Information, Systems and Information Systems: Making Sense of the Field - Hardcover

Checkland, Peter; Holwell, Sue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471958204 ISBN 13: 9780471958208

Publisher: Wiley, 1997

Synopsis

Science-based technology helps to shape our lives, and no technology is more powerful in this respect than that associated with information. But the emerging linked fields of information systems and information technology are still in a very confused state. There is a torrent of technical developments but the concepts which bring structure to the field and make sense of it lag behind. This book seeks to dispel that confusion, and aims to make sense of IS and IT as a whole. Conventional theory bears little relation to the experience most people have with computer-based systems in organizations. Based on real-world experiences in both the private and public sectors, this book from Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell tackles the subject afresh. Information, Systems and Information Systems provides a practice-based approach to the thinking needed to underpin provision of information support in organizations. Starting from fundamentals, the book develops a coherent account of the field. The book is thus a work of conceptual cleansing. It presents a well-argued and tested account of IS and IT which is both holistic and coherent. The sense-making models which emerge can encompass any particular assumptions about the nature of organizational reality and management, whether 'hard' functionalist or 'soft' interpretive ones, though the authors' sympathies are with the latter.

 

About this title

About the Author

Peter Checkland is the recipient of the 'Most Distinguished and Outstanding Contributor' Award of the British Computer Society Methodologies Group, 1994 Recipient of the Gold Medal of the UK Systems Society for 'Outstanding Contribution to Systems Thinking' and 1997 Recipient of a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship. Now retired from full time university work, Peter Checkland continues his research and writing.

From the Back Cover

Information, Systems and Information Systems making sense of the field Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell Lancaster University, UK Science-based technology helps to shape our lives, and no technology is more powerful in this respect than that associated with information. But the emerging linked fields of information systems and information technology are still in a very confused state. There is a torrent of technical developments but the concepts which bring structure to the field and make sense of it lag behind. This book seeks to dispel that confusion, and aims to make sense of IS and IT as a whole. Conventional theory bears little relation to the experience most people have with computer-based systems in organizations. Based on real-world experiences in both the private and public sectors, this book from Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell tackles the subject afresh. Information, Systems and Information Systems provides a practice-based approach to the thinking needed to underpin provision of information support in organizations. Starting from fundamentals, the book develops a coherent account of the field. The book is thus a work of conceptual cleansing. It presents a well-argued and tested account of IS and IT which is both holistic and coherent. The sense-making models which emerge can encompass any particular assumptions about the nature of organizational reality and management, whether 'hard' functionalist or 'soft' interpretive ones, though the authors' sympathies are with the latter.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471958204
• ISBN 13: 9780471958208
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 279