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History and IS — Broadening Our View and Understanding: Actor-Network Theory as a Methodology

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Enacting Research Methods in Information Systems: Volume 1

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Abstract

The call for a historic turn in IS studies is mirrored in business studies generally and is the explicit recognition of the predominance of presentism and universalism in research. It is an implicit but unstated assumption that the present is the product of an extended, unproblematic and universally shared past (Booth and Rowlinson, 2006). ‘Presentism results in research being reported as if it occurred in a decontextualized extended present’ (Booth and Rowlinson, 2006: 6). This critical assumption centers the present as if it were a stable entity stripped of its messiness and uncertainty leading to the observation that, ‘Most of our mainstream journals [organizational studies, in this case] are written as if they apply to some disembodied abstract realm’ (Zald, 1996: 256).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business Administration, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

    William Bill Bonner

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  1. William Bill Bonner
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

    Leslie P. Willcocks

  2. Oxford University, UK

    Chris Sauer

  3. University of Missouri-St Louis, USA

    Mary C. Lacity

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Bonner, W.B. (2016). History and IS — Broadening Our View and Understanding: Actor-Network Theory as a Methodology. In: Willcocks, L.P., Sauer, C., Lacity, M.C. (eds) Enacting Research Methods in Information Systems: Volume 1. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29266-3_11

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