A Structural Framework for Analyzing Information Technology

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2006

Publisher

Association for Information Systems

Abstract

With the rise of technological advance, organizations require methods and tools to analyze technologies regarding their fit to the needs of an institution. Research on the evaluation and selection of technologies has mainly adopted a process perspective so far. We argue that it is crucial to consider the inner structure of technologies as well and describe its elements and connections. Hence, in this paper we propose a framework for analyzing information technology by reconstructing its inner structure. We transfer concepts of philosophical Structuralism to technologies by analyzing the striking proximity in the assembly of theories and technologies as conceptual networks. By describing technologies in such a way, we are able to formulate a set of questions which allows for analyzing and evaluating the suitability of technologies for specific requirements. In order to demonstrate the utility of such theoretizied technologies we apply our approach to the technology .NET.

Comments

The Tenth Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2006)

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