Rethinking the place of the artefact in IS using Heidegger's analysis of equipment

Abstract

The IT artefact, conceived as a bundle of features or properties, is frequently seen as the core object of interest in IS. We argue that this view of IT derives from a worldview that stresses a duality between the individual and the external world. Using a stylized account of an IT implementation project, we show how this worldview conditions the phenomena that show up as most central in the IS discipline and the way mainstream theories and research approaches make sense of these phenomena. Retelling the same story through the lens of Heidegger's analysis of equipment in Being and Time (1927/1962), we present an alternative conception of IT as equipment holistically interwoven with other equipment, user practices, and individual identities. This allows rethinking what are central and peripheral concepts and phenomena in the IS discipline, and outline implications of such a shift for IS theorising, research practice and design.

Keywords:

• IT artefact
• Heidegger
• holism
• sociomateriality
• appropriation
• IT adoption

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kai Riemer

About the Authors

Kai Riemer is Associate Professor and Chair of Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney Business School. He joined the University of Sydney in 2009 from Münster University in Germany, where he held a position as Assistant Professor. His expertise and research interests cover the areas of Technology Appropriation, Enterprise Social Networking, Virtual Work, Digital Disruption and the Philosophy of Technology. He has more than 60 refereed research publications in outlets such as the Journal of Information Technology, Communications of the Association of Information Systems, Electronic Markets, and International Conference of Information Systems.

Robert B Johnston

Robert B. Johnston is Professor of Information and Organisation at University College Dublin. His main research areas are electronic commerce, supply chain management, inter-organisational information systems and theoretical foundations of Information Systems. He has over 130 refereed publications, many in leading international journals, including Information Systems Research, Management Science, European Journal of Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Electronic Markets, Journal of the Operational Research Society, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and Supply Chain Management. Before becoming an Academic he spent 13 years as an IT practitioner in Australia.