Re-conceptualising failure: social shaping meets IS research
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Re-conceptualising failure: social shaping meets IS research M Wilson1 and D Howcroft2 1
School of Management, UMIST, Manchester, UK; and 2Information Systems Research Centre, University of Salford, Salford, UK The aim of this paper is to illustrate the interplay of the social studies of technology (SST) approach with IS research to further our conceptualisation of failure. It is intended that this cross-fertilisation of disciplinary backgrounds will produce a critique of traditional conceptions of information technology and help to further our understanding of the IS development, implementation and use process. We begin by providing a commentary on the IS failure literature, highlighting the variety of descriptions and noting the lack of consensus regarding how success/failure is constituted. We then go on to delineate the contribution of the SST approach to enlightening our study of failure, since it has as its core concern an understanding of the dynamics of the society–technology relationship. This approach is applied to a case study where the intention is to demonstrate the moving line between success and failure among different groups as well as over different periods of time. The study shows how the success/failure factors can be equally applied to construct an account as and when required, depending upon how legitimacy is ascribed to different ‘voices’. The SST themes are then revisited to enable a deconstruction of the stages that were undertaken before failure was finally declared. Finally, conclusions are drawn on the contribution of SST for aiding our understanding of how failures occur within their social and organisational context. European Journal of Information Systems (2002) 11, 236–250. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000437
Introduction Despite the negative press it receives, failure can be said to have played a pivotal role in shaping the dynamics of information and communication technologies. Friedman with Cornford (1989) formulates the drive to innovate as a reaction to commonly occurring failures of information systems in organisations in his influential account of the history of information systems (IS) development. The 1990s witnessed an increase in the volume of work by academics and practitioners dealing with this phenomenon (eg, Sauer, 1993; Myers, 1994; Fortune & Peters, 1995; Drummond, 1996; Flowers, 1996; Vaughan, 1996; Lyytinen and Robey, 1999). Yet, a key omission in much of this writing is some recognition that failure may not be unilaterally agreed. This, we argue, is due to the existence of differing interests and perspectives, which give rise to distinct subjects of study (as to what is examined regarding failure/success), as well as the way in which that study takes place. On the one hand, definitions and causes of failure are not clearly distinguished; however, on the other, many accounts of the demise of IS fail to problematise the success/failure dichotomy (Mitev, 2000).
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