Information technologies in organizations and global societies

Information technology in organizations and global societies is a branch of computer science . It comprises the analysis and IT-supported design of organizations with a view to global societies . The aim is to understand, explain and shape the interactions between the use of technology and organizational development. Orientation knowledge is to be created, which makes it possible to keep track of the huge wealth of methods and instruments available today and to be able to recognize the connections exactly. The area combines its core areas of economics and social sciences as well as computer science in a transdisciplinary way .

Basic questions are, for example:

How do information technology innovations come about ?
How does the development and design of information technology take place in society and in organizations?
What guidance and foresight options are there in order to survive in today's information or knowledge society ?
What do the metaphors of the information and knowledge society mean?

The micropolis model

The micropolis model addresses these questions . It brings together theories, methods and models from several disciplines in order to understand the interactions that occur between the development and design of information technology on the one hand and changes in organizations and society on the other. By discussing these interactions, the model establishes transdisciplinary connections. It includes the concrete work on the design of IT, taking into account information technology knowledge, economic and social science explanations and organizational theory research.

The Mikropolis model sees itself as a kind of travel guide that allows travelers to set out well prepared for a tour in the knowledge society and to follow individual travel purposes. The model has a panorama view ready for this, which allows you to gain an initial overview of the landscape. A second view enables you to plan your own trip. How have travel locations changed? What travel options are there and how do they change the destination itself?

In other words, the model shows under what conditions and with what possibilities actors act, shape IT or use IT in companies and institutions. From this, it develops historically oriented paths in technology development and use. Various future options can be worked out from them, which enable a normative assessment.

Architecture of the micropolis model

The Mikropolis model looks at IT development and use from two perspectives: the micro and the macro perspective . This division structures the complex interrelationships from the socio-technical core of the computer through technology design in context to the social embedding of information technology and the resulting interactions.

Micro perspective

The micro-perspective shows the processes of formalization that are necessary to make actions technically controllable and manipulable using software. The socio-technical core of the computer becomes visible in the micro perspective. Human actions are "poured" into software and therefore have to be detached from their context. The software itself is brought back into the context from which it was created. In this way, people, with their actions, have a say in the changes that are now possible.

The model describes this cyclical process as

Decontextualization (extracting an action from the individual context / making it meaningless)

and

Recontextualization (return to a context)

This process is fraught with conflict. Because with decontextualization, which can also be described as destruction , given work and life contexts are up for grabs. The routines of the people involved and affected are changed. However, this change cannot be precisely foreseen. The recontextualization or construction of new behaviors depends on the attitudes and action strategies of the user in particular.

Destruction lies initially in the first step of formalization, i.e. the description of actions that were previously performed in a situational manner as operations. The description is based on interpretation because it contains a perspective that is tied to the observing subject and which is always tied to meaningful, therefore social, purposes. The purpose becomes unrecognizable as soon as the act described is detached from the person of the agent - and from the person of the person describing it - in the form of the operation . This, mind you abstract, activity is necessary to recreate a socially meaningful action in the technical artefact and, if possible, to replace it, or at least to change it. The socio-technical interaction that is decisive for the micropolis model can be found in the process of transferring meaningful elements to logical structures.

The formalization is followed by the algorithmization . Actions become calculable processes. As an implemented program, these procedures are reintroduced into the sphere of social action. But they still represent the attempt to realize those goals and purposes that once structured observation and are therefore socially justified. The main motives for automating and rationalizing selected patterns of action, as they exist above all in production and work contexts as well as in the formally regulated exchange relationships of personal life, are socially justified . The constructive process of returning software to the social context is thus fraught with conflict.

The socio-technical core of IT in the form of de- and recontextualization is embedded in an actor model . Then, on the part of the IT manufacturers and IT research, special arenas are formed , in which the actors involved fight for the implementation of their ideas. Arenas include definable, specific fields of technology, the existence of which is influenced either by corresponding inquiries from IT organizations or by social interests. The actor's point of view should be an alternative to the popular but insufficient theoretical figure of " homo oeconomicus " or "homo technicus".

The interactions between innovations on the part of IT production and IT research (technology push) and the requirements on the part of IT-using organizations (demand pull) are interpreted here as an innovation spiral. On the one hand, the actors in the IT system observe the requirements of the companies and offer them products, methods and concepts (possibilities). Conversely, organizations are constantly sending signals in the form of inquiries and requirements to manufacturers, developers and IT specialists.

Macro perspective

The macro perspective broadens the view of the interactions between the primarily economically determined developments in society as a whole and the development dynamics of technology. Here, the discussion about social models, values and norms that relate to technical realizations and possibilities is discussed. In addition to the central economic factors, political and cultural factors also exert an influence here. The actors in organizations and at IT manufacturers do not act autonomously. Metaphorically speaking, they are encased in a "membrane" that is permeable both inside and out - their social environment with specific values and cultures, economic and legal values, traditions, and systems of science and education. They all influence the development and use of information technology, can direct, accelerate or inhibit it. At the same time, innovation processes cause social tensions and adjustments, for example through new qualification requirements for the education system. New jobs will be created, others will be eliminated. So here, too, we are confronted with interactions that rarely allow clear distinctions between cause and effect. In the context of the globalization discourse, information and communication technologies are seen as an indispensable medium for the transformation of the global economy, not necessarily as its cause (e.g. Castells 2001, p. 431).

Processes & Paths

The architecture of the Mikropolis model therefore creates a "global map of IT development and use". The underlying, possibly very conflict-ridden processes and successful and unsuccessful paths are not yet clearly shown here. The spiral of innovation between the IT system and organizations (1.1.2 meso perspective) should, however, form the starting point from which the dynamic consideration of processes and paths can begin. Essential elements of the consideration are the

Technology usage path

In retrospect, the successful and unsuccessful innovations come to the fore, and "the winners' actions that have congealed into structures" become recognizable. The idea is to get information for future innovations by looking at defeats and losers. The technology usage path is updated in the

Innovation and design paths

Since the technology usage path has made it clear that the development of technology, organizations and society is primarily based on economic interests and social negotiations and regulations, this offers the opportunity to present the conditions and effects of different path courses.

Full automation

The principal long-term goal of companies on the way to more and more efficient work is full automation. However, whether and where this is really desirable remains questionable and the principle of the formalization gap arises. Automating flexible actions would be counterproductive to the goals of the organization. It would become rigid and inflexible and would no longer be able to react appropriately and quickly to new developments.

Globalization and informatization

The architecture of the Mikropolis model deliberately designs a global map, since globalization and informatization are not only closely linked, but information technology represents the infrastructure for advancing globalization. The question is also asked about the driving forces, necessities and effects on organizations, IT systems and society. For example, according to Manuel Castells, the current global economy is developing the power to act in real time and independently of local conditions. It owes its power not only to the information technology infrastructure, but also to the processes of deregulation and privatization, i.e. the shifting of economic power from (national) state institutions to private sector bodies. Finally, there is also the extensive liberalization of trade legislation. It therefore makes sense to see the emergence of new social structures in the interplay of globalization, IT and Castell's "network topology". It changes the conditions of production, personal experience, the culture of political decision-making and aesthetic expression. The winners seem to be well-trained and media-competent actors. Losers are actors who are excluded from education and access to IT.

View of the future of work

The old system of division of labor according to functions and duties will be replaced by the new model of the network organization . New keywords are for example:

It is seen as problematic here that this new model encounters tough social structures, well-established infrastructures and micro-arenas that are dominated by different actors .

In the process of changing what was once Tayloristically organized to highly flexible network work organizations, a "knowledge-based economy" is emerging. It is also characterized by a further differentiation of expert and / or disposition knowledge. At the same time, the demands on (inter) cultural competence and on processes of " lifelong learning " are increasing . The Mikropolis model sees itself here as a tool with the help of which the interactions can be better clarified and which provides orientation knowledge rather than dispositional knowledge.

literature

Manuel Castells : The Rise of the Network Society. Leske and Budrich, Opladen, 2003
Eric Hobsbawm : How much history does the future need? Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich, 2001
Arlie Russell Hochschild : No time. When the company becomes home and work is just waiting at home. Leske and Budrich, Opladen, 2002
Jürgen Mittelstraß : The uncanny place of the humanities. in: Engler, Ulrich (ed.): Second Stuttgart Educational Forum. Orientation knowledge versus disposition knowledge: the role of the humanities in a technology-oriented society. Speeches of the event of the University of Stuttgart on June 27, 1994. Stuttgart, University Library, 1995 ( available as PDF )
Arno Rolf : Basics of organizational and business informatics. Springer, Berlin, 1998
Arno Rolf: MIKROPOLIS 2010 - People, Computers, Internet in a Global Society. Metropolis Verlag, Marburg, 2008