EVALUATING THE CONTRIBUTION OF STRUCTURATION THEORY TO THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS DISCIPLINE

Jeremy Rose Dept. of Business Information Technology

Faculty of Business and Management Manchester Metropolitan University

Aytoun St Manchester M1 3GH

England j.Rose@mmu.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

Giddens’ mature formulation of structuration theory has been available since the publication of ‘The Constitution of Society’ in 1984, and has been adopted and adapted by a number of researchers in the Information System field. Though accepted as a substantial contribution to social theory, Giddens’ work is not without its critics, and is decidedly thin in some areas important to IS. Analyzing the contribution of those IS researchers working with it (using a simple model of the appropriation of theory from one field to another), allows the understanding that they have mainly used it to theorize the field or to analyze empirical case studies. Though understanding gained in this way is useful, and will eventually modify the frame of reference within which practitioners act, it is argued that, in an applied discipline, more direct ways of guiding practice are crucial. Useful theory should lead to improvements in the capacity for effective action - the ‘difference that makes a difference.’ Though the level of abstraction of the theory introduces some doubt whether this is possible, some ways of furthering this direction of research are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Social theory has a substantial part to play in the development of the discipline of IS, in helping to understand and interact with the societal, organizational and personal contexts without which the technology is meaningless. Anthony Giddens has made a substantial contribution to that theory, and has work has been taken up by a

number of IS researchers. This paper offers a summary of the aspects of structuration theory considered relevant (largely for those readers coming to it for the first time) together with some major reservations which have been expressed by Giddens’ fellow social theorists. Since the paper concerns the appropriation of theory from one field for use in another, a simple model of its potential uses is developed, and the contribution of IS researchers is reviewed in the light of the model. The IS discipline is an applied field - an assumption is made that one of its central functions is to contribute to the development of more effective practice. The analysis of past work involving structuration theory and its application in IS prompts some suggestions as to how research may offer more concrete help for practitioners.

STRUCTURATION THEORY

Giddens is primarily a writer of elegant prose (the diagrammatic models in his work are of relatively minor significance) and explanations are given in his own words where possible. Most of the following examples come from ‘The Constitution of Society,’ (1984) in which he lays down the mature principles of structuration theory. It should be pointed out at this early stage that Giddens’ writings are voluminous, and, in common with the practice of all other commentators, this summary represents a selection of issues considered likely to be of use to the information systems researcher.

Structure and agency

Giddens characterizes two major schools of sociological enquiry: those predominantly concerned with structure and those predominantly concerned with agency. Structuralists and Functionalists (Marx, Parsons, Levi Strauss) have largely given explanations of social behaviour in terms of structural forces (such as Marx’s class structures) which constrain people to do things in particular ways. Other traditions in sociology (hermeneutics, phenomenology) have concentrated on the human agent as the primary actor in, and interpreter of, social life. These two schools can be crudely allied with ‘society’ and the ‘individual’ (Giddens 1984 pp 162). In Giddens’ account at least, these two traditions are incompatible with each other until the advent of his theory, which seeks to show how the knowledgeable actions of human agents discursively and recursively forms the sets of rules, practices and routines which, over time and space constitutes his conception of structure. This is the process of ‘structuration’.

Agency

Human agency, in Giddens formulation, is the ‘capacity to make a difference’ (Giddens 1984 pp 14) - (also known as ‘transformative capacity’). It is intimately connected with power - in fact this is one of its defining characteristics, since the loss of the capacity to make a difference is also powerlessness. In practice, human

agents almost always retain some transformational capacity - though it be small. Power involves the exploitation of resources. ‘Resources (focused by signification and legitimation) are structured properties of social systems, drawn on and reproduced by knowledgeable agents in the course of interaction’ (Giddens 1984 pp 15). Resources are ‘of two kinds: authoritative resources, which derive from the co-ordination of the activity of human agents, and allocative resources, which stem from control of material products or aspects of the natural world’ (Giddens 1984). Power is not itself a resource. Actions have intended and unintended consequences.

The stratification model

Purposive human action occurs as a ‘durée’ a ‘continuous flow of conduct’ (cf Vickers ‘flux of interacting ideas and events’ (lebenswelt)) in time space. The stratification model concerns the agent’s reflexive monitoring of the durée (like Vicker’s ‘appreciative system’). Giddens is uncomfortable with the non-rational elements of Freud’s ‘unconscious’ and eschews it in favour of his own three level model of consciousness, consisting of discursive consciousness (what the agent can express of his motivation and rationality), practical consciousness (what the agent is aware of without being able to express) and unconscious motives/cognition. Following Erikson, Giddens formulates a conception of day-to-day living as involving ‘an ontological security expressing an autonomy of bodily control within predictable routines’ (Giddens 1984 pp 50). Social relations (often termed ‘co-presence’) are subject to much routinization over time and space - encounters are ‘formed and reformed in the durée of daily existence’, they are ‘organized in and through the intersections of practical and discursive consciousness’ (explained in terms of ‘control of the body and of the sustaining of rules and conventions’). Encounters are sustained via discourse (talk) (Giddens 1984 pp72-3).

Structure

Giddens defines structure as ‘rules and resources recursively implicated in social reproduction; institutionalized features of social systems have structural properties in the sense that relationships are stabilized across time and space’. Structure can be ‘conceptualized abstractly as two aspects of rules - normative elements and codes of signification. (Giddens 1984 pp xxx1) Structure ‘exist only as memory traces, the organic basis of human knowledgeability, and is instanciated in action’ (Giddens 1984 pp 377). Structure refers, in social analysis to ‘the structuring properties allowing the ‘binding’ of time space in social systems, the properties which make it possible for discernibly similar social practices to exist across varying spans of time and space and which lend them a ‘systemic’ form. To say that structure is a ‘virtual order’ of transformative relations means that social systems as reproduced social practices, do not have ‘structures’ but rather exhibit ‘structural properties’ and that structure exists, as time-space presence, only in its instanciations in such practices

and as memory traces orienting the conduct of knowledgeable human agents’ (Giddens 1984 pp 17). Importantly Giddens regards structure not merely as constraining, but also as enabling.

The duality of structure.

Giddens recasts the two independent sets of phenomena (dualism) of structure and agency as a ‘duality’ - two concepts which are dependent upon each other and recursively related. ‘The structural properties of social systems are both medium and outcome of the practices they recursively organize’ (Giddens 1984 pp 25). The ‘dimensions’ of the duality of structure are given in the following well-known diagram (fig. 1):

structure

modality

interaction

signification

communication

domination

facility

power

legitimation

norm

sanction

interpretativescheme

fig. 1 - dimensions of the duality of structure, Giddens 1984 Social structure and human interaction are broken down into three dimensions (solely for the purpose of analysis) and the recursive character of these dimensions is illustrated by the linking modalities. Thus, as human actors communicate, they draw on interpretative schemes to help make sense of interactions; at the same time those interactions reproduce and modify those interpretative schemes which are embedded in social structure as meaning or signification. Similarly the facility to allocate resources is enacted in the wielding of power, and produces and reproduces social structures of domination, and moral codes (norms) help determine what can be sanctioned in human interaction, which iteratively produce structures of legitimation.

Structuration

Structuration is therefore the process whereby the duality of structure evolves and is reproduced over time space. Agents in their actions constantly produce and reproduce and develop the social structures which both constrain and enable them. ‘All structural properties of social systems............are the medium and outcome of the contingently accomplished activities of situated actors. The reflexive monitoring of

action in situations of co-presence is the main anchoring feature of social integration’ (Giddens 1984 pp 191).

Social integration and system integration

‘Whereas social integration refers to face-to-face reciprocities between agents who meet in circumstances of co-presence, and therefore preserves a concern for praxis in situ, system integration refers to reciprocities between absent agents, i.e. agents who are physically and/or temporally situated in different settings, which admits the possibility of intersituational articulations of systemic patterns’ (Cohen 1990)

Time space distanciation

This refers to the ‘stretching of social systems across time-space, on the basis of mechanisms of social and system integration’ (Giddens 1984 pp 377). As the recursive and reflexive structuration of social action extends between people over geographical distance and time, so the embeddedness or ‘bite’ of those practices increases.

The double hermeneutic

The ‘double hermeneutic’ is Giddens conceptualization of the ‘mutual interpretive interplay between social science and those whose activities compose its subject matter’ (Giddens 1984 pp xxxii). ‘All social actors, it can properly be said, are social theorists, who alter their theories in the light of experience’ (Giddens 1984 pp 335) - part of which experience is social theory. All social theorists are likewise actors. The sociologist ‘has as a field of study phenomena which are already constituted as meaningful. the condition of ‘entry’ to this field is getting to know what the actors already know......how to ‘go on’ in the daily activities of social life. The concepts that sociological observers invent (sic) are ‘second order’ concepts in so far as they presume certain conceptual capabilities on the part of the actors to whose conduct they refer. But it is in the nature of social sciences that these can become ‘first-order’ concepts by being appropriated within social life itself’ (Giddens 1984 pp 284) In other words, social actors have the power to reflect upon the theories of the social sciences, to incorporate them in their stock of mutual knowledge and belief, and to act differently as a consequence. As they do this they transform the structure of social reality, and may ultimately make the theories untenable.

Structuration theory and social research

In Gidden’s view ‘a ‘structural approach’ to the social sciences cannot be severed from an examination of the mechanisms of social reproduction’ (Giddens 1984 pp 212) - ‘there is no such thing as a distinctive category of ‘structural explanation,’ only an interpretation of the modes in which varying forms of constraint influence human behaviour’ (Giddens 1984 pp 213). Though Giddens leans towards the

‘methodological individualism’ of Weber (in which it is individual human action which must form the basis of all sociological investigation), he still recognizes the possibility of thinking of collectivities as agents. In some circumstances it makes sense to say that ‘participants ‘decide’ (individually) to ‘decide’ (corporately) upon a given course of action’ (Giddens 1984 pp 221). However, any analysis which involves structuration theory must clearly involve both structure and agency. Giddens distinguishes between common sense, the rationale behind everyday action, and ‘mutual knowledge,’ shared sets of beliefs about the social world. Those beliefs have a dynamic relationship with social theory via the double hermeneutic, and separate the domain from that of natural science. Social theory (he prefers to talk in the end about generalizations) has thus a more transitory character than its natural science counterpart which acts on phenomena which do not have the ability to understand the theory. ‘Do universal laws exist in the social sciences?..........the plain answer......is that they do not. In social science......there is not a single candidate which could be offered uncontentiously as such a law in the realm of human social conduct (Giddens 1984 pp 344-5). ‘It is surely plain that the ‘revelatory model’ of natural science cannot be directly transferred to the social sciences’ (Giddens 1984 pp 335). However, it should not be inferred from this that Giddens thinks that social theory is less important or useful than that in the natural sciences. He traces the widespread influence of Machiavelli (Giddens 1984 pp 350-353), pointing out that ‘social beliefs, unlike those to do with nature, are constitutive elements of what it is they are about. From this it follows that criticism of false belief............is a practical intervention in society, a political phenomenon in a broad sense of that term’ (Giddens 1984 pp 340). ‘In the social sciences, ‘the practice is the object of the theory. Theory in this domain transforms its own object (Giddens 1984 pp 348) - ‘the social sciences enter into the very constitution of ‘their world’ in a manner which is foreclosed to natural science’ (Giddens 1984 pp 350)

A summary of structuration theory

Clark (1990) helpfully sums up structuration theory as a ‘series of interrelated propositions’: 1. The main substantive focus of social theory is not individual action and the

experience of the individual actor (methodological individualism), nor the existence and requirements of some kind of societal totality (structural-functionalism and, to a certain extent, Marxism, but social practices. It is social practices which lie at the root of the constitution of both individuals and society.

2. Social practices are accomplished by knowledgeable human agents with ‘causal powers’’ i.e. powers to make a difference. Human agents are neither cultural dopes nor simply the product of class forces. They have a capacity for self-reflection in day-to-day interaction, a practical, often ‘tacit’ consciousness of what they are doing and an ability under certain circumstances to do it.

3. However, these social practices are not random and purely voluntaristic, but ordered and stable across space and time, in short they are routinized and recursive. In producing social practices, which make up the visible patterns which constitute society, actors draw upon ‘structural properties’ (rules and resources) which are themselves institutionalized features of societies.

4. Structure is therefore activity-dependent. It is both the medium and outcome of a process of ‘structuration’ - the production and reproduction of practices across time and space. This process is what Giddens has called the ‘double hermeneutic’, the double involvement of individuals and institutions. Put perhaps more truistically: ‘we create society at the same time as we are created by it’ (Giddens, 1984 pp 14)

Giddens own, rather longer summary is given in appendix 1.

STRUCTURATION THEORY - CONTEMPORARY CRITIQUE

A central reservation about structuration theory in the critique of other social theorists has centered around the ‘conflation’ of structure and agency. Conflation ‘concerns the problem of reducing structure to action (or vice versa) and the [consequent] difficulty of documenting an institution apart from action’ (Barley and Tolbert 1997). Archer (1996) argues that conflating structure and agency weakens their analytical power and elides the distinction between Lockwood’s original conception of ‘social’ and ‘system’ integration. She maintains that, in order to account for why things are ‘so and not otherwise,’ it is necessary to maintain the analytical distinction between the ‘parts’ of society and its ‘people,’ and supplies an ontological grounding for the distinction in Realism. Structure and agency, in her view, are ‘phased over different tracts of time’ (human actions over the short term, structures enduring) which allows their analytical separation. Giddens conceptualization of structure (‘rules and resources’ existing only in memory traces and instanciated in action) is somewhat rarefied (‘loose and abstract’ (Thompson 1989)) in comparison to the structuralist tradition of social thought, where structure has a far more tangible function in constraining human action. This has lead to criticisms of subjectivism: - that Giddens does not so much resolve the dualism of action and structure, as offer victory to the knowledgeable human actor, in a particularly modern and liberal tradition of thought (Clegg 1989). Thus Archer (1982) and Layder (1987) argue that Giddens undermines any sense of structures as pre-constituted and relatively autonomous, or determinant of action. A more telling criticism for the IS discipline, which must be concerned with purposeful change, is obliquely referred to by Stinchcombe (1990) when he queries how the theoretical base explains historical change. The critique is developed further by Archer (1996) as in her problematic of why things are ‘so and not otherwise.’

Giddens view of structuration offers a conceptual mechanism for explaining the reproduction of social structure; however, she asserts, this is not the crucial question which needs addressing. The question of substance is: ‘why do some forms of social reproduction succeed and become institutionalized, and others do not?’ Why, for instance, should the communist societal model in Eastern Europe give way to democratic capitalism? Why should one information system takes its place successfully in organizational life, and another not? For this question the theory of structuration has no direct answers. A further critique comes from feminist sociologists (Murgatroyd 1989) who point out that by omitting the consideration of gender from structuration theory, Giddens tells ‘only half the story.’ The study of ‘people producing work’ (women’s work within the family) must be a crucial element of structuration. Most of this critique is at the ontological level of the internal logic of the theory of structuration. However Giddens’ focus on the ontological content of social theory (Gregson 1989), and his lack of interest in wielding the ‘methodological scalpel’ (what Hekman (1990) describes as his ‘failure to present a viable epistemology’) leave the structurationist researcher with serious difficulties. The lack of concrete empirical example in his own work, together with its abstract conceptual focus similarly offers few clues as to how to proceed in the everyday world in the gathering of useful understanding, and its reflection back into the world of practice. Moreover, Giddens does not provide any conceptual base for developing a ‘critical’ stance (in the sense used by Habermas) (Bernstein 1989), in other words for developing normative models of how things should be, as opposed to how they are. The theory then becomes a ‘categorization system’ (Turner 1990) for the purposes of analytical comparison with the world - the mode in which it has most frequently been used. For Barley and Tolbert (1997) the difficulty at the epistemological level is - ‘unless an institution exists prior to action it is difficult to understand how it can affect behaviour…………to reduce the empirical problem………one needs a diachronic model of the structuration process as well as longitudinal data.’ Their solution to the methodological research problem is through the Shankian device of ‘scripts’ which encode features of institutional life (replacing Giddens’ modalities). The analysis of the development of scripts over time offers them the temporal perspective they are seeking. Whittington (1992) concludes that Giddens’ influence on the field of management studies is ‘substantial but lopsided.’ In addition to focusing on Giddens theoretical writings and the duality of structure to the exclusion of his more empirical writings (for instance on class structuration), management writers, he contends, have tended to reduce Giddens sophisticated view of structure to the ‘internal characteristics of

the organization itself’ which is then conceptualized as a reified entity in an ‘environment’ which imposes impacts and pressures from outside. His criticism, then, is that the conception of managerial agency resulting from this perspective is skewed and limited. The institutionalist ‘recognition of the interplay between capitalist structures, and structures of gender, knowledge, state and ethnicity’ taken together with his study of Giddens’ empirical writings, including those on class structuration (Giddens 1973) lead him to advocate a much broader view of managerial agency. Managers are viewed as part of many social systems, not just a capitalist system of organization, with many forms of rules and resources to call upon, and many available structures which both constrain and enable their actions.

THE USE OF STRUCTURATION THEORY IN THE FIELD OF IS

There are two published reviews of literature concerning IS and structuration theory, Walsham and Han (1991) and Jones (1997). The later review advances the themes of the earlier. Walsham and Han analyze the literature under the headings of operational studies, its use as a meta theory and the use of specific concepts from the theory. Jones develops this account into four types of use of the theory: attempts to reconstruct the theory to accommodate technology, application of the theory as an analytical tool, use of the theory as meta-theory, and use of concepts from structuration theory to inform IS research. Rather than follow directly this approach, this review uses the simple model in fig. 2 to help conceptualize the use of theory from one field (in this case social theory) in another field (information systems).

analyze operationalize

theorize

fig. 2 - uses of theory from one field in another field

The model suggests that the researcher may use appropriated theory for three distinct purposes: • to theorize - to re-conceptualize or theorize aspects of the new field (in this case

IS)

• to analyze - as an analytical framework for the retrospective understanding of empirical situations or cases

• to operationalize - to provide operational guidance for practitioners (in this case IS practitioners)

Some examples from the field of management studies may help to clarify. Population ecologists appropriated Darwinian theories of natural selection to theorize the rise and fall of firms in the market place (Hannan and Freeman 1988); Morgan (1986) used the theories of Freud to analyse the character of Frederick Taylor (and undermine the principles of scientific management); Checkland (1981, 1990) operationalized systems ideas to provide methodological help for management problems. These distinctions are intended for analytical convenience - in much research they will of course be blurred.

Theorizing

Adapting structuration theory to the domain of IS/IT The most sustained and well articulated attempts to theorize aspects of the IS field using structuration theory come from Wanda Orlikowski. In Orlikowski and Robey (1991), the tenets of structuration theory are applied to help understand the relationship between IT and organizations. The ‘duality’ of technology is expressed ‘in its constituted nature - information technology is the social product of subjective human action within specific structural and cultural contexts - and its constitutive role - information technology is simultaneously an objective set of rules and resources involved in mediating (facilitating and constraining) human action, and thus hence contributing to the creation, recreation and transformation of those contexts.’ A model relating human actors, IT and institutional properties is provided, together with explanation of Giddens modalities as enacted via the medium of IT, and a ‘framework for investigating the interaction of human actors and social structure during IS development,’ which is considered in more detail later. The concept of the duality of technology is explored further in Orlikowski (1992). Earlier accounts of technology are analyzed in terms of ‘scope’ and ‘role,’ and three different models of the theorizing of technology are distinguished. The technological imperative model characterizes research which sees technology as an objective determinant of organizational and work dimensions such as structure, size and job satisfaction. The strategic choice model suggests that technology is the product of human agency (as, for instance, in socio-technical theory and the work of Zuboff (1988)) and is often associated with ‘critical’ or emancipatory calls for technology which empowers rather than deskills (the ‘informating’ of Zuboff). Orlikowski’s critique of this model is that it ignores social and economic structural forces which constrain managerial action. Other streams of thought relevant here include social constructionist accounts of technology and Marxist accounts which

outline ‘the manner in which technology is devised and deployed to further the economic interests of powerful actors.’ The model of technology as trigger of structural change is devoted to the perspective of Barley (1986, 1990) who regards technology as an ‘intervention into the relationship between human agents and organizational structure, which potentially changes it.’ Her own recursive structurational account of technology (‘technology is created and changed by human action, but it is also used by humans to accomplish action’) is combined with a hermeneutic view of the ‘interpretative flexibility’ inherent in technology. Criticizing the time space discontinuous separation of design and use in much IS research she posits the continuing iterative ability of stakeholders to constitute the social and physical characteristics of technology. Her structurational model of technology is given in fig. 3

institutional properties

technology

human agents

a b

c

d

a technology as a product of human agencyb technology as a medium of human actionc institutional conditions of interaction with technologyd institutional consequences of interaction with technology

fig. 3 - Orlikowski’s structurational model of technology

The paper concludes with Orlikowski in analyzing mode - using her model to give an explanatory account of a case study. Yates and Orlikowski (1992) offer the rhetorical concept of genre in a structurational perspective as a useful concept for theorizing communication and media; giving a historical account of the evolution of the memo

genre which traces its links with Email. This provides a reasonably illuminating example of a recognizably different form of theorizing, where structuration theory, or concepts from it, are used in conjunction with other theory, and then applied to the IS field.

Using structuration theory with other theories A second sustained attempt to theorize part of the IS field (‘advanced’ IT) is provided by Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) (DeSanctis and Poole 1994). Some ideas from structuration theory are developed in conjunction with the concepts of ‘spirit’ and ‘appropriation.’ In this way the authors claim to integrate Giddens with the decision making school of theoretical thinking to provide an analytical framework which provides insight, particularly into the group decision support systems (GDSS) which are the focus of their empirical work. Their summary of the propositions of AST is given in fig. 4

fig. 4 - the major constructs and propositions of AST Clearly the style of this theorizing is different from Orlikowski’s. Finite lists of concepts are used to give structure for micro level analysis of actions and speech in the research situation, rather than the broad brush approach of Orlikowski. Their ‘project’ is to develop a precise and fine-grained analysis tool which accommodates the social character of the types of IS that they study, which can then be seen in action in an analyzing mode. However, their approach comes in for sustained attack from Jones (1997), who points out that Giddens’ somewhat rarefied concept of structure (see discussion) is incompatible with the more traditional view adopted in AST, and that their traditional view is then elaborated ‘through underspecified concepts such as ‘spirit’ and ‘appropriation’ for which no substantive theoretical justification is offered, to produce a contingency type model of technology ‘impacts’ of a type which Giddens has specifically criticized.’ Walsham (1993) offers an interesting use of structuration as the ‘linkage’ between the context and process axes of Pettigrew’s (1985) content/context/process model of organizational change. The (unarticulated) premise is that Pettigrew’s context can be aligned with Giddens’ view of structure, and that process can similarly be taken as akin to human interaction (see fig ?) and that the concept of structuration therefore links the two theoretical ideas.

Analyzing

Analyzing involves applying theory in order to gain insight into an empirical situation. Barley (1986) described the introduction of computer tomography

scanners into American hospitals, exploring how the actions of the stakeholders and the institutionalized traditions within the organization influenced each other as ‘occasions for structuring.’ He uses the ‘curiously functionalist’ (Jones 1997) methodological device of scripts to uncover the links between action and structure. A fairly straightforward use of central tenets of structuration occurs in Karsten (1995), where Lotus Notes implementations in three organizations are analyzed. Brooks (1997) adds the Orlikowski and Robey (1991) structurational framework of systems development to the analytical armoury in reporting upon CAD systems. Jones and Nandhakumar (1993) go further in their analysis of the development of an Executive Information System by reflecting upon the theory - thus completing the circle. Walsham (1993) provides sustained longitudinal case study analysis covering issues of IS strategy, development, implementation and evaluation in three contrasting organizations. Whilst the book is a model for this kind of research, (with an explicit theory base, well-developed case study analysis and well-justified conclusions), structuration theory is only one of a number of theoretical ideas employed. An eclectic mix of ideas from phenomenology, hermeneutics, Soft Systems Methodology, critical theory and postmodernism form the backdrop for a ‘synthesized analytical framework’ drawn from the work of Morgan (1986), Pettigrew and Giddens. Walsham and Sahay (1996) use structuration theory with actor-network theory to investigate problems in developing Geographical Information Systems in an Indian government department. Though the focus is primarily analytical, they take care to specify the relationship between the two theoretical bases, with Giddens providing ‘meta-theory’ and actor-network theory providing ‘a more detailed methodological and analytical device.’

Operationalizing

Since IS is an applied discipline, it is reasonable to expect that researchers should attempt to distill their theoretical and analytical expertise into forms that a practitioner might adopt as guidance for practice (in the manner of Earl 1989, Checkland 1991, Mumford 1979). By and large this has happened very little with Giddens’ work, though Walsham (1993) offers a chapter on the future of IS which sums up the learning of the book and presents it as guidance for practitioners, researchers and educators. Poole and DeSanctis, together with the associated research programme into AST associated with Bostrom (Nagasandrum and Bostrom 1994) probably come closest to developments of theory which would be targeted at providing practitioner guidance. Their ‘proposition 7 - ‘Given AIT (Advanced Information Technology) and other sources of social structure ,n 1…. nk, and ideal appropriation processes, and

decision processes that fit the task in hand, then desired outcomes of AIT use will result’ (DeSanctis and Poole 1994) - seems to offer a causal framework capable of informing development and implementation practice. Unfortunately, as Jones (1997) points out in a vigorous manner, this form of causal and deterministic thinking comes from a more positivistic research tradition with which Giddens has little sympathy (Giddens 1984, Cohen 1987)

IMPLICATIONS FOR IS RESEARCH

What lessons, then, does this understanding of structuration theory, its limitations and its application in the field of IS offer the IS researcher. Clearly Giddens offers grand social theory, at an ontological, or meta level that encompasses a large proportion of the issues that concern social scientists. The theory is designed to be self-contained and all-inclusive. Given Giddens’ antipathy to the positivist tradition and his denial of the existence of causal laws in social behaviours we must assume that the theory emerges from a tradition of theorizing and will be subsumed by the tradition in time. It therefore appears that Giddens uses the word ‘ontological’ less in its sense of its assumptions about reality, and more in the sense of the level of abstraction, granularity, or specificity; contrasting his broad brush, high level theorizing with more finely grained, but local ‘empirical’ theories. Still, problems emerge with the relationship between his theory and reality - one of which we may characterize as the post-modern paradox. If modernism is a ‘grand narrative’ about the fabric of society, why is post-modernism not equally another grand narrative?. If social actors interpret and modify social theory in a ‘double hermeneutic,’ why is the double hermeneutic theory itself not subject to interpretation and modification? This ‘ontological’ character raises problems for the researcher - leading to charges that it is, in an appropriately technological metaphor, ‘virtual’ theory (Jones 1997), or ‘a process theory of such abstraction that it has generated few empirical studies’ (Barley and Tolbert, 1997). This charge, supported by the analysis above which reports little work ‘operationalizing’ the theory, is a potentially serious one in an applied discipline such as information systems. Giddens’ (only partially convincing) response (Giddens 1986, 1989) is that structuration theory, whilst carrying no particular methodological implications, ‘sensitizes’ the researcher to particular sets of concepts (such as the relationship between action and structure) which might otherwise have been ignored. He is not particularly complimentary about the ‘checklist’ style of analysis which characterizes most of the ‘analytical’ research discussed above. However the question remains; if the theory is not useful to inform practice, then of what value is it? Part of the answer to this question, of course, is that, in a field often dominated by technical considerations, any informed account of social practices helps to redress the balance. A further answer is that richer understandings of social action obtained by theorizing and analysis may pass into the store of ‘mutual knowledge’ that informs IS practice. However, it remains

reasonable to ask the question ‘what direct contribution to IS practice can this theory make?’ A problem for the management, organization, institution or information system researcher is that the domain of Giddens theory (‘meta’ or ‘grand’ social theory) has little to say about the ‘collectivities’ which are their focal unit. Sociology is macro (concerned with societies), or micro (concerned with the social relationships of individuals). Giddens has much to say about both, but little directly to say about organizations or groups of people. When he does mention them however, he tends to do so in a way which implies that they fall within the scope of his theory without special conditions - ‘Organizations...........are collectivities in which the reflexive regulation of the conditions of system reproduction looms large in the continuity of day to day practices.’ They depend on ‘the collation of information which can be controlled so as to influence the circumstances of social reproduction’ (Giddens 1984 pp 200). In response to this problem, Walsham (1997) has recently advocated ‘multi-level’ research covering influences at the level of society, organization, and individual. Giddens has equally little to say directly about technology - a further problem for the IS researcher. The ‘lack of specificity’ about the technical details of information systems (Monteiro and Hanseth 1996) means that the researcher may investigate the social actions around the technology, or offer broad brush theorizing in the style of Orlikowski, or start borrowing or inventing theoretical concepts in order to fill the vacuum in the manner of Poole and DeSanctis. However mixing and matching theories has to be done with some care. Whilst agreeing with Whittington (1992) that ‘there is no need for theological purity,’ juxtaposing theories which are uncomfortable bedfellows with inappropriate research methods is clearly not a recipe for coherence. Structuration theory is designed to be over-arching meta-theory of an ‘ontological’ nature, in a ‘modern’ liberal-rational tradition of social science thinking where knowledge is assumed to be constructed. The most successful ‘marrying’ of theories will respect those characteristics. Thus the use of structuration theory as the sensitizing context, with Actor-Network theory as the empirical tool for analysis of Walsham and Sahay (1996) sits much more easily than Walsham’s (1993) earlier attempt to straitjacket the theory into forming a missing link in another, less comprehensive theory, or the more positivistic overtones of Poole and DeSanctis’ research methodology. Given that there are some rather crucial omissions to Giddens’ theory for a researcher in the applied discipline of Information Systems, it is also fair to say that IS research, has, to date, concentrated on the dimensions of the duality of structure, and particularly the model illustrated in figure ?. It may speculatively be suggested that

this has been a focal point simply because of the tradition amongst management thinkers of summarizing theory in diagrammatic form - a tradition alien to social theorists who are prose writers. Many other important concepts elaborated by Giddens, such as class structuration, time-space distanciation and the stratification model, have scarcely found their way the IS literature at all. In addition, later work in which he expounds his view of ‘high modernity’ (Giddens 1990) has only recently been represented (Walsham 1997)

STRUCTURATION THEORY AND IS - FUTURE STRATEGIES

Translation

Translation represents one of the solutions to the problem of accessibility. Giddens’ prose is dense, and the concepts difficult to understand for those unfamiliar to the traditions of social theory. This theoretical language is far distant from the language of IS practitioners, whether they be managers or technical staff, even where the concepts represent familiar ideas, for instance in the realms of social action and consciousness. All translation involves loss of richness and faithfulness - however this is always a necessary price to pay in order to achieve accessibility. This translation, at the level of words, is difficult enough to achieve; further translation at the level of discipline may also be necessary, where the style of social theory (abstract, discursive, prose-based) is somehow represented in a style familiar and acceptable to the IS community.

Tools, techniques, frameworks, method, methodology

Tools, techniques, frameworks, method and methodology represent the familiar aids to IS practice. Though SSADM, the dataflow diagram, the Boston matrix may be ontologically incompatible with structuration theory, the looser and more interpretative methodological style of Checkland may be more appropriate (as well as representing a good example of ‘operationalizing’ systems theory). The process aspects of structuration have already been (crudely) diagrammed (Yates and Orlikowski 1992) - albeit in an analytical context. Perhaps these or other aspects of structuration theory may lend themselves to expression in this or some other more familiar and proactive way. A further suggestion, more flexible in character, involves invoking the Giddens’ concepts to establish contingencies (for successful IS development, for example), perhaps framed as ‘conditions of possibility’ (Knights and Murray 1994)

Combining theories

In attempting to provide greater help for the practitioner, other theories may help to compensate for the perceived deficiencies of structuration theory. The actor-network theory of Callon and Latour is currently the hottest candidate (Jones 1997, Monteiro and Hanseth 1996, Walsham and Sahay 1996). This theory may help to address the abstract nature of structuration theory (being more empirically focused) and the absence of specific reference to IT (since it theorizes the social construction of technology). In addition the study of how networks which include technology form and become stable may help address the problem of understanding how some social practices become institutionalized (successful) where others do not. However, difficulties in marrying theories have already been observed, and the relationships between theories need to be carefully articulated.

CONCLUSIONS

The root traditions of the IS discipline - management and computer science - have tended to lend it a technological focus and positivist research traditions. This paper takes the robust stance that any corrective to that tradition, offering a social focus and more interpretative methodology is welcome. Moreover Giddens’ theory is manifestly well constructed and well respected, and an obvious contender for the task. Researchers adopting the theory base to work with may well look beyond the dimensions of the duality of structure model for their theoretical concepts, whilst remembering some of the caveats drawn by Giddens’ fellow social theorists. A stronger conception of the constraining nature of structure which is not tied to a reified organization, and some gender perspectives (see Knights and Murray 1994 for a model) may be appropriate. The interpretative longitudinal case study is the favoured methodology, but Giddens rules no approach out of court. The application of structuration theory to date has been very largely in the theorizing and analyzing modes; the theory itself (the double hermeneutic) implies that this will eventually feed back into practice. However, there is a strong tradition amongst the applied disciplines of articulating theory as guidelines for practitioners - often enshrined in framework and methodology - this has yet to appear in the case of structuration theory. Crucial mis sing links may be the absence of the theorizing of technology or of normative models and ‘theoretical propositions about when and where reproduction rather than transformation will …….prevail’ (Archer 1996). These last, after all, are what allow us to recommend one course of action over another. It may simply be that the theory proves too abstract to be of use in an ‘operationalizing’ mode; however translation into the style of the IS discipline and employment of its modes of thought and expression may provide tools which are of more direct value to the practitioner. Failing this the careful marrying of concepts from structuration theory and actor-network theory remains another possibility to be investigated.

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Appendix A - Giddens’ summary of structuration theory

A Reiteration of Basic Concepts

(1) All human beings are knowledgeable agents. That is to say, all social actors know a great deal about the conditions and consequences of what they do in their day-to-day lives. Such knowledge is not wholly propositional in character, nor is it incidental to their activities. Knowledgeability embedded in practical consciousness exhibits an extraordinary complexity - a complexity that often remains comp letely unexplored in orthodox sociological approaches, especially those associated with objectivism. Actors are also ordinarily able discursively to describe what they do and their reasons for doing it. However, for the most part these faculties are geared to the flow of day-to-day conduct. The rationalization of conduct becomes the discursive offering of reasons only if individuals are asked by others why they acted as they did. Such questions are normally posed, of course, only if the activity concerned is in some way puzzling - if it appears either to flout convention or to depart from the habitual modes of conduct of a particular person.

(2) The knowledgeability of human actors is always bounded on the one hand by the unconscious and on the other by unacknowledged conditions/unintended consequences of action. Some of the most important tasks of social science are to be found in the investigation of these boundaries, the significance of unintended consequences for system reproduction and the ideological connotations which such boundaries have.

(3) The study of day-to-day life is integral to analysis of the reproduction of institutionalized practices. Day-to-day life is bound up with the repetitive character of reversible time - with paths traced through time-space and associated with the constraining and enabling features of the body. However, day-to-day life should not be treated as the 'foundation' upon which the more ramified connections of social life are built. Rather these more far-flung connections should be understood in terms of an interpretation of social and system integration .

(4) Routine, psychologically linked to the minimizing of unconscious sources of anxiety, is the predominant form of day-to-day social activity. Most daily practices are not directly motivated. Routinized practices are the prime expression of the duality of structure in respect of the continuity of social life. In the enactment of routines agents sustain a sense of ontological security.

(5) The study of context, or of the contextualities of interaction, is inherent in the investigation of social reproduction. 'Context' involves the following: (a) the time-space boundaries (usually having symbolic or physical markers) around interaction strips; (b) the co-presence of actors, making possible the visibility of a diversity of facial expressions, bodily gestures, linguistic and other media of communication; (c) awareness and use of these phenomena reflexively to influence or control the flow of interaction. (d) Social identities, and the position-practice relations associated with them, are 'markers' in the virtual time-space of structure. They are associated with normative rights, obligations and sanctions which within specific collectivities, form roles. The use of standardized markers, especially to do with the bodily attributes of age and gender, is fundamental in all societies, notwithstanding large cross-cultural variations which can be noted.

(6) Social identities, and the position-practice relations associated with them are ‘markers’ in the virtual time-space of structure. They are associated with the normative rights, obligations and sanctions which, within specific collectivities, form roles. The use of standardized markers, especially to do with the bodily attributes of age and gender, is fundamental in all societies, notwithstanding large cross-cultural variations which can be noted.

(7) No unitary meaning can be given to 'constraint' in social analysis. Constraints associated with the structural properties of social systems are only one type among several others characteristic of human social life.

(8) Among the structural properties of social systems, structural principles are particularly important, since they specify overall types of society. It is one of the main emphases of structuration theory that the degree of closure of societal totalities - and of social systems in general - is widely variable. There are degrees of 'systemness' in societal totalities, as in other less or more inclusive forms of social system. It is essential to avoid the assumption that what a 'society' is can

be easily defined, a notion which comes from an era dominated by nation-states with clear-cut boundaries that usually conform in a very close way to the administrative purview of centralized governments. Even in nation-states, of course, there are a variety of social forms which cross-cut societal boundaries.

(9) The study of power cannot be regarded as a second-order consideration in the social sciences. Power cannot be tacked on, as it were, after the more basic concepts of social science have been formulated. There is no more elemental concept than that of power. However, this does not mean that the concept of power is more essential than any others as is supposed in those versions of social science which have come under a Nietzschean influence. Power is one of several primary concepts of social science, all clustered around the relations of action and structure. Power is the means of getting things done and, as such, directly implied in human action. It is a mistake to treat power as inherently divisive, but there is no doubt that some of the most bitter conflicts in social life are accurately seen as 'power struggles'. Such struggles can be regarded as to do with efforts to subdivide resources which yield modalities of control in social systems. By 'control' I mean the capability that some actors, groups or types of actors have of influencing the circumstances of action of others. In power struggles the dialectic of control always operates) although what use agents in subordinate positions can make of the resources open to them differs very substantially between different social contexts.

(10) There is no mechanism of social organization or social reproduction identified by social analysts which lay actors cannot also get to know about and actively incorporate into what they do. In very many instances the 'findings' of sociologists are such only to those not in the contexts of activity of the actors studied. Since actors do what they for reasons, they are naturally likely to be disconcerted if told by sociological observers that what they do derives from factors that somehow act externally to them. Lay objections to such 'findings' may thus have a very sound basis. Reification is by no means purely characteristic of lay thought.’

Giddens (1984)