Working Group 8.2
International Federation for Information Processing

Working Conference in Philadelphia
May 31 to June 3, 1997

Theme:
Information Systems and Qualitative Research

Report on the Discussion at the Panel on
Assessing Critical Social Theory Research in Information Systems

Panel Participants:
Dr. Ojelanki Ngwenyama, Dr. Duane Truex, Dr. Gordon Davis

Report by Marie-Claude Boudreau

In this note, a journalistic summary of the ideas manifested at the aforementioned panel is presented. Dr. Ngwenyama, first panelist, started the session with a short history of the critical social theory (CST) approach. Dr. Truex pursued with some additional insights about CST, identified some exemplary CST studies, and provided some guidance about conducting such kind of research. Finally, Dr. Davis offered the perspective of an "outsider" to critical social theory.

Critical social theory has as its main goal the improvement of the human condition. As pointed out by Dr. Ngwenyama, this philosophical approach to research is fairly different from those approaches traditionally adopted. Indeed, if one considers CST’s fundamental assumptions, the reasons for such difference, or uniqueness, become obvious. As an example, one important assumption of CST is that "people can change their world," and more specifically, that organizational actors and/or researchers have the capability to transform organizational situations. Indeed, whereas traditional social theorists contribute to the preservation of the status quo, critical social theorists seek to emancipate people; they are concerned with finding alternatives to existing social conditions as well as with challenging taken-for-granted conditions. As a second important assumption, the fact that "all social knowledge is value laden, and that all scientific knowledge is a social construction" was stated. Even though such a statement is now generally accepted in the IFIP 8.2 community, it has not always been the case. Thirdly, the assumption that "reason and critique are inseparable and are reflexive" was also pinpointed. As explained by Dr. Ngwenyama, critical social theorists ought to not only look at the limitations of different research approaches, but they also need to take a reflective look at the approaches they themselves use. Finally, it was also stressed as an important premise of CST that "theory and practice must be interconnected." As critical social theorists seek to improve human conditions, they should not limit themselves to critiquing the ideology behind certain styles of IS research. Rather, they need to become involved with real life situations where power is manifested. In the IS field, for instance, issues of power may be observed in situations of IS development or information use.

Another important aspect often discussed in the realm of CST is the way one conducts human inquiry. Dr. Ngwenyama referred to three kinds of inquiry, or "interest," upon which researchers may base their quest for knowledge: technical, practical, and emancipatory. In the technical interest, there is a focus on predicting and controlling the natural and social world. Information technology is often viewed as an outstanding instrument for control ,and therefore, is frequently studied according to this technical interest. The second type of knowledge interest, practical, focuses on human interaction, e.g., traditions, social behaviors and relationships. It has as its goal to clarify the meaning of a given situation in order to better understand it. Thirdly, the emancipatory knowledge interest is specifically targeted to the liberation of individuals. It is achieved through discursive action, where "the force of the best argument" (Habermas, 1979) has the right to change a given situation. Rather than exploring a situation so as to control it (technical interest) or to understand it (practical interest), an emancipatory interest seeks to free people from physical, mental and social distortions and injustice. It is this latter interest that best serves the critical social theorist .

The second panelist, Dr. Duane Truex, first continued on the historical perspective of CST. In order to provide the audience with a better understanding of social action theory, he briefly discussed Habermas’ Philosophy of Language and Silverman’s Frame of Reference (1971). Then, Dr. Truex addressed a very important question: what is the contribution of CST?

To answer this question, CST was compared to other techniques that, for the most part, do not challenge reigning assumptions. Those techniques limit research by restricting or even ignoring internal dialectic (they thus remain mired in the past), and they do not have any critical reflection. CST, however, obliges one to conduct some critical reflection so as to look beyond reigning assumptions. Researchers, for instance, have to critically examine how power structures and knowledge interests are affected by information technology.

But how does one go about conducting critical social research? Dr. Truex, citing Habermas, proposed that there is no such thing as a set of specific methods of CST. Rather, CST necessitates a pluralistic and multi-methodic approach. In fact, whatever the method, the important thing in CST is to always address the researcher’s underlying assumptions, as well as those of the sponsor and organizational actors. Moreover, resulting knowledge should be evaluated with the same critical lenses. In order to reveal these assumptions, different techniques were suggested, such as cognitive mapping and discourse analysis; those techniques are indeed of great help in examining the ideological frames upon which decisions are being based.

There are a number of exemplars that one can follow when conducting CST research. Action research, because of its basic assumptions (i.e., the researcher as subjective entity, the outcome as being one of improvement, the organization engaged in learning, etc.), was emphasized as a particularly appropriate approach. As to specific studies, the work of Mumby (1987, 1988), Forester (1992, 1993), Truex (1993), Klein and Truex (1995) and Ngwenyama and Lee (1997) all constitute exemplary empirical research adopting a critical stand. Dr. Truex also pointed out two research streams that qualify particularly well as critical social theories. First is the "soft systems approach" (Minger 1980; Checkland, 1981), which has the main characteristic, similarly to CST, of challenging assumptions. Second, "structuration theory" (Giddens, 1984) is also quite appropriate, particularly for its examination of the agency-structure dialectic and rejection of strong functionalist claims. As to relevant topics for critical empirical research, those are numerous and include decision-making, critical analysis of work languages (i.e., language assumptions), data base modeling (i.e., meaning capture), power in information systems development, user/developer relations, and outsourcing. In sum, provided the range of critical studies that have already been conducted in multiple domains of interest, the situation for critical researchers is quite encouraging.

Conducting good CST research offers several challenges (Ngwenyama, 1991). The most important of these challenges requires one to declare his or her interests; not to declare these interests, or at least be aware of them, is to accept the prevailing wisdom of an organization. Moreover, CST requires one to ask what impact a change (in our case, likely caused by information technology) may have on not only organizational members, but also on society in general. CST also demands that our work aspires to empirical fitting (i.e., the right technique for the right question, for the right time), as well as being practically appropriate and ethically illuminating. This is not a small challenge, but one that has already begun to be addressed by many researchers of our community.

As a third panelist, Dr. Gordon Davis shared his personal perspective on CST. Dr. Davis referred to an early past, where critical social theory was heavily relying on Habermas’ writings, and was also very vague, political, and idealistic. It was hard, at the time, to understand what it all exactly meant and what should be done differently if one wanted to practice CST. Dr. Davis drew an interesting parallel between CST and the Declaration of Independence. At the time the Declaration was stated, he illustrated, its content did have an Habermasian’s critical theory statement (i.e., "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"). Later on, the Federalist Papers were written so as to convince the country of the value and effectiveness of the proposed constitution. Pursuing with the analogy, these Federalist Papers may be compared with a "system design book," in the sense that both documents take basic concepts and turn them into principles that work, that is, they explained how to implement a set of beliefs and ideas. Nowadays, the "system design book" about CST appears to be more widely comprehended. Indeed, researchers, as it was demonstrated in the present panel, do have a better idea of how CST may impact their research agenda.

After a period of perplexity about CST, Dr. Davis now claims a better understanding of the intent and consequence of CST as a research approach. He believes that we, as researchers, need "to surface our underlying assumptions as well as to understand our motives and those of others" in order to conduct good CST inquiry.
 
 

References

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Forester, J., Planning In The Face of Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Forester, J. "Critical Ethnography: On Fieldwork in a Habermasian Way," In Critical Management Studies, M. Alvesson and H. Willmott (Eds.), Sage Publications, London, UK, pp. 1-20, 1992.

Forester, J., Critical Theory, Public Policy, and Planning Practice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.

Giddens, A. The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1984.

Habermas, J., Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979.

Klein, H.K. and Truex, D.P. "Discourse Analysis: An Approach to the Investigation of Organizational Emergence," In The Semiotics of the Work-Place, P. B. Andersen and B. Holmqvist (Ed.), 1995.

Mingers, J.C., "Towards an Appropriate Social Theory for Applied Systems Thinking: Critical Theory and Soft Systems Methodology," Journal of Applied Systems Analysis, Vol. 7, pp. 41-49, 1980.

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Ngwenyama, O. "The Critical Social Theory Approach to Information systems: Problems and Challenges." In Information Systems Research, H. E. Nissen, H. Klein, and R. Hirschheim (Eds.), Amsterdam: North Holland, pp. 267-294, 1991.

Ngwenyama, O. and A. Lee, "Communication Richness in Electronic Mail: Critical Theory and The Contextuality of Meaning," MIS Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 145-167, 1997.

Silverman, D. The Theory of Organizations as: A Sociological Framework, Basic Books, New York, 1971.

Truex, D.P., "Information Systems Development in the Emergent Organization," Unpublished Dissertation, The State University of New York, 1993.