Co-operative information system design: how multi-domain information system design takes place in UK organisations (BL)

• Main Author: Gasson, S
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-1997
• Subjects: Computer science

The thesis focused on the need to understand the nature of design processes in innovative, multi-domain, organisational information systems design. A cross-disciplinary, interpretive investigation of organisational IS design was based upon multiple-literatures: information system development and methodologies, human-computer interaction, situated action, social psychology, psychology of programming, computer-supported co-operative work, computer science, design 'rationale' and organisational behaviour. Three studies were performed:1. A case study of a user-centred design project, employing grounded theory analysis.2. A postal survey of IS development approaches in large UK companies.3. A longitudinal field study, involving participant observation over a period of 18 months in a cross-domain design team, employing ethnography, discourse analysis and hermeneutics.The main contributions of this research were to provide rich insights into the interior nature of IS design activity, situated in the context of the organisation (a perspective which is largely missing from the literature); to provide conceptual models to explain the management of meaning in design, and design framing activity; to produce a social action model of organisational informational system development which may form the basis for communicating the situated nature of design in teaching; and to suggest elements of a process model of design activity in multi-domain, organisational information system development. The implications of the research findings for IS managers and developers are also considered a significant contribution to practice.It is argued that the situated nature of design requires the teaching of design skills to be achieved through simulated design contexts, rather than the communication of abstract models. It is also suggested that the findings of this thesis have implications for knowledge management and organisational innovation. If organisational problem-investigation processes are seen as involving distributed knowledge, then the focus of organisational learning and innovation shifts from sharing organisational knowledge to accessing distributed organisational knowledge which is emergent and incomplete.