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Responsible Management of Information SystemsBernd Carsten Stahl De Montfort University, UK Idea Group PublishingHershey London Melbourne Singapore Acquisitions Editor: Mehdi Khosrow-Pour Senior Managing Editor: Jan Travers Managing Editor: Amanda Appicello Development Editor: Michele Rossi Copy Editor: Maria Boyer Typesetter: Sara Reed Cover Design: Lisa Tosheff Printed at: Yurchak Printing Inc. Published in the United States of America by Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of Idea Group Inc.) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: cust@idea-group.com Web site: http://www.idea-group.com and in the United Kingdom by Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of Idea Group Inc.) 3 Henrietta Street Covent Garden London WC2E 8LU Tel: 44 20 7240 0856 Fax: 44 20 7379 3313 Web site: http://www.eurospan.co.uk Copyright © 2004 by Idea Group Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mecha
Chapter 1: Information Systems and Business Information Technology This first content chapter of the book is meant to clarify the notions involved in the responsible management of information systems. The focus of this book is the concept of reflective responsibility, which will be developed in the subsequent chapters. However, the application of this theory will be the area of information systems. In order to develop what responsibility means in the context of information systems, we will therefore have to define the notion. This is not an easy task, as “information system” can mean many things. On the one hand there is the academic discipline, sometimes called information systems, computer information systems, management information systems, etc., and on the other hand there is the physical artefact. This artefact, be it a computer, a network, or some other type of ICT, becomes an information system by being used in social settings. Information systems have been defined as “an amalga
Chapter 1: Information Systems and Business Information Technology
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Information technology is a concept that has reached a level of ubiquity which makes it somewhat difficult to define clearly. We all associate many things with IT, from our TV set over the mobile phone that most of us carry by now, to faxes and computers, email, and the Internet. IT has the two roots of information and technology. Information is an entity that we all know something about, but it is hard to define. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary (1999, p. 963), information can have several meanings. Firstly, it stands for definite knowledge acquired or supplied about something or somebody. Secondly, it represents the process of gathering and collecting facts and data, and thirdly, it means that the facts and knowledge are made known and published. Finally, in terms of computers, information is contrasted with data, a difference one can often find in literature about IS. Data is usually understood as the brute facts, the way life is, whereas info
BUSINESS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY We have now discussed some of the central underlying concepts of information systems. Information systems tend to be based on technology, more specifically on information technology. One could argue that information systems do not necessarily require such a technological basis, but the academic discipline as well as business practice tend to refer to technical systems when they use the term. Information systems find their meaning in organisations, usually businesses; they are based on IT; and they develop their complexity because they are socio-technical systems. Why is it that information systems are of such central importance in business? One possible answer is that businesses are eminently dependent on information. Markets can be interpreted as the (theoretical) places where supply and demand meet. They are therefore subject to functioning exchange of information. Every step of the value chain of a business is dependent on information. On the other ha
Chapter 2: Ethics and Morality OVERVIEW Academic texts have to conform to certain standards, and one of these is to define the concepts they use. Texts dealing with ethics or morality therefore have to define what these concepts mean. In the case of English text about computer ethics, the definitions are usually done by contrasting the teleological and the deontological tradition. Another possibility is to talk about absolutist versus relativist ethical theories. Frequently, the terms ethics and morality are treated as equal. Arguably, texts on computer ethics are not meant to be expertises in ethics and many readers of these texts tend to be practically oriented. It is often argued that an introduction into the depth of ethical theory will do more to confuse these readers than help them. However, such arguments can be used to blend out problematic aspects of ethics and pretend that there are clear solutions to these problems when these are in fact contentious. This book chooses anothe
Chapter 2: Ethics and Morality
THE GERMAN TRADITION Most of the features that define the German tradition are a heritage of Kant’s moral philosophy. The relevant aspects are: (a) the deontological foundation of ethics, (b) the distinction between theory and practice in ethics and morality, and (c) the trust in reason as the basis of ethics. The German tradition is, in other words, the continuation of the project of enlightenment. Both of the philosophers of the German tradition who will be analysed here, Kant and Habermas, believe that the moral quality of an action can be verified. For Kant the instance of this verification is reason itself. Habermas develops the idea further and arrives at a kind of cumulative reason in the form of discourse. Neither of the two sees the task of moral philosophy in the judging of everyday actions but in the provision of a theoretical model, which allows the specification of rules and procedures to judge the moral quality of events or actions. Morality concerns the everyday actions
THE FRENCH TRADITION While the German tradition sees the relationship between ethics and morality as a correlation between theory and practice, the French tradition favours a completely different view of the two concepts. From the German tradition’s point of view, ethics is based on reason. Such a final foundation does not seem possible to the French tradition. The deontological aspect, even though it still exists, loses its central position in ethics. Finally, a distinction between ethics and morality is still possible, but it does not run along the lines of the distinction between theory and practice. The entire architecture of moral philosophy is different in this school of thought. The French tradition has its roots in French moralism. The authors, who can be understood as representatives of this tradition, can therefore be seen as members of the moralistic school. Contrary to what the word might suggest, moralism in this sense does not stand for rigorous enforcement of moral norms
PROBLEMS OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ETHICS AND MORALITY We now know two ways of distinguishing between ethics and morality. Both find their justification in addressing a specific problem of moral philosophy. It is plain to see that morality and ethics in the German tradition are two fundamentally different concepts. In this tradition it is easy to admit the factual multiplicity and contingency of moralities. In the German tradition the contingency of norms does not pose a threat to ethics understood as the reflection or science of morality. In this way the German approach may help defuse discussions about morality. There are, however, problems linked to this distinction that are not easily solved. One is the question whether the two levels of moral philosophy implied here are in fact sufficient. Since there are many different ethical theories, one can suppose that there should be at least one more level, maybe a sort of meta-moral philosophy or meta-ethics. Another problem is the found
Chapter 3: Why Responsibility and Information Systems? In this chapter we want to show why it makes sense to use the concept of responsibility with respect to the business use of information technology. There are three parts to the argument. At first, we will demonstrate that the development of the moral idea of responsibility is closely linked to modern developments in our societies. Many of these developments have to do with technology and information technology being the latest step in this direction. We will then continue to show that there are several structural similarities between responsibility and business on the one hand and information technology on the other hand. In a last step we will show that this theoretical setting is fruitful because it can rely on a rich background of ethical theories from different fields and perspectives. Before we can do so, however, the next step will have to be a first analysis of the term “responsibility.” A TENTATIVE DEFINITION OF RESPONSIBIL
Chapter 3: Why Responsibility and Information Systems?
THE RISE OF RESPONSIBILITY The concept of responsibility is relatively young when compared to other philosophical terms. This recent rise to importance if not ubiquity of the term is more than just a fashion, and it is caused by the combination of social developments and the failure of traditional moralities to address these developments. Ethics and morality have of course never been perfect in dealing with whatever was perceived as moral problems. The rapid and deep changes in Western societies during the last 200 years, however, have been an insurmountable challenge for many traditional ways of coping with modifications of the social fabric. The call for responsibility is linked to the perception that moral norms are deficient in controlling human action (Kaufmann, 1990, p. 72; 1995, p. 88). It is helpful to see what the changes were that led to the growing importance of responsibility to appreciate why the concept is applicable to IS. One of the roots of social changes, maybe the mo
SOCIETY, RISK, AND RESPONSIBILITY In this section we will discuss some of the buzzwords of contemporary social sciences such as risk, uncertainty, complexity, globalisation, and information society. All of them are facets of social change that made our societies what they are today. They are also the reasons for the failure of traditional morality and the ascent of responsibility. Technology, as we have seen, has several meanings. It is linked to science, it has close relations to economic activity, and it also constitutes a fundamental culture that can be called a technical civilisation (Höffe, 1995, p. 119). This sort of civilisation in which most citizens of Western societies live has several properties that are relevant to our topic. Technology and Risk Our lives today seem to be riskier than ever before. We risk them when we use a car, a bicycle, a plane. There are numerous risks to our health, our well-being, and the way we organise our lives. Some of these risks are known, such
RESPONSIBILITY AS THE ANSWER TO OUR PROBLEMS Responsibility has become a key word of modernity. Whatever the deeper reason, the success of the term responsibility results from the fact that the normative challenges to human action under the conditions of modernity are growing. New developments need to be reflected constantly, with regard to their normative implications and responsibility is seen as a moral construct that can meet the challenge. This is why Hastedt (1994, p. 176) can state that modern societies need to rely on a general assumption of responsibility. The ascription of responsibility is the functional equivalent of legal or moral norms in such situations in which general norms are no longer applicable because of the complexity of the situation (Kaufmann, 1990, p. 71). The reason for the success of responsibility is thus the increasing awareness of the complexity of reality. This complexity leads to difficulties in applying traditional norms and thereby to a decrease of th
THE SIMILARITY OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND RESPONSIBILITY Another reason for the popularity of responsibility, especially in business contexts, is that the root of the term can be found in its legal use. Legal responsibility is a clear concept in business that is commonly recognised to firstly set and enforce the rules and secondly solve conflicts. Most business students must attend some lectures about commercial law. Knowing and being able to apply the concept of legal responsibility makes it easy for economic subjects to transfer their knowledge to the idea of moral responsibility. Another point is that responsibility as a moral notion has a more positive ring to it than most other words from the realm of ethics and morality. While businesspeople may object to the idea that they should act morally or consider ethical questions, they will generally agree to the suggestion that they are responsible. This is due on the one hand to the acceptance of legal responsibility and on the other h
Chapter 4: The Theory of Responsibility and Information Systems In the broadest possible sense, responsibility is “but a set of practices that we use to describe and understand individual and social behaviour” (French, 1992, p. IX). In order to understand how we can use the term as a description and what results from the description, one must be aware of possible definitions, implications, dimensions, conditions, etc. In this chapter we will therefore attempt to describe all these different features of the word. In a first step we will look at the overall definitions that can be found in the literature and the implied objectives of its use. This part will also contain a first reflection on how responsibility relates to ethics and morality. The next part of this chapter will analyse the conditions that are commonly named for the ascription of responsibility. This will then allow us to discuss the classical dimensions, namely subject, object, and instance. From there we will proceed to t
Chapter 4: The Theory of Responsibility and Information Systems
PROBLEMS OF RESPONSIBILITY AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS We now have all of the theoretical background to understand what responsibility can mean in the field of information systems and at the same time recognise the problems that this poses. In order to understand what the different problems of responsibility and IS are, we should look at some brief scenarios that revolve about different applications of responsibility and IS: The CIO (Chief Information Officer) is responsible for the development and functioning of the company’s information systems. Programmer Smith assumes (is ascribed) responsibility for not eliminating the bug that resulted in the loss of vital data. Electronic commerce is responsible for a huge potential in savings due to the decrease in transaction costs. Computers and computerised trading are responsible for the globalisation of financial transactions. The central computer of the air defence system was responsible for the decision to fire the rocket and shoot down the
Chapter 5: Reflective Responsibility What is “reflective responsibility”? The idea behind it is to see whether the concept as discussed so far is applicable to itself and what consequences result from the self-application. It is an attempt to clarify the notion by referring to the term itself without using any other theories. The self-application of concepts is an old tool used by philosophers for centuries, sometimes with great success. The probably best-known example which demonstrates that reflexivity can be highly successful and plausible is the refutation of scepticism. Scepticism, understood as the doctrine that there is no truth, has been part of the philosophical discourse ever since humans started discussing truth. Given the difficulties of defining truth and the obvious fallibility of our knowledge, it is an attractive position that allows the speaker to avoid many pitfalls. However, scepticism has one big problem, which becomes obvious as soon as one applies the idea onto it
Chapter 5: Reflective Responsibility
REFLECTIVE APPLICATION OF THE SHARED FEATURES OF RESPONSIBILITY What exactly does it mean to apply responsibility reflectively? It can certainly mean many things, not all of which can be analysed here. For our purposes it should be enough to emphasise the three main characteristics of responsibility and check whether the use of the notion does in fact lead to openness, proximity to action, and the consideration of consequences. The leading question for this self-application may be: Can we approve of the use of the term responsibility and its results from the point of view of a theory of responsibility? [14] Another similar question might be: Is it an act of responsibility to speak of responsibility and what does the speaker have to do to make sure it is? These questions are probably easier to answer with regard to given applications. To give a specific answer, one would need to choose a certain realisation of responsibility and then check whether or not this application adheres to the
CONSEQUENCES OF REFLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY The reflective use of responsibility will lead to consequences in the way the term is understood and used. This is firstly one of the reflective properties of the term itself—a reflective use of a consequentialist term should produce consequences—and it is secondly a necessary result of the change of the use of the term. If the reflective concept did not lead to other consequences than the original one, then the question would have to be: Why bother? As it turns out, however, there are many aspects of a theoretical as well as a practical nature that are affected. Theoretical Consequences Taking the reflective turn of responsibility seriously leads to a number of consequences for the process of ascription and its consequences. First of all, however, the term itself is affected. Making sure that responsibility is an open process, which leads to action, and that it has palpable consequences requires some changes in the theoretical groundwork. The
Chapter 6: Reflective Responsibility and the Management of Information Systems OVERVIEW Before we start analysing the details of how reflective responsibility impacts on the use of information technology, we should briefly recapitulate what the purpose of the entire enterprise was and where we stand right now. Responsibility has been identified as a central term that is used in the public discussions about normative problems. It has been demonstrated that the core of responsibility is a social process of ascription. An overview of the literature on responsibility, however, has shown that the term is highly complex, consists of a large number of conditions, dimensions, and aspects, which in many cases are contradictory. In order to render the term useful, we have tried to identify common features that can be found in most if not all responsibility ascriptions and that help give meaning to its use. The three shared characteristics that were found are openness, affinity to action, and con
Chapter 6: Reflective Responsibility and the Management of Information Systems
AN EXAMPLE: THE PROBLEM OF PRIVACY AND EMPLOYEE SURVEILLANCE In order to give a convincing account of the reflective responsibility approach to privacy, it is first of all necessary to describe the problems and why it is considered a matter for consideration in a normative context. Privacy is similar to other concepts discussed so far in that it seems quite clear when one thinks about it on a superficial level, but it becomes much more hazy when one tries to define it and understand why it seems worthy of protection (cf. Weckert & Adeney, 1997, p. 76). Historically, privacy is a matter of public interest that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks (cf. Rotenberg, 1998, p. 152). Even though the concept has been part of public discourse ever since and played a role in the U.S., for example, since the founding of the state, its modern formulation only arose toward the end of the 19th century (cf. Sipior & Ward, 1995, p. 50). The first legal definition was given in a seminal article by W
DIMENSIONS OF REFLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY AND IT As we have seen already, the first and arguably most important step in any responsibility ascription is the identification of the dimensions. One needs to answer the question: Who is responsible for what, and before whom? More specificallythequestionnowis:Doesthereflectiveturnofresponsibilitychange anything about the dimensions with regard to their function in IS? Subject In order to live up to the theory of reflective responsibility, the subject must be chosen in such a way that the ascription is viable and open to scrutiny. The process of imputation must show results and aim at the improvement of the circumstances of the involved parties. That means that some of the traditional problems of the subject of responsibility as discussed earlier appear less severe. The traditional subject, the individual human being, is certainly still the central player in reflective responsibility. In our example, that means that the manager deciding about s
REALISATION OF RESPONSIBILITY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS Having seen that reflective responsibility allows the identification of the three basic dimensions of responsibility, the next sections will deal with the specifics of the relationship between reflective responsibility and the business use of information technology. We will now take a look at the realisation of responsibility in IS. For analytical purposes it makes sense to distinguish between different viewpoints here. We will therefore differentiate between reflective responsibility because of IS, for IS, and through IS. The idea behind this distinction is to demonstrate the difference between prospective and retrospective responsibility, and to show how the use of IT can affect the basis of responsibility ascription by influencing communication. Reflective Responsibility Because of Information Systems Of the different possible relationships between responsibility and IS, the one that comes to mind first is responsibility because o
THE ADVANTAGES OF REFLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS The business use of information technology produces ethical and moral problems. For these problems responsibility can and will be ascribed. There is no possibility to opt out. Whether the responsibility is of legal, moral, role, or other nature, whether its goal is punishment or reward, whether it aims at retribution or education, responsibility is inevitable. In the light of this, decision makers will ask themselves how they can deal with the responsibilities that are heading in their direction. The traditional approach of defining responsibilities from an ex ante and solipsist viewpoint and hoping that these will be enough has a low probability of success. It will also overburden managers who are necessarily incapable of finding out all of the responsibilities that they will be subjected to. The alternative is to actively search for the participation of the stakeholders in a discursive manner. We have reiterated the a
A CHECKLIST FOR MANAGERIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS In this chapter we have discussed three important aspects of responsibility and IS: responsibility because of, for, and through IS. The underlying idea was that management wants to act responsibly and asks how this can be done. It turned out that both of the temporal directions, prospective as well as retrospective, must be considered. Furthermore, the role of technology in the ascription is also of importance. Given the communicative nature of responsibility, however, it proved to be impossible to deduce easy-to-follow rules that managers must simply adhere to. Responsibility ascriptions are complex social interactions that require many tacit skills such as prudence and judgment. They are not transformable into simple deontologies or codes of conduct. Managers who usually do not have a lot of training in moral philosophy may be disappointed by this, but philosophical ethics, as we have seen earlier, does not usually give
Chapter 7: Conclusion OVERVIEW The use of computers and information technology in businesses and the economy can lead to normative problems. These moral, ethical, legal, or other problems can be expressed in terms of responsibility. The idea of this book was to analyse what responsibility in relation to business information technology can mean. It was shown that responsibility is a normative term that can be placed between the ideas of ethics and morality. It combines the theoretical and the practical approach that we find in the German tradition, and it can mediate between deontology and teleology in the French tradition. A closer analysis of the literature concerning responsibility showed that there are several aspects that combine the different theories of responsibility. Among them we identified openness, an affinity to action, and teleology. In the light of these three general meanings of responsibility, the term was applied to itself in order to see whether the notion of responsi
Chapter 7: Conclusion
References Albrecht, S. (1996). Moral und Moralphilosophie—Vom Unterschied und seinen Folgen. Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften, 7(2/3), Opladen. Ambrose, P.J. & Johnson, G.J. (1998). A trust-based model of buying behaviour in electronic retailing. Proceedings of the 1998 Americas Conference of the AIS (August, 14-16, pp. 263-268), Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Anderson, R.E., Johnson, D.G., Gotterbarn, D., & Perrolle, J. (1993). Using the new ACM code of ethics in decision making. Communications of the ACM, 36(2), 98-106. Apel, K.-O. (1988). Diskurs und Verantwortung: Das Problem des Übergangs zur postkonventionellen Moral (3rd edition, 1997). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Apel, K.-O. (1980). The a priori of the communication community and the foundations of ethics: The problem of a rational foundation of ethics in the scientific age. In K.-O. Apel (Ed.), Towards a Transformation of Philosophy (pp. 225-300). London et al.: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Aristoteles. (1967). Die nikomachische ethik. Zürich/M
Endnotes The distinction of morality (moral) and ethics (ethik) as practice and theory of moral dealings is a defining feature of German moral philosophy. However, there is a problem with the consistency of the use of these two notions. The distinction, as we just introduced it, can be found in many works of modern thinkers of practical philosophy. Unfortunately the use of the terms is ambiguous, and neither Kant nor Habermas use them exactly in the way just explained. In the case of Habermas, the terms even have an inverse meaning, with moral (morality) standing for the universal ethical considerations. The different concepts behind the notions are nevertheless visible, and we will stick to the distinctions because it is widely spread in German philosophy today. It also facilitates the discussion of the value of the notion of responsibility later on. Kant’s philosophy is, of course, more complex than it appears here. The maxim is not easy to assign either to morality or to ethics, sin
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