Abstract
This paper is an enquiry into the empirical grounding of actability. In the paper the operationalization and application of an analytic framework based on actability and organisational semiotics is described. The analytic framework has been used as a tool in a qualitative analysis of the Internet-based software artefact. The results show that actability and organisational semiotics can effectively be used to gain understanding of specific information systems phenomena.
The updated original online version for this book can be found at DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-35611-2_22
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Key words
References
Agerfalk, P. J. (1999) Pragmatization of Information Systems - A Theoretical and Methodological Outline, Licentiate thesis, IDA, Linköping University, Sweden.
Agerfalk, P. J. (2001a) Researching the Applicability of Actability: Towards an Improved Understanding of Information Systems as Tools for Business Action and Communication, in Proceedings of the Conference for the Promotion of Research in IT at New Universities and at University Colleges in Sweden, Part I: Scientific Contributions, Ronneby, Sweden, April 23–25, pp. 216–225.
Agerfalk, P. J. (2001b) Who’s the User in User Centred Design?, in Poster Proceedings of HCI International 2001, August 5–10, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Agerfalk, P. J., Oscarson, P., and Petersson, J. (2000) The Ability to Act Secure: A Key Success Factor for Local Internet-based Marketplaces, in Proceedings of the 23rd Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia (IRIS 23), Lingatan, August 1215, 2000, pp. 869-. 881.
Alvesson, M., and Sköldberg, K. (2000) Reflexive methodology: new vistas for qualitative research, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Auramäki, E., Lehtinen, E., and Lyytinen, K. (1988) A Speech-Act-Based Office Modelling Approach, ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1988, pp. 126–152.
Berger, P., and Luckmann, T. (1989) The social construction of reality, Anchor Books, New York.
Conallen, J. (2000) Building Web Applications with UML, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, USA.
Cronholm, S., Agerfalk, P. J., and Goldkuhl, G. (1999) From Usability to Actability, in Proceedings, 8th Intl. Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI International ‘89), Munich, August 22–27, 1999, Vol. 1, pp. 1073–1077.
Denning, P. J., and Medina-Mora, R. (1995) Completing the loops, Interfaces, Vol. 25, No 3, pp. 42–57.
Dietz, J. (1994) Business modelling for business redesign, in Proceedings of the 27th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, IEEE.
Friedman, B., Kahn, P. H. Jr., and Howe, D. C. (2000) Trust Online, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 43, No. 12, pp. 34–40.
Goldkuhl, G., and Lyytinen, K. (1982) A Language Action View of Information Systems, in Ginzberg, Ross (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Information Systems. Ann Arbor, December 13–15, 1982.
Goldkuhl, G. (1994) Välgrundad metodutveckling [Well-grounded method development, in Swedish], Research report, Dept. of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University.
Goldkuhl, G. (1998) The Six Phases of Business Processes — Business Communication and the Exchange of Value, Presented at Beyond Convergence: The 12th Biennial ITS Conference (ITS’98 ) in Stockholm.
Goldkuhl, G. (1999) The Grounding of Usable Knowledge: An Inquiry in the Epistemology of Action Knowledge, CMTO Research Papers No. 1999:03, Linköping University. Presented at HSS99 (Högskolor och Samhälle i Samverkan), March 16–18, 1999, Falun, Sweden.
Goldkuhl, G. (2001) Communicative vs. material actions: Instrumentality, sociality and comprehensibility, in Proceedings, 6th Intl. Workshop on the Language Action Perspective on Communication Modelling, 21–22 July 2001, Montreal, Canada.
Goldkuhl, G., and Agerfalk, P. J. (1998) Action within Information Systems: Outline of a Requirements Engineering Method, in Proceedings, 4th Intl. Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ’98). Pisa, Italy, June 8–9, 1998.
Goldkuhl G., and Agerfalk P. J. (2002) Actability: A way to understand information systems pragmatics, in Liu, K. et al. (eds.), Coordination and Communication Using Signs: Studies in Organisational Semiotics — 2, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston.
Habermas, J. (1984) The theory of communicative action 1. Reason and the rationalization of society, Boston: Beacon Press.
Karlsson, F., Agerfalk, P. J., and Hjalmarsson, A. (2001) Demystifying the Internet-based Software Artefact, to appear in Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Information Systems Development (ISD2001), 5–7 September 2001, Royal Holloway, UK.
Searle, J. R. (1969) Speech Acts. An essay in the philosophy of language, Cambridge University Press, London, UK.
Searle, J. R. (1995) The Construction of Social Reality, The Free Press, New York.
Stamper, R. K. (1994) Signs, Information, Norms and Systems, in Holmqvist B et al. (eds.), Signs at Work, De Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 349–397.
Stamper, R. K. (2001) Organisational Semiotics: Informatics without the computer? In Liu K et al. (eds.), Information, Organisation and Technology: Studies in Organisational Semiotics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston.
Strauss, A., and Corbin, J. (1998) Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing, Inc.
Walsham, G. (1993) Interpreting Information Systems in Organisations. Chichester: Wiley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ågerfalk, P.J., Karlsson, F., Hjalmarsson, A. (2002). Exploring the Explanatory Power of Actability. In: Liu, K., Clarke, R.J., Andersen, P.B., Stamper, R.K., Abou-Zeid, ES. (eds) Organizational Semiotics. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing, vol 94. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35611-2_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35611-2_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-6111-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-35611-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive