structural influences. The particular contribution of this paper is a theoretical perspective of individual differences which is presented to characterize the way individual women respond in a range of specific ways to the interplay between individual characteristics and environmental influences. This perspective contributes to a better understanding of women’s involvement in the IT sector and suggests areas for proactive policy response.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the effect of demographic differences on the motivations and abilities of individuals with diabetes in their search for health information online. Using data gathered from a qualitative study of 30 individuals, the paper examined instances of user-based health motivation and abilities using the lens of demographic differences to identify the influence on health information searching and potential health outcomes.

The paper utilized an interpretive, mixed methodology research design. The paper was composed of a user “experience” that served as a critical incident to the paper, where each participant was prompted to do online searching for health and nutrition information. This was followed by open-ended interviews to gain a deeper understanding of each participants’ online searching experience.

The theoretical model used was the Integrated Model of E-Health Use by Dutta-Bergman (2006) which frames the influence of group and individual-level differences on health information search and e-health use and subsequently health outcomes. The paper found that experiences among diabetic patients who have an assumed intrinsic motivation to search have differential searching behaviors due to a number of factors including access to health care provider or resources, searching success, and significant people in the individuals’ lives. Assumptions about race and socio-economic status are challenged because of the geographic location in which people live and work.

This research on intersectionality and the health information consumer contributes to a better understanding of health information searching behavior. Implications from this research for practice are that search technology in the domain of health should be made customizable, that a variety of user perspectives should be incorporated in the e-health systems development process, and that a comprehensive view of the user in system development should be utilized. In addition, those with diabetes or other chronic illnesses should seek out a variety of resources to enhance their health outcomes.

The examination constitutes one of the few investigations into health information consumer characteristics that might influence the person-technology-information interaction in the context of health care provision. This type of examination into health care consumer characteristics and information behavior is necessary because it has bearing on the success of health care information systems implementation and impact.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the eighteenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1991. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

In the 1990s, North American archivists and records managers shifted some of their concern with electronic records and record keeping systems to conducting research about the nature of these records and systems. This essay describes one of the major research projects at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences, supported with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Specifically, the essay focuses on the project's four main products: recordkeeping functional requirements, production rules to support the requirements, metadata specifications for record keeping, and the warrant reflecting the professional and societal endorsement of the concept of the recordkeeping functional requirements.

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the development of critical research in information systems and give an overview of the papers chosen for this special issue.

To set the scene by discussing the origins and the developing field of critical research in information systems and to analyse each paper, suggesting ways in which it relates to the chosen themes.

The papers chosen address theoretical foundations, paradigmatic and methodological issues, empirical studies and praxis and reflexivity in critical information systems research.

Highlights the growing interest in critical research in the information systems discipline and enables reflection on the difficulties, barriers and opportunities for development.

To identify and critically assess the most recurrent themes in the ongoing debate on knowledge work.

A representative selection of studies published since 1962 is reviewed. The review focuses on the theoretical strengths and limitations of the concept of knowledge work.

The review indicates that definitions of knowledge work abound. Although knowledge work has attracted scholarly minds for several decades and the number of publications in this area has rapidly increased in recent years, it has proved hard to come by a clear and concise definition of this term. However, certain themes, such as a high level of education and skills and the use of information technology as an integral part of the informational labour process, have become increasingly common to both the empirical and the theoretical literature.

The paper helps pave the way for more detailed research by providing an ideal‐typical profile of informational labour.