Information Systems and the Economics of Innovation
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BOOK REVIEW
Information Systems and the Economics of Innovation C Avgerou and R La Rovere Published by Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, 2003, 219 pp. ISBN 1-84376-018-5
The Communication and Knowledge in Management Research Unit, Information Systems Research Institute, University of Salford, UK
European Journal of Information Systems (2003) 12, 245–246. doi:10.1057/palgrave. ejis.3000468
The contributors to this interdisciplinary discourse on innovation studies in information systems undertook a range of theoretical endeavours, collectively revealing substantive insights through the particular biases of the disciplines they employed. The book is structured around three views on innovation in information processing and communication technologies. (ICT) In Part I, four authors examine the link from infrastructure to service provision, showing that both institutional factors that define government policies, and the socioeconomic context of the user’s situation, are significant and in need of understanding together. In Part II, three authors identify important concepts for analysing the conditioning of ICT adoption by examining institutional and economic characteristics. Finally, in Part III, three authors examine the innovation process of ICT adoption and use in situation/context. The editors identify two orientations to the study of ICT innovation. On the one hand, much work has been concerned with institutional policy and the fostering of ICT innovation and diffusion. Innovation, then, is the result of interactions. On the other hand, the study of ICT innovation in information systems is concerned with informing management action. Thus, the two streams of studies are brought into a (limited) dialogue, revealing differences in terminology that reflect conceptual and theoretical differences, as well as the semantic ambiguity inherent in this field of study. The usefulness, and limitations, of the diffusion model of innovation/ICT adoption and the distinction of innovation and adoption are highlighted. Several alternative understandings explain innovation as shaped in context rather than diffused from a place of conception to places of use. Social constructivist theory from sociology provides the basis for several of the discussions. The conceptual and methodological divisions of the research communities that study this field are shown: macroeconomics, sociology, industrial economics, organisation theory, management, and information systems. All are given due airing and helpful juxtaposition through the flow of the 10 chapters. Indeed, the editors suggest that in constructing this book, the contributors have accomplished the exposure of, and a challenge to, the continuing academic compartmentalisation of knowledge in the study of the complex processes of ICT innovation. I found the most interesting discussions in the final three chapters. Here, innovation is explained as a situated process in
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which it is ‘improvisation’ and the behaviour of political actors that matters, more than design a
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