Start Date
10-12-2017 12:00 AM
Description
This paper proposes a theory of the role of culture in Information Systems (IS) development. While culture is recognised as an issue in IS initiatives, few studies have considered the role of culture in IS development. Drawing from a review of the literature we adopt an interpretive perspective and use inductive thematic analysis to uncover themes in the literature and propose relationships between them. Our findings reveal the dynamic and contextual nature of cultural influence and support the view that technology is not culturally neutral. Furthermore, we illustrate the mutually constitutive nature of human and material cultures, and show the importance to IS development of individuals capable of considering situations from multiple perspectives. We discuss our results in relation to some relevant theories to situate our findings within the existing body of knowledge. We conclude our work with suggestions for future research that emerge from our study.
Recommended Citation
Geeling, Sharon; Brown, Irwin; and Weimann, Peter, "Processes of Relating: Cultural Implications in Information Systems Development" (2017). ICIS 2017 Proceedings. 1.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2017/Global-IS/Presentations/1
Processes of Relating: Cultural Implications in Information Systems Development
This paper proposes a theory of the role of culture in Information Systems (IS) development. While culture is recognised as an issue in IS initiatives, few studies have considered the role of culture in IS development. Drawing from a review of the literature we adopt an interpretive perspective and use inductive thematic analysis to uncover themes in the literature and propose relationships between them. Our findings reveal the dynamic and contextual nature of cultural influence and support the view that technology is not culturally neutral. Furthermore, we illustrate the mutually constitutive nature of human and material cultures, and show the importance to IS development of individuals capable of considering situations from multiple perspectives. We discuss our results in relation to some relevant theories to situate our findings within the existing body of knowledge. We conclude our work with suggestions for future research that emerge from our study.