Abstract
Information Systems has traditionally conceptualised digital technologies as infrastructures for representing and processing information. Yet much of the activity mediated by digital systems in organisations does not consist in the transfer of information but in the creation and management of commitments. Requests are issued, approvals are granted, responsibilities are delegated, and obligations are accepted. These acts are communicative events through which organisations coordinate collective action within institutional frameworks that define their validity and consequences. This paper argues that the central phenomenon stabilised by information systems is therefore not information itself but institutionalised communication through which organisations coordinate accountable action. Building on language-action perspectives and institutional theory, the paper develops a minimal structural grammar of institutional communication linking roles, communicative acts, and institutional consequences. It then examines how digital infrastructures stabilise these communicative processes across time and organisational boundaries. By reframing information systems as infrastructures for institutionalised communication, the paper contributes to ongoing debates about the conceptual foundations of the Information Systems discipline and highlights new directions for research on digital infrastructures capable of supporting accountable organisational coordination.
Recommended Citation
Jacucci, Gianni, "preprint OISI26 t-13 inst_AI5 - From Information to Institutionalised Communication Rethinking the Core Object of the Information Systems Discipline" (2026). OISI Workshop 2026. 17.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/oisiworkshop2026/17