Course:LIBR559A/Whitley, E. A. (2001)

Citation

Whitley, E. A., & Pouloudi, A. (2001). Studying the translations of NHSnet. Journal of End User Computing, 13(3), 30-40. Retrieved from http://www.igi-global.com/journal/journal-organizational-end-user-computing/1071

Annotation

The purpose of this article is to present a different analytical framework to information system researchers: the sociological theory of translation. There are many ways of studying how and why an information system changes over its lifetime, and the authors argued that these past approaches consider making changes to an information system as “undesirable and avoidable” (p. 32).

The article examined a case study of NHSnet, a healthcare communication information system within the U.K. Four translation events were identified over the course of the system’s existence, each individual translation going through four common and researched stages. The authors suggest that sociology of translation could be applied to other healthcare ICTs, as well as information systems from other fields. By using this theoretical approach, stakeholders can consider their effects on the system’s direction, as well as the effects of all other involved stakeholders.

The sociology of translation, a process within actor-network theory, assumes that the information system will go through many changes, and looks to understand the processes and actors behind those changes. It also understands the success of a technology as whether or not it is used and appreciated by users, and actors on either side of the technology must be persuaded to attend to a common interest. In the end, systems undergo many translations as the interests of the actors change, and as control over the system is shifted between actors.

Sociology of translation and actor-network theory are commonplace within the field of sociology, but are not generally applied to the study of information systems. This unique approach to studying information systems provides a new perspective that expects the systems to go through changes, and explains to stakeholders how their interests are integrated into the systems.

Since no other information system case studies have been examined through the lens of sociology of translation, the authors do not have a large amount of literature to support the decision to study information systems this way. Also, the potential benefits to stakeholders that are gained through sociology of translation analysis were listed by the authors, but there is no empirical data that demonstrates the suggested benefits. With a new approach like the one presented in the article, only time will tell if a novel method of analysis is indeed beneficial. However, it can be difficult to persuade others to use new theoretical methods without a substantial base of existing literature.

Librarians working with or contributing to the design of information systems could benefit from a new perspective in understanding how systems change over time and how stakeholders influence those changes. In the case of the article, a health information system case is presented, but the findings are applicable to any field within library and information science.

Areas/Topics/Keywords

Actor-network theory, information systems, redesign of systems, health information systems.

Page Author: Maddy Walter