A First Principle for Renewing the Sociotechnical Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to renew the sociotechnical perspective as an “axis of cohesion”for the IS field. The renewal departs from the first principle “the individual is the social being”,which means that the individual is seen as a constituent in sociotechnical theorizing; alongside with the social and technical. This principle provides a basis for rethinking these elements as dialectically related and mutually constituting each other. The individual element is conceptualized in terms of neurobiological predispositions for action grounded in Kant’s notion of a-priori categories. The social element is seen as activity systems grounded in Marx’s notion of Praxis. The technical element is theorized as materiality apperceived by individuals as relevant in the activity system. Its philosophical grounding is Ilyenkov’s notion of the Ideal,which concerns the problem of the allegedly non-material in the natural world. When such are thinking is applied to the IS field, a foremost finding is that the IS comes forth as a social phenomenon in the minds of individuals as they struggle to make the IT artifact relevant in the activity system. Consequently, the defining question of the IS discipline may be reformulated as “researching how IT artifacts are efficiently metamorphosed into information systems in IT reliant activity systems”. How these findings may turn out in practice is illustrated by the development of a node in the 3rd generation of mobile systems in the telecom industry. In conclusion, the renewed sociotechnical perspective provides a fresh view of extant IS phenomena, thus advancing the IS field both theoretically and practically.