Abstract
The paper discusses the relationship between information technology (IT) and communities of practice. Most studies of information technology design take the professional and business-driven viewpoint, and often focus only on IT and neglect the actual practice IT is serving. This paper analyses IT from a perspective of a non-profit community and its practice, for which IT is subsumed. The paper examines whether Orlikowski’s widely used IS framework can be used in analyzing such settings. The analysis shows that although Orlikowski’s model is capable of grasping many aspects of community IT, it fails to recognize perhaps the most crucial aspect of integrating several practical community levels, the shared object of all activities. In this paper, we propose that by using the cultural-historical activity theory such a problem in analysis can be alleviated.
Recommended Citation
Syrjanen, A. and Kuutti, K., "Analysing it and communities of practice" (2006). ECIS 2006 Proceedings. 194.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2006/194