Information Systems Strategy, a Cultural Borderland, Some Monstrous Behaviour
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5032674 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mike Hales (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1994 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 1_suppl |
| Pages | 103-117 |
| Publication date | 1994-05-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-954x.1994.tb03412.x |
| OpenAlex | W2055574857 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
Does it help to think 'culture' when addressing multinational practices of information systems strategy? This paper says it depends on where you stand yourself, what you're attempting to articulate, and whether you can address topographies and systematic violations as well as meanings and situated actions. Discussing an actual case of organization-development consultancy, and seriously mixing its metaphors, the argument uses: a (materialist) distinction between meanings and powers, to suggest that the culture disciplines may not give sufficient help in producing actual change; 'terrain', to voice the possibility that computer systems strategy work may be done monstrously; and 'theatre', to invoke the construction of research-and-development borderlands which have as their harvest not only meanings but also (unacademic) powers. Antoine Artaud wrote tracts describing ... another theatre ... working like the plague, by intoxication, by infection, by analogy, by magic; a theatre in which the play, the event itself, stands in place of a text. (Brook, 1990:54). [Artaud] was always speaking of a complete way of life, of a theatre in which the activity of the actor and the activity of the spectator were driven by the same desperate need... . [I]t is easier to apply the rules to the work of a handful of dedicated actors than to the lives of the unknown spectators who happen by chance to come through the theatre door. (Brook, 1990:60-61
Aesthetics · Analogy · Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · MAGIC (telescope) · Materialism · Multinational corporation · Political science · Situated · Sociology · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Computer Science · E-Government and Public Services · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Law · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|