Co-adaptive phenomena are defined as those in which the environment affects human behavior and at the same time, human behavior affects the environment. Such phenomena pose theoretical and methodological challenges and are difficult to study in traditional ways. However, some aspects of the interaction between people and technology only make sense when such phenomena are taken into account. In this dissertation, I postulate that the use of information technology is a coadaptive phenomenon. I also argue that customizable software provides a particularly good testbed for studying co-adaptation because individual patterns of use are encoded and continue to influence user behavior over time. The possible customizations are constrained by the design of the software but may also be modified by users in unanticipated ways, as they appropriate the software for their own purposes. Because customization patterns are recorded in files that can be shared among users, these customizations may act ...

A computer network is a social network The network revolution We find community in networks, not groups. Although people often view the world in terms of groups (Freeman, 1992), they function in networks. In networked societies: boundaries are permeable, interactions are with diverse others, connections switch between multiple networks, and hierarchies can be flatter and recursive. The change from groups to networks can be seen at many levels. Trading and political blocs have lost their monolithic character in the world system. Organizations form complex networks of alliance and exchange rather than cartels, and workers report to multiple peers and superiors. Management by multiply-connected network is replacing management by hierarchal tree and management by two-dimensional matrix (Berkowitz, 1982; Wellman, 1988; Castells, 1996). Communities are far-flung, loosely-bounded, sparsely-knit and fragmentary. Most people operate in multiple, thinly-connected, partial communities as they deal with networks of kin, neighbours, friends, workmates and organizational ties. Rather than fitting into the same group as those around them, each person has his/her own

Contemporary approaches to systems analysis ignore the importance of computing infrastructure-- the kinds of resources necessary for making computerized system workable and effective. Infrastructure includes "hard resources " such as electricity and physical space; it also includes human resources such as the skill levels of systems users and maintainer. Systems analyses which account for infrastructure can help lead to more effective recommendations. The key organizing ideas of this paper, web models, are based on almost 20 years of empirical studies of the ways that people and organizations adopt, develop and use computerized systems. It is based on an understanding of how people and organizations actually behave rather than upon a model which prescribes how they should behave. Web models draw "large " social boundaries around a focal computing resource so that the defining situation includes: the ecology of participants who influence the adoption and use of computer-based technologies, the infrastructures for supporting system development and use, and the history of local computing developments. Social action characteriwed by "natural open systems " models of organizations. Web models help explain the actual leverage of computing developments, their carrying costs,

If you read a broad sample of books or articles about computerization and changing work, you will find that groups of authors seem to be writing about completely different universes. Some focus on older technologies, or on current technologies; others explore the possibilities afforded by emerging technologies. A few writers will focus on those professionals who have significant

This study is part of an ongoing comparative study of various types of open software communities including both free and open source software projects. This study examines how the organizational cultural beliefs and values of a free software virtual organization influence software development processes. It provides examples that illustrate the importance of personal motivation and a sense of working as a team in the perpetuation of a virtual work community. It presents the world of the GNUenterprise.org project as a virtual organizational culture that embodies the beliefs of free software and freedom of choice, and the values of community building and cooperative work. A close study of this project shows how these beliefs and values are manifested in software development methods, artifacts, and tool choice, as well as how dispersed developers cooperate and resolve conflict in a virtual community. Data collection includes the content analysis of Internet Relay Chat archives; kernel cousins archives (summary digests of IRC and mailing list archives); mailing list archives; email interviews; Web site documents and observations; and personal interviews conducted at two open source conferences. Two cases from IRC and mailing list archives of the GNUe virtual community at work are presented for in-depth analyses and comparison. Cultural beliefs and values combined with

ABSTRACT. Privacy is a relational and relative concept that has been defined in a variety of ways. In this paper we offer a systematic discussion of potentially different notions of privacy. We conclude that privacy as the freedom or immunity from the judgement of others is an extremely useful concept to develop ways in which to understand privacy claims and associated risks. To this end, we develop a framework of principles that explores the interrelations of interests and values for various stakeholders where privacy concerns have risen or are expected to rise. We argue that conflicts between the interests and values of different stakeholders may result in legitimate claims of privacy/transparency being ignored or underrepresented. Central to this analysis is the notion of a stakeholder. We argue that stakeholders are persons or groups with legitimate interests, of intrinsic value, in the procedural and/or substantive aspects of the privacy/transparency claim and subsequent judgements on that basis. Using the principles of access, representation, and power, which flow from our framework of analysis, we show how they can facilitate the identification of potential privacy/transparency risks using examples from the

reasoning is, for men, an important value, partly because of its connection with power. Carol Gilligans well-known study of mens and womens morality,In a Different Voice, revealed that men tend to see the highest form of morality as one based on a reasoned adherence to an overarching moral law that treats all actors as equals (Gilligan 1982). Women, by contrast, tend to prefer interdependence. Reliance on others is valued because it continually maintains a social fabric or network, seen as more important than individual self-sufficiency. Instead of hierarchy, Edwards 30 From Impact to Social Process womens culture practices social leveling, in which an underlying goal of conversations or games is to keep everyone at the same level of status. Similarly, competition and winning are less important than keeping a game or conversation going (Tannen 1990). Practical skills rather than abstract reasoning tend to be primary values, and this goes along with a morality that perceives particul...

ABSTRACT: For more than thirty years an extensive and significant philosophical debate about the notion of privacy has been going on. Therefore it seems puzzling that most current authors on information technology and privacy assume that all individuals intuitively know why privacy is important. This assumption allows privacy to be seen as a liberal “nice to have ” value: something that can easily be discarded in the face of other really important matters like national security, the doing of justice and the effective administration of the state and the corporation. In this paper I want to argue that there is something fundamental in the notion of privacy and that due to the profoundness of the notion it merits extraordinary measures of protection and overt support. I will also argue that the notion of transparency (as advocated by Wasserstrom) is a useless concept without privacy and that accountability and transparency can only be meaningful if encapsulated in the concept of privacy. From philosophical and legal literature I will discuss and argue the value of privacy as the essential context and foundation of human autonomy in social relationships. In the conclusion of the paper I will discuss implications of this notion of privacy for the information society in general, and for the discipline of information systems in particular. 1.

wp92/93-002, infosys/8-20-92 Manufacturing is an important factor in national economic welfare, and information technology is increasingly seen as a vital instrument in manufacturing performance. Manufacturing is one area where a vision of extensive coordination through computerization has been articulated. This vision, computer integrated manufacturing (CIM), is usually advanced as a next stage for improving manufacturing efficiencies and performance by reducing intra-organizational coordination costs. The typical arguments advanced for CIM focus on improving organizational efficiencies through sharing, reusing and sometimes standardizing information. This paper shows how four theoretical perspectives –- transaction cost economics, agency theory, resource dependency theory, and institutional theory- – help us better understand the strengths and dilemmas of organizational integration through computerization. This approach of using multiple alternative theories is being applied in empirical studies conducted by the Advanced Integrated

This article was a key part of Rob's work in analyzing the longest continuing war in computing: the conflict between centralization and decentralization. In convincing detail, Rob showed how the operators of centralized computing systems used Weberian bureaucratic rationality (without having ever heard of Max) to justify maintaining a single centralized system for an organization (Kling & Iacono, 1984a, 1984b, 1988 1 ; Kling, 1995, 1996a). They pointed out the need for standards, the need for security, the greater cost savings in people and equipment, and the need to conserve the energy of scarce technicians