Organizational Semiotics

by Liu, Kecheng; Clarke, Rodney J.; Andersen, Peter Bogh; Stamper, Ronald K.; Abou-Zeid, El-Sayed

• ISBN13: 9781402071898
• ISBN10: 1402071892
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

Organizational Semiotics regards organizations as the real information systems in which technologies have an essential role to play. It develops this perspective using the established discipline of semiotics, the theory of signs. A sign is anything that stands for something else within a certain community. This fundamental notion supports a unified treatment of human and technical aspects of information systems. Organizational Semiotics: Evolving a Science of Information Systems covers such issues as: -Fundamental concepts such as 'information', 'data', 'message', 'communication', 'knowledge', 'organization', 'system' and so on; -Properties of signs vital to organizational functioning, such as their meanings, the intentions they express and the valuable social consequences they produce; -'Architecture' of organizations when they are viewed as information systems, based on their semiotics features; -Understanding language in organizational contexts, for example, the limitations on the language used to conduct business affairs; -The empirical study of communications for requirements elicitation; -Applying semiotic categories (e.g. physical, empiric, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, social) to various problems; -Organizational knowledge representation; -Business process re-engineering methods and the design of e-commerce systems. This volume comprises the proceedings of the Working Conference on Organizational Semiotics: Evolving a Science of Information Systems, which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in July 2001. This Working Conference, the initiative of IFIP Working Group 8.1, was preceded by related workshops over a period of six years; the proceedings of the 1999 and 2000 meetings were published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. Organizational Semiotics: Evolving a Science of Information Systems will be of prime interest to all those working in information systems, especially researchers, lecturers, and students, as well as industrial practitioners.

Table of Contents

Contributors	vii
Preface	xiii
Exploring the Explanatory Power of Actability	1	(20)
Par J. Agerfalk
Fredrik Karlsson
Anders Hialmarsson
Information and Knowledge Economies	21	(20)
Daniel O'Connor
Rob Shields
Suzan Ilcan
Edwina Taborsky
Data, Information, and Knowledge	41	(10)
Frieder Nake
Organisations as Practice Systems	51	(20)
Goran Goldkuhl
Annie Rostlinger
Ewa Braf
Knowledge or Information	71	(20)
Ewa Braf
Translation, Betrayal and Ambiguity in IS Development	91	(18)
Jim Underwood
Integrating Information Systems	109	(10)
Valerie A. Martin
Mark Lycett
Robert Macredie
User-System Interface Design	119	(14)
John H. Connolly
Iain W. Philips
Pervasive Computing and Space	133	(20)
Peter Bogh Andersen
Systemic Functional Hypertexts (SFHT):	153	(18)
Alexander Miller
Rodney J. Clarke
The Value of Information in the ``E-age''	171	(18)
Alex Verrijn-Stuart
Wolfgang Hesse
Semiosis, Information and Knowledge	189	(22)
Edwina Taborsky
Dividing Businesses into Processes	211	(20)
Mikael Lind
A Semiotic Approach to Quality In Requirements Specifications	231	(20)
John Krogstie
The Institutional Context of Information	251	(12)
Michael S. H. Heng
Seven Rules for Applying Language/Action Perspective and Organizational Semiotics Successfully	263	(12)
Jan L.G. Dietz
Towards a Semiotic Communications Quality Model	275	(12)
Aldo de Moor
Hans Weigand
Semiotics and Intelligent Control	287	(10)
Morten Lind
Striking the Right Tone	297	(4)
Anna Pollard
Delfryn Thomas
Looking Inside	301	(4)
M. Cecilia G. Baranauskas
Juliana Salles
Roberto S. Bigoha
Levels of Abstraction in Maritime Maneuvering Operations	305	(4)
Johannes Petersen
Keywords Index	309