Product Description

Information, Systems and Information Systems making sense of the field Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell Lancaster University, UK Science–based technology helps to shape our lives, and no technology is more powerful in this respect than that associated with information. But the emerging linked fields of information systems and information technology are still in a very confused state. There is a torrent of technical developments but the concepts which bring structure to the field and make sense of it lag behind. This book seeks to dispel that confusion, and aims to make sense of IS and IT as a whole. Conventional theory bears little relation to the experience most people have with computer–based systems in organizations. Based on real–world experiences in both the private and public sectors, this book from Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell tackles the subject afresh. Information, Systems and Information Systems provides a practice–based approach to the thinking needed to underpin provision of information support in organizations. Starting from fundamentals, the book develops a coherent account of the field. The book is thus a work of conceptual cleansing. It presents a well–argued and tested account of IS and IT which is both holistic and coherent. The sense–making models which emerge can encompass any particular assumptions about the nature of organizational reality and management, whether ′hard′ functionalist or ′soft′ interpretive ones, though the authors′ sympathies are with the latter.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #223207 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 278 pages

From the Publisher
Information, Systems and Information Systems
"The book is laced with frequent and helpful summaries of the progress of the authors' arguments, useful in a complex work. It is enhanced by neat summaries of the different labels that have been applied to ostensibly the same processes (to assess our use of language.) Finally, the text is illustrated with the refreshingly hand-written systems diagrams yet to be sanitised by word-processing software." - GBN Book Club, April 1998

From the Back Cover
Information, Systems and Information Systems making sense of the field Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell Lancaster University, UK Science–based technology helps to shape our lives, and no technology is more powerful in this respect than that associated with information. But the emerging linked fields of information systems and information technology are still in a very confused state. There is a torrent of technical developments but the concepts which bring structure to the field and make sense of it lag behind. This book seeks to dispel that confusion, and aims to make sense of IS and IT as a whole. Conventional theory bears little relation to the experience most people have with computer–based systems in organizations. Based on real–world experiences in both the private and public sectors, this book from Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell tackles the subject afresh. Information, Systems and Information Systems provides a practice–based approach to the thinking needed to underpin provision of information support in organizations. Starting from fundamentals, the book develops a coherent account of the field. The book is thus a work of conceptual cleansing. It presents a well–argued and tested account of IS and IT which is both holistic and coherent. The sense–making models which emerge can encompass any particular assumptions about the nature of organizational reality and management, whether ′hard′ functionalist or ′soft′ interpretive ones, though the authors′ sympathies are with the latter.