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Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKISJInformation Systems Journal1350-1917© 2006 The Authors; Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd200717143163Original ArticleDesign

of IT for knowledge manage-

mentT Butler & C Murphy

Info Systems J (2007) 17, 143–163

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Understanding the design of information technologies for knowledge management in organizations: a pragmatic perspective Tom Butler* & Ciaran Murphy† Business Information Systems, O’Rahilly Building, University College Cork, Ireland, *email: [email protected], and †email: [email protected]

Abstract. Researchers report mixed findings on the successful application of information technologies (IT) for knowledge management (KM). The primary difficulty is argued to be the use of information management techniques and concepts to design and develop KM Tools. Also problematic is the existence of a multiplicity of KM technologies, the application and use of which differs across organizations. This paper argues that these problems stem, in part, from the information system field’s over-reliance on design concepts from the functionalist paradigm. Hence, our contention that alternative perspectives, which bring into focus issues of ontology and epistemology, need to be brought to bear in order to understand the challenges involved in the design and deployment of IT artefacts in knowledge management systems (KMS). The philosophy of technology, with its emphasis on the primacy of praxis, and which incorporates ontological and epistemological concepts from phenomenology and hermeneutics, is applied to the findings of a participative action research study to illustrate how social actors interpret and understand worldly phenomena and subsequently share their knowledge of the life-world using IT. The outcome of this marriage of situated practical theory and philosophy is a set of design principles to guide the development of a core KM Tool for KMS. Keywords: philosophy of technology, phenomenology, hermeneutics, knowledge management systems, IT artefact, IS design

INTRODUCTION

Researchers have identified a range of different information technology (IT) artefacts that are argued to support the creation, storage, retrieval, transfer and application of knowledge in organizations viz. data mining and learning tools, knowledge repositories, databases, electronic bulletin boards, discussion forums, intranets, email, calendaring tools, collaboration tools (including text-based and audio chat tools, telecommunication and video-conferencing tech-

© 2007 The Authors Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell publishing Ltd

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nologies), knowledge directories (‘yellow pages’ of subject matter experts), decisions support tools, expert systems, workflow systems, social network analysis tools and knowledge codification tools (Davenport & Prusak, 1998; Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Chua, 2004). However, Sambamnurthy & Subramani (2005, p. 2) point out that the ‘focus of the deployment of knowledge management systems has been on developing searchable document repositories to support the digital capture, storage, retrieval, and distribution of an organisation’s explicitly documented knowledge.’ The Chief of the Knowledge Sharing Branch (KSB) of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Brendan O’Brien, argues that while the knowledge management (KM) technologies listed above are important components of knowledge management systems (KMS), they do not help knowledge workers to systematically capture and share their experiential knowledge – explicit and tacit – of key organizational processes and practices. He arrived at this conclusion after a comprehensive and lengthy survey of the KM Tool marketplace, which saw him and his team at the UNFPA evaluate a variety of IT-based KM solutions from major vendors in order to select one to support the organization’s Knowledge Sharing Strategy: he stated that ‘we were disappointed to find that none of the commercially available [KM Tools] met our needs . . . so we decided to build one that did.’ Practitioners in the KSB were dissatisfied with extant KM Tools because searchable document repositories did little to help share the practical knowledge of knowledge workers; they also argued that the KM Tools listed above were merely enabling or supplemental technologies for knowledge sharing, not core KM technologies. Being highly intimate with the World Bank’s unsuccessful experience with deploying KM technologies, the UNFPA’s KSB argued that, perhaps, one of the major ‘unresolved issues’ and ‘challenges’, commented on by Sambamnurthy & Subramani (2005), in KM is the design of a core IT artefact for KMS. This paper reflects on the experiences and outcomes of a participative action research study that resulted in the development of the UNFPA’s Open Source Software Knowledge Management Tool called the Portable Knowledge Asset Development System (pKADS). Its point of departure is the observation by McDermott (1999, p. 104) that ‘[t]he great trap in knowledge management is using information management tools and concepts to design knowledge management systems.’ This study therefore adopted an alternative approach that was informed by the situated practical theory and experience of UNFPA staff coupled with theoretical insights of researchers, two of whom were former practitioners (Baskerville, 1999). Drawing on the philosophy of technology, this paper explores how the pKADS KM Tool was designed: (a) to enhance and/or transform the perceptual-bodily experiences (embodiment relations) of organizational actors participating in knowledge sharing at the UNFPA; and (b) to help social actors better interpret or read the KM Tool – that is to enhance their hermeneutic relations with the technology (Ihde, 1979, 1993). In so doing it helps achieve the researchers’ primary objective of furthering research and practice on the effective design of KM Tools by offering a set of design principles to guide the development of core IT artefacts for KMS. Hence, this study seeks to transcend the limitations of the dominant conservative/functionalist perspective on the design of information system (IS), by offering an additional ontological perspective that is sensitive to social actors’ embodiment and hermeneutic relations with KM technologies.

© 2007 The Authors Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell publishing Ltd, Information Systems Journal 17, 143–163

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A PARTICIPATIVE ACTION RESEARCH STUDY ON KM TOOLS

In action research projects, researchers collaborate with practitioners to solve practical problems while expanding scientific knowledge (Jönsson, 1991; Baskerville & Myers, 2004). Citing Blum (1955), Baskerville & Myers (2004, p. 330) argue that action research is a two-stage process: ‘First, the diagnostic stage involves a collaborative analysis of the social situation by the researcher and the subjects of the research. Theories are formulated concerning the nature of the research domain. Second, the therapeutic stage involves collaborative change. In this stage, changes are introduced and the effects studied.’ However, Baskerville (1999, p. 9) points out that action research is a ‘class of research approaches, rather than a single monolithic research method’ (see also Avison et al., 1999) – this observation is supported by the range of action research approaches taken by researchers in the recent special issue in MIS Quarterly (see Baskerville & Myers, 2004). In participatory action research the responsibility for theorizing lies with both practitioners and researchers, rather than with the latter, as in traditional approaches. Here practitioners have the status of ‘coresearchers’ as they ‘bring situated, practical theory into the action research process’ (Baskerville, 1999, p. 17). This was very much the case in the present participative action research study, where the ‘practical theory’ of practitioners from the UNFPA’s KSB was married with that of the University’s R&D team to achieve the study’s objectives. The design and development of the pKADS desktop-based KM Tool began in September 2003 and Version 1.0 of the software was launched in December 2003 at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, Switzerland. Several thousand copies of the software, including the source code, were distributed free on CD-ROM, during and after the conference, while in excess of 2000 copies were downloaded from the pKADS web site up to November 2005. The participants in the R&D project included four academic researchers (including two former IT professionals) from University College Cork, two software developers (contracted in by the lead researcher), four members of the UNFPA and a third-party IT consultant retained by the UNFPA. The researchers began the initial study on the system requirements on 9 September and the major research and development phase continued to 12 December 2003. The second phase of the research lasted until April 2004, with the launch of the version 1.1 of the software: another outcome of this phase was the release of French and Spanish versions of the application. In April 2004, researchers collaborated with developers from the National Information Technology Centre in Amman, Jordan, on the development of an Arabic version of pKADS. The software application is available in Windows, Linux and Apple Mac versions, and is downloadable for free with accompanying documentation from the pKADS Open Source Software site. Thus, the product of this action research project is publicly available for evaluation and use.1 Several R&D project meetings involving the KSB and University teams occurred between September 2003 and April 2004. These took place onsite at the University or were conducted

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via video conference to the UNFPA’s headquarters in New York. The University’s R&D team also held fortnightly meetings throughout the development phase of September through to November and met informally on a daily basis. Four of the researchers attended the WSIS conference with two of the UNFPA team to demonstrate the KMS and obtain feedback from IT professionals and practitioners alike. Field notes of observations and informal conversations (telephone and interpersonal), minutes of the various meetings, memos, email threads, documentation and other project artefacts formed the research database which was analysed using interpretive data analysis techniques (see Butler, 1998; Klein & Myers, 1999).

PRACTICAL THEORY AS A HORIZON OF UNDERSTANDING IN THE DESIGN OF KM TOOLS

The UNFPA began operations in 1969 as the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (the old acronym is retained under the new title). The organization was founded to support developing countries through the promotion of reproductive health and the equality of women. UNFPA also works with governments to formulate population policies and strategies to achieve sustainable development. Based in New York, the non-governmental organization (NGO) works with governments and other NGOs in 142 countries and territories in four regions. The organization employs over 1600 knowledge workers and related specialists and operates from 100 centres worldwide. The UNFPA found knowledge transfer and organizational learning to be particularly problematic in its sphere of operations. In order to meet the challenges of delivering global services more effectively, it realized that it had to capture, distil, validate, store, apply and reuse the know-how of its people for learning and innovation.

Knowledge sharing at UNFPA The UNFPA KSB was established in 2000 with the task of helping the organization become ‘a community that dynamically generates and uses knowledge to affectively accomplish its mission.’ Brendan O’Brien, Chief of the KSB, was responsible for guiding the organization’s change management process and also supervising the integration of knowledge sharing into organizational processes. In keeping with organizations who implemented successful KM initiatives (e.g. IBM Corp., ABM AMRO, BP Amoco, etc., see Hackett, 2000), the UNFPA investigated the major obstacles and challenges to knowledge sharing and began by instituting a pilot project. UNFPA’s pilot project saw its personnel experiment in knowledge capture and transfer activities that allowed inexperienced workers to gather quickly the requisite knowledge and competencies that are needed to complete their work in three different areas of service delivery viz. Quality of Care, Adolescent Development and Vesico-Vaginal Fistulae. The knowledge workers responsible for the processes of executing policy in these areas were formed into strategically planned formal groupings called knowledge networks (KN); these are structured teams of individuals who share a common functional interest in domains of knowledge that are of strategic importance to the organization. The UNFPA also made provision for a second



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grouping that was informal in its constitution and involved members of cross-functional communities-of-practice within the UNFPA and related agencies. This distinction between formal KN and informal communities-of-practice, was, the KSB felt, important in their schema in order to capture organizationally implicit/tacit knowledge of wider social groupings in addition to the explicit and tacit knowledge of formal organizational networks. In building a Knowledge Sharing Technical Environment (KSTE), the Chief of Knowledge Sharing at UNFPA wished to avoid the very expensive IT-related system failures encountered by both the UN and World Bank (see, for example, World Bank, 2003). As indicated, in face of the dearth of suitable vendor offerings to support knowledge sharing, he set about developing the initial elements of UNFPA’s KSTE. The outcome of this endeavour was a KM Tool called the Knowledge Asset Development System (KADS), which was implemented on a pilot basis in the areas mentioned.

Knowledge asset structure and process as situated practical theory Although the knowledge asset (KA) concept is widely used in business and academia, the UNFPA’s conceptualization has particular strengths. Knowledge at UNFPA is conceptualized as ‘how to do things’, ‘where to find examples’ and ‘who to ask for help’. UNFPA KAs are viewed as containing the distilled experiential knowledge of organizational actors on a wellbounded subject area or topic of interest. According to Brendan O’Brien, KAs are ‘. . . the living repositories of our collective know-how . . . [They] represent the very best and most current knowledge in areas that are critical to UNFPA.’ Hence, in the UNFPA KAs are typically based on the key work processes of the organization. They are designed in such a way as to provide an intuitive, empirically grounded, logical structure to systematically capture, store and share knowledge. KAs are grouped into knowledge domains called Super Assets; a knowledge domain simply describes the context for a collection of related KAs. KAs that are grouped by domain or Super Asset describe the various areas of interest, activities, etc., which together constitute a recognizable body of knowledge. The key conceptual vehicle in the UNFPA’s schema for representing the structure of the KA is the Knowledge Map. Its purpose is to enable users to navigate and graphically explore a KA. Figure 1 represents the Web view of a KA (the sample Quality of Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Knowledge Asset2): this is the standard screen for ‘reading’ and interpreting a KA. Interestingly, the UNFPA KSB team members wanted to employ HTML frames to display KAs, as opposed to the by then standard HTML supported by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommended by the University researchers. In the top left-hand frame of Figure 1 is the Knowledge Map. At the centre of the circle is the name of the KA, while the circumference is ringed by the named Categories for that asset. The other three frames provide detailed descriptions of KA components, described below.

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The Quality of SRH Care KA was developed by a Knowledge Network whose members come from Kyrgysztan, Mauritania, Nepal, Peru and Tanzania.


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Figure 1. pKADS Web view: knowledge map and knowledge asset structure.

According to practitioners at the UNFPA, KAs are structured into Categories (knowledge topics) in order to make them accessible. A Category is a subtopic or component part of a KA. Categories are further divided into, and described by, a set of Questions and Answers. UNFPA practitioners posit that to be effective, a KA should have about eight Categories. Furthermore, while a Category should ideally have one or more question and answer pairs, practitioners argue that number of such pairings will depend on the complexity of the category. Hence, at a fundamental level, a KA presents information in a Question and Answer (Q&A) format. UNFPA practitioners argue that questions should be straightforward and should be designed to elicit essential information, while answers should be concise (typically 200 words) and to the point. Finally, they stress that Questions and Answers should be supplemented with informational resources external to the KA – Related Resources in the KA Taxonomy (see the bottom righthand frame of Figure 1); these include ‘examples’ of best practice and ‘further reading’ (these can be uploaded or linked documents, in a variety of file formats, and/or Web references, and so on). In addition to ‘examples’ and ‘further reading’, a KA also incorporates links to experts



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or individuals who can provide additional information or offer guidance. This, however, is no simple ‘yellow pages’ of subject-matter experts, at one level the conceptual architecture explicitly delineates the role of ‘experts’, while it also provides mechanisms for referencing ‘external’ experts. Hence, in the bottom left-hand frame appears a comprehensive list of KN members or subject-matter experts, with links to contact details. In the UNFPA each KA has a KA Coordinator that has overall responsibility for the asset content: this individual will, typically, be a subject-matter expert. Depending on the scope and complexity of the knowledge area being captured, he/she may nominate or invite other UNFPA practitioners to become KA Network Members, who will collectively contribute to a KA’s formation and content. From this network of practitioners, he/she will then select/invite individuals to become Network Members Responsible for identified knowledge Categories or topics. In turn, Question and Answer pairs may have several contributing authors called Primary and Other Contributors. Among their number may be subject-matter experts from related agencies or fields of endeavour. However, in certain scenarios involving uncomplicated KAs, author/subject-matter expert may adopt all the roles in a KN, while other staff constitute the target audience for the KA. Once published, a KA may then be viewed by all relevant social actors in the organization. Having described the ‘situated, practical theory’, extant theory from the philosophy of technology is now introduced to help achieve this paper’s research objective.

PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY AND THE DESIGN OF IT ARTEFACTS

The philosophy of technology helps us understand how IT can be designed to enhance and/ or transform social actors’ experiences of their organizational life-world and to improve the ways in which they interpret or relate to such technologies (Ihde, 1979). Don Ihde plays a pivotal role in advancing this philosophical perspective by drawing on phenomenology, pragmatism and hermeneutics. In Technics & Praxis, Ihde (1979) leverages phenomenology to focus on human-technology relations and to illustrate the ways in which humans experience technological artefacts. Ihde argues that social actors enter into embodiment relations and hermeneutic relations with technologies (Ihde, 1979, 1990): the former set of relations concern the enhancement and/or transformation of the perceptual-bodily experiences of social actors in their life-world, while the latter refer to the way in which people interpret or read technologies. Hence, there are phenomenological and hermeneutical dimensions to the manner in which people’s existence in, and experience of, the world are mediated by technology. This point was not lost on Winograd & Flores (1986), who used phenomenological and hermeneutical concepts and insights from Martin Heidegger and Hans Georg Gadamer to develop their perspective on the design of computer-based systems. Ihde (1990, p. 21), however, argues for the centrality of Heidegger’s ‘phenomenologically oriented hermeneutics [as the basis of a] contemporary philosophy of technology.’ He argues that a phenomenology of human-technology relations takes as its task the disclosure of the ‘various structural features of those ambiguous relations’ (Ihde, 1990, p. 72). Furthermore, Ihde argues that a ‘phenomenologically oriented


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hermeneutics’ is pragmatic in perspective in that places great emphasis on praxical knowledge (Ihde, 1990). Ihde (1999) reinforces these themes in his Expanding Hermeneutics. In a technological age, he argues, phenomenology needs to be redefined as an approach to analysing people’s relationships with the world. This, after all, is what Heidegger did in terms of Dasein’s3 Being-in-theworld. In Expanding Hermeneutics, Ihde reiterates his thesis that a phenomenologically informed philosophy of technology can help foster an understanding of the constitutive role of technologies in mediating, shaping and influencing human cognition, interpretation, understanding and action. His primary foci in this treatise, however, are the sciences, scientists and the instruments that they employ to investigate phenomena in the real world. He also argues that because phenomenology is hermeneutic in its character, then hermeneutics has to be extended from the interpretation of texts and text-analogues to encompass materiality, as human interpretations are mediated by technologies. What Ihde is arguing for here is a hermeneutics of the ‘thingly’ and the re-introduction of hermeneutic ontology to science. In order to explore such issues further, the following subsection traces the roots and application of the pragmatic philosophy of phenomenological hermeneutics.4

Hermeneutics, phenomenology and IS research Hermeneutics is defined as the theory or philosophy of the interpretation of meaning (Bauman, 1978). As a field of academic endeavour, hermeneutics was for many centuries a subdiscipline of philology. Ihde (1999) relates that late 19th and early 20th century philosophers, such as Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey, developed hermeneutics as a philosophy of interpretation. However, hermeneutics in the 20th century became ontological, chiefly because of the influence of Martin Heidegger, Hans Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, and, in so doing, it overturned the foundations of modernist epistemology (Ihde, 1999). By the end of the century, hermeneutics had become ‘a veritable crossroads where tendencies as diverse as phenomenology and linguistic analysis, semantics and the critique of ideologies, structuralism and conceptual analysis, Marxism and Freudianism come together’ (Madison, 1988, p. 25). It is no surprise then to find Coyne (1995) argue that contemporary hermeneutics is characterized by at least four distinct ontological perspectives: the conservative, the pragmatic, the critical and the radical. Whereas hermeneutics is concerned with interpretation of meaning, phenomenology is broadly concerned with the ontological constitution of the social world (Hekman, 1986); its purpose is, as Heidegger (1976, p. 58) put it, ‘to let that which shows itself be seen from itself in

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The primordial mode of human existence. It is now accepted practice in reference disciplines to refer to Gadamer’s work, as with Ricoeur’s, as phenomenological hermeneutics (see, for example, Madison, 2001). This paper adopts the same convention in referring to Heidegger’s ‘philosophy of humanness’; support for this approach comes from Introna & Ilharco (2004, p. 223) who argue that Heidegger’s ‘practice . . . turned phenomenology into a fundamental hermeneutic venture. 4



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the very way it shows itself from itself.’ He argues that it this can be reduced to a simple maxim: ‘To the things themselves!’ (Heidegger, 1976). Phenomenology is therefore the science of the ‘Being of entities’. However, phenomenology, like hermeneutics, ‘is currently used in a wide range of fields beside philosophy, such as anthropology, sociology, psychiatry, psychology, management and organisation studies . . . and so forth’ (Introna & Ilharco, 2004, p. 223). Phenomenology and hermeneutics have been widely applied in diverse forms across the IS discipline. However, it is outside the scope of this paper to incorporate references to the many IS studies that draw on the philosophies of Heidegger and Gadamer. As this study applies phenomenological hermeneutics as its theoretical lens to help understand the design of IS, a brief overview of the contrasting perspectives that inform IS design is undertaken – this places the present study in context, while also acknowledging previous work in the area.

Systems design paradigms: a short overview Operating from within the philosophy of technology, and focusing on the design of IT artefacts, Coyne (1995) illustrates the four epistemological and ontological perspectives that inform design theory and practice viz. conservative, pragmatic, critical and radical (cf. Hirschheim & Klein, 1989). Significantly, as with Hirschheim & Klein (1989), Coyne argues that the conservative (or functionalist in Hirschheim and Klein’s conceptualization) ontological and epistemological perspective underpins much of IT design theory. That said, we agree with Hirschheim & Klein (1989, p. 1212) that ‘information systems development approaches are influenced by assumptions of more than one paradigm.’ The UTOPIA Project (Ehn, 1988), for example, may be interpreted as being radical and critical in emphasis; however, Winograd (1995) illustrates that there is also a strong pragmatic Heideggerian theme to Ehn’s research. Similarly, a recent study by Lindgren et al. (2004) on the design principles for competence management systems exhibits a strong pragmatic theme that is modulated by a conservative or functionalist subtext. Two recent papers from IS researchers highlight the application of functionalist perspectives in promoting design science (Hevner et al., 2004) and design theory (Markus et al., 2002). Both studies draw on insights from an earlier paper by Wals et al. (1992) that focused on design theory for executive information systems (EIS). It is interesting that Hevner et al. (2004) identify just two paradigms as being influential in shaping design theory in the IS field: the design-science paradigm and the behaviour-science paradigm – both of which are strongly functionalist in orientation. The former has influenced design theory and practice in that it is a problem solving paradigm that defines the methods and techniques that underpin ‘the analysis, design, implementation, management and use of information systems’, while the latter focuses on principles and laws ‘that explain or predict organisational and human phenomena surrounding the analysis, design, implementation, management and use of information systems’ (Hevner et al., 2004, p. 76). Writing within the philosophy of technology, Terry Winograd surveys the influence of Heidegger’s phenomenology on the design of IT (Winograd, 1995). In so doing, he implicitly mirrors Coyne’s (1995) argument on the conservative, pragmatic, critical and radical themes in Heidegger’s work. His review finds four areas where researchers have focused their efforts:


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artificial intelligence (Dreyfus, 1979), usability engineering (Whiteside et al., 1989; see, also, Introna & Ilharco, 2004; for a Heideggerian perspective on computer screens and their design), system development methodologies (Ehn, 1988) and ontological design (Flores et al., 1988). The current study draws on the latter three areas in several ways; however, we agree with Winograd (1995) in singling out ontological design as being most influential area going forward, while fulfilling his call for methods that incorporate hermeneutic design principles. Winograd (1995) emphasizes the central role of theory in the design of IT-based systems. He also argues that phenomenology lies at the foundation of theory building in ontological design. However, it may be augmented by integrating other theories, as Winograd & Flores (1986) did with Speech Act Theory. The role of phenomenological theory is to help designers ‘unconceal the ontology of the work, rather than posing technical questions as to what the equipment can do . . . [and to move] beyond the design of equipment to the design of Being through our activities of bringing forth’ (Winograd, 1995, pp. 123–125). The methods of participation and discussion in the design process, however, underpin and help realize this. Accordingly, Boland (1978), in his groundbreaking phenomenological study on the role of dialogue, communication and interpretation in the design of IS, illustrates the socially constructed, interpretive nature of the design process. Boland (1978, p. 897) argues that a designer of IS who uses ‘alternative rationality protocols is not supported in taking an overall viewpoint. He assumes a stance and collects data that helps him view the [design] setting through the [users’] eyes. The focus is not on a system that contains [users], but on a [user] who is trying to function within a system.’ Hence, Boland illustrates the fundamental hermeneutic nature of the lived experience of designers and users. Ontological design, with its emphasis on theory, participation and discussion is therefore well suited to inform the conduct of action research, as this paper attempts to illustrate. This task begins with an interpretation of UNFPA practitioners’ approach to technology-mediated knowledge sharing using phenomenological hermeneutics to help illustrate the ontological conditions that shape and influence individual knowledge and understanding.

PRAXIS, THEORY AND THE DESIGN OF KM TOOLS

The purpose of the present endeavour is to understand how the pKADS KM Tool was designed to enhance and/or transform the perceptual-bodily experiences (embodiment relations) of the life-world of organizational actors participating in knowledge sharing at the UNFPA, and to comprehend how they interpret or read the technology (i.e. defined their hermeneutic relations).

Building knowledge assets using pKADS: the ontology of knowledge work From the outset of the participatory action research study, the University R&D and UNFPA team members participating in the design and development of pKADS recognized that the KM Tool would have to fade into the background, in terms of the end-users’ experience, if it was to



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successfully enable knowledge sharing to take place. Heidegger’s (1976) famous ‘hammer’ (as equipment) and ‘hammering’ (as action) analogy describes this situation perfectly: For example, to the user, a hammer, as a technological artefact, has a particular set of uses within welldefined contexts. The skilled craftsman will, for example, not give second thought to the use of the hammer in the act of hammering nails – his focus will be on joining two or more entities, whether it is the sole of a shoe to the upper, or two pieces of wood together. Both the hammer and the act of hammering will be, for the craftsman, ‘ready-to-hand’ (a Zuhanden); that is, its purpose is implicitly understood and it will not require interpretation or reflection as to its role and possible uses. Taking Ihde (1993, p. 40), and substituting KM Tool for hammer, we can say that: ‘One must know how to use a [KM Tool], but once having learned, the [KM Tool] in use withdraws as an object and becomes the means of the experience itself.’ Thus, special attention was paid to the conceptual and physical design of the KM Tool by the action research team. Unlike the KM Tools that the UNFPA had examined in their marketplace survey, the pKADS KM Tool was designed to help social actors express their ‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’5 in a simple, straightforward, and commonsense manner, with reference to the context in which their knowledge was developed and applied, so that it could easily be captured and shared with others. In order to achieve these design objectives, the UNFPA practitioners brought their ‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’ of knowledge sharing to bear on the design process; while the University R&D team brought their experiential and technical knowledge of IS design and development. The combination resulted, we argue, in an IT artefact that was easy-to-learn and use. The general principles underpinning the design of IT artefacts are well known and were applied by the University team in the development of the general features pKADS; however, principles for the design of KM technologies have not been formally articulated. This section provides an ontological account of users’ experiences with the pKADS tool in order to work towards articulating a set of principles that could be used to inform the development of a core KM Tool aimed at enhancing knowledge sharing in organizations. The following draws on concepts from phenomenological hermeneutics to help explore social actors’ embodiment and hermeneutic relations to the pKADS KM Tool and present an ontological description of knowledge work in the UNFPA.

Play, players and spectators A UNFPA practitioner in the Country Office (CO) in Guatemala has been invited to become the KA Coordinator on a new pKADS knowledge asset, which seeks to provide global assistance for UNFPA field officers to help governments set up contraceptive logistics systems (other Network Members have also been selected to participate in creating the asset using the pKADS

5 Aristotle (1945) argues that ‘techne’ is the kind of knowledge possessed by expert craftsmen and involves the understanding and application of the principles governing the production of social phenomena – both tangible and intangible. A social actor’s ‘self-knowledge’ (‘phronesis’) is a synthesis of his temporal experience of social phenomena with an ability to perform practical actions in relation to them (Dunne, 1993).


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KM Tool). As indicated, pKADS has two categories of end-users: KA Network Members (Players), who, as subject matter experts, wish to use the tool to share their knowledge, and other UNFPA staff (Spectators), who will use the tool to access and interpret this knowledge. In his analysis of ‘Play’, Gadamer (1975) makes a distinction between ‘players’ in a game and ‘spectators’ to the play, and the implications for interpretation, sense making and understanding of the game by ‘player’ and ‘spectator’ alike. According to Berger & Luckmann (1967), the division of labour in organizations gives rise to a specialization of knowledge and the concomitant organization of social actors to administer it. In Gadamerian terms, subject-matter experts are here conceptualized as ‘players’, while other social actors are ‘spectators’. It must be noted, however, that ‘spectators’ participate in the social construction of reality that is a ‘game’. Therefore, interpreting the UNFPA’s approach to knowledge sharing in light of Gadamer’s thesis on ‘Play’, and with reference to Berger & Luckmann’s (1967) treatise on the social construction of knowledge, the construction of a KA may be seen as a game, with the rules supplied by the UNFPA’s KSB, in which subject-matter experts (e.g. the KA Coordinator, Network Members and Primary and other Contributing Authors) are ‘players’ while remaining members of the organization are ‘spectators’.

Ready-to-hand and present-at-hand In the everyday nature of the subject-matter expert’s existence and work practices, the phenomena that constitute his/her ‘life-world’ are ‘ready-to-hand’ (Zuhanden) and, as such, are not the object of reflection – the processes by which contraceptive logistics systems are set up and operate constitute are among the ‘ready-to-hand’ for him. As such they possess a degree of familiarity that effectively sees them dissolved into an actor’s daily existence (i.e. as ‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’ in action, i.e. tacit knowledge). From an actor’s perspective, such phenomena appear to be perfectly understood, not requiring interpretation as to their ontological status. If, however, an event occurs that constitutes a ‘breakdown’ in understanding and which challenges the actor’s conception of the phenomenon by putting it in a different light, or, indeed, uncovers its ontological status as a phenomenon for the first time, then it will require interpretation so that it may be comprehended. As a consequence of such ‘breakdowns’, a phenomenon thus becomes the object of ‘theoretical’ reasoning (i.e. the quest for explicit knowledge) and acquires the ontological status of being ‘present-at-hand’ (i.e. a Vorhanden). Being asked to construct a KA for knowledge sharing worldwide triggers just such a ‘breakdown’ that can only be repaired by making explicit what is implicit or tacit. The pKADS KM Tool was designed to help the aforementioned UNFPA practitioner to repair the ‘breakdown’ by providing context, structure and process to record his interpretations of the phenomenon, so that he could share his understanding as knowledge with other organizational actors.

Tradition, throwness and das Man When confronted by a phenomenon that is ‘present-at-hand’ social actors move into an interpretive or hermeneutic mode of being ‘in-order-to’ attempt to make sense of that which is not



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understood (Heidegger, 1976). As they are ‘thrown’6 into a ‘Tradition’ they will already possess a ‘context’, a point of reference with which to proceed, so to speak.7 In terms of the UNFPA, the implementation of its knowledge sharing strategy has resulted in a ‘Tradition’ where individual Being is ‘tuned’ to knowledge sharing in order to realize new possibilities of Being. Heidegger (1976) argues that it is the quiet authority of das Man (roughly translated as ‘the they’ or ‘the anyone’) which provides reassurance in the face of existential turbulence, but das Man also exerts a strong influence on the immutability of ‘prejudice’ and the working out of such ‘prejudice’, if the new understanding runs counter to the ‘horizon-of-understanding’ of the ‘Tradition’. The success of UNFPA’s approach to knowledge sharing was that it recognized the concern social actors have about their existence and the phenomena that constitute it – this Heidegger (1976) terms ‘care’. ‘Care-full’ social actors will, in their ‘Being-in-the-world’, be ‘involved’ in looking after the entities that are of import to them. In being involved in their ‘life-worlds’ actors may or may not be ‘resolute’. Actors are ‘resolute’ if they possess a determination to realize the ‘possibilities’ with which they are confronted in the ‘throwness’ of their daily round. The whole notion of ‘resoluteness’ gives rise to the concept of purposeful action and, accordingly, in Being & Time, Heidegger (1976, p. 73) argues that ‘essentially the person exists only in the performance of intentional acts . . . that are bound together by the unity of meaning.’ Thus, this UNFPA’s officer’s ‘care’ and ‘resoluteness’ towards knowledge sharing is reinforced by the influence of das Man. (There is, it must be admitted, a negative side to this form of influence in a ‘Tradition’ where knowledge sharing is neither encouraged nor socially supported.) To fulfil his task he must draw on his ‘effective-historical consciousness’, which is shaped by the effect of historical events on his ‘lived experience’ and thus influences his interpretation, and hence understanding, of the phenomenon that is ‘present-at-hand’ (Gadamer, 1975). The experience of effective-historical understanding is achieved when, in questioning phenomena that are ‘present-at-hand’, he opens up to ‘Tradition’ and to what the phenomenon has to say, in order to allow its meaning to become evident. To do this, he must deconstruct the ‘whole’ of the phenomenon into its constituent ‘parts’ by using the two hermeneutic techniques, the ‘circle of understanding’ and the ‘dialectic’. The pKADS application was designed to incorporate the use of both techniques, whether to help KA Coordinators and Network Members, such as the Guatema-

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Heidegger (1976) points out that his Being-in-the-world as Dasein is characterized by ‘throwness’; that is, as Dasein he is ‘already in the world’ (in this case Guatemala) existing alongside the entities that constitute it (colleagues, clients, bureaucrats, officials and others who approve, or disapprove, support or oppose the programme). Being ‘thrown’ does not mean that he is powerless in the face of the obstacles and challenges presented to him; rather he will seek out possibilities of existence that help him overcome and resolve them – the point of departure for this, however, will be his ‘prejudices’ and ‘fore-knowledge’. 7 ‘Tradition’, according to Gadamer (1975), acts to shape an actor’s ‘preunderstanding’, or as Gadamer puts it, his ‘prejudices’. It is the UNFPA’s officer’s ‘lived experience’ (Erlebnis) in a ‘life-world’ shaped by ‘Tradition’ that provides the context for his understanding and contributes to the formation of his ‘prejudices’ and ‘fore-knowledge’.


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lan practitioner, construct KAs, or to aid other UNFPA professionals interpret and easily understand them.

The circle of understanding Gadamer (1975) argues that the means of apprehending ‘whole/part’ relationships possesses a circular structure – the hermeneutic ‘circle of understanding’. However, the understanding attained in working out this relationship, in negotiating the ‘circle’, is not in any way perfect; rather, a temporally based understanding is realized – the so-called ‘fusion of horizons’. Heidegger’s view of the hermeneutic ‘circle of understanding’ suggests that in understanding phenomena one remains permanently determined by the anticipatory movement of ‘foreunderstanding’. Therefore, commencing with one’s ‘preunderstanding’ or ‘prejudice’, the interpretation of a phenomenon (the hermeneutic ‘whole’) begins by the examination of its component phenomena (the ‘parts’). However, understanding the component phenomena can only begin when their relationships to the ‘whole’ have been determined – the determination of these contextual relationships is itself guided by an expectation of meaning arising from the preceding context (i.e. derived from one’s ‘Tradition’-influenced ‘prejudice’). What this means is that when a phenomenon is ‘present-at-hand’ to an actor he or she already possesses a ‘prejudice’-laden ‘preunderstanding’ of it. Through a dialectic process, he/she then identifies its ‘parts’. Operating from a holistic perspective, each part will be interpreted and its meaning and relationship to the whole consolidated into an emergent understanding of the phenomenon. In cycling through the ‘circle of understanding’, each ‘part’ is consolidated, and in so doing different perspectives emerge – the horizons of interpreter and that projected by the phenomenon will gradually fuse.

Applying the circle of understanding and the dialectic The KA Coordinator for the contraceptive logistics systems KA in UNFPA CO Guatemala is prompted by pKADS application to first rigorously describe the purpose of the new KA, its intended audience (other KN members and UNFPA staff), and so on. He must now apply the reductionist dialectic to identify the various KA Categories (up to 8). Ricoeur (1981, p. 211) argues that an understanding of a social phenomenon can only be reached by a dialectic process of narrowing the scope of generic concepts concerning it, and identifying within the ‘whole’ the ‘hierarchy of topics, or primary and subordinate topics’ that constitute it – that is, its component ‘parts’. Thus, when faced with a phenomenon that is ‘present-at-hand’, actors probe beneath the surface of the phenomenon using a ‘reductionist/analytical dialectic’ that begins with an implicit question ‘What is the Being of this entity?’. In order to answer this question the hermeneutic ‘whole’ of the phenomenon is deconstructed into its component ‘parts’, which for the purpose of this example are KA Categories. It is through the identification and analysis of these ‘parts’ and their reconstitution into the ‘whole’ that the structural model of the ‘reductionist/analytic dialectic’ proceeds (Butler, 1998).



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Once the ‘parts’/KA Categories are identified and described, the UNFPA practitioner will then apply the reductionist dialectic in concert with the Socratic Dialectic to develop groups of Questions and Answers that describe each Category8 (or he may nominate KA Network Members as Primary and Other Contributors). Related Resources, i.e. related ‘parts’, e.g. references to files (text-based, audio and video), web pages, journal references and even personal sources of information, that provide additional perspectives, may be added to the new KA to augment it.

Interpreting knowledge assets When saved, KAs may be viewed by KA Network Members and other organizational actors using the Web view option of the pKADS Tool, which permits a KA to be displayed by a standard web browser (See Figure 1). This display format helps users understand better the structure of KAs. The upper left-hand frame provides a Knowledge Map to enable users navigate and explore the KA. At the centre of the circle is the name of the KA, while the circumference is ringed by the named Categories for that asset. This is a graphical representation of the ‘circle of understanding’. Depending on the selected option, the upper-right hand frame will present the user with a detailed description of the particular KA, or if a Category is selected, a description of this along with the questions that describe the Category: while the answers to each question appear in the bottom right-hand side frame9 (this is the Reductionist and Socratic Dialectics in action). Network Members and other organizational actors who experience a breakdown in understanding of, for example, Contraceptive Logistics Systems, will possess their own ‘horizons-of-understanding’10 of the phenomenon (the Hegelian thesis11). In coming to understand this phenomenon, they will interpret what the phenomenon has to say (antithesis), by circling through the ‘parts’ (Categories) of the ‘whole’ (Knowledge Asset), while, in turn, interpreting each ‘part’ (Question and Answer) of the ‘whole’ of a Category, to fuse the respective ‘horizons-of-understanding’ (synthesis). This process of cycling from ‘whole’ to ‘part’, ‘part’ to ‘part’, including, for example, consulting Related Resources, members of the KN, etc., will

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Gadamer (1975) argues that the ‘logical structure of openness’ is to be found in the model of the Platonic dialogue, or, to be more accurate, in the Socratic dialectic of question and answer. In order to effect a ‘fusion of horizons’ between the horizon of the interpreter and the object of his interpretation, a dialogue takes place between the individual and the phenomenon of interest. However, the interpreter must be aware of his ‘prejudices’ and recognize that his knowledge is not absolute but incomplete – he must be ‘open’ to the phenomenon. 9 In the subsequent version of KADS and with the eGovKP application (see below) standard web pages are employed to the same effect. 10 A ‘horizon’, for Gadamer (1975, p. 269), is simply ‘the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point.’ In the ‘working out’ of ‘prejudices’, that is, in interpreting and endeavouring to understand some social phenomenon – two horizons are fused: the ‘fusion of horizons’ is therefore the culmination of the act of understanding between interpreter and interpreted. 11 The Hegelian dialectic comes into play when a particular interpretation (‘preunderstanding’ as thesis) is worked out with a competing interpretation (phenomenon’s ‘horizon-of-understanding’ or antithesis) so as to arrive at a newer, fuller and more informed interpretation or understanding – the Gadamarian ‘fusion of horizons’ or Hegelian synthesis.


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continue until the understanding that informs action (and, inter alia, the ‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’ of the actor) will be achieved. Thus, a social actor’s ‘preunderstanding’ or ‘prejudice’ informs his ‘horizon-of-understanding’ in regard to the phenomenon (i.e. a thesis): the ‘horizon-ofunderstanding’ the phenomenon presents to him is, however, at odds with his present understanding (i.e. is an antithesis). In order to make the phenomenon ‘ready-to-hand’, these ‘horizons-of-understanding’ must be ‘fused’ (Gadamer, 1975). The ‘fusion-of-horizons’ is the synthesis that results in new ‘knowledge’ for social actors. This brief ontological description of IT-mediated knowledge sharing at the UNFPA using the pKADS tool provides the foundation of the design principles outlined in the following section.

Design principles for IT-enabled KMS This paper posits that the difficulties in designing core IT artefacts/KM Tools for knowledge sharing in organizational and institutional contexts can be overcome if, at a fundamental level, they incorporate features based on insights from ‘practical theory’ that are elaborated and refined using insights from phenomenological hermeneutics. The previous sections set the stage for the articulation of the following design principles, which were arrived at in an exploratory and reflexive manner. In presenting these design principles in a prescription-like fashion, the authors acknowledge that they may appear ‘reductionist’, particularly Principle 4. Nevertheless, we would argue that this is in keeping with the tenets of pragmatic and conservative thought in phenomenology and hermeneutics (see Coyne, 1995), and is an example of Hirschheim & Klein’s (1989) mix of paradigmatic influences. Nevertheless, it is hoped that when the principles are read and interpreted in the context of the foregoing ontological description, they will regain their phenomenological and hermeneutical sense. While it is outside the scope of this paper to provide detailed instructions on the application of the principles, it must be noted that Principle 4 is, in some ways, central in that it underpins the need for designers and practitioners to focus on the conceptual architecture of the knowledge repository, which should be designed to reflect the intuitive way in which social actors systematically build and use taxonomies of knowledge on phenomena in the life-world. Practical evidence of the application of these principles may be obtained by downloading the pKADS application and/or user guides (http://pkads.bis.ucc.ie/docs/pKADSUserGuide1.1_en.pdf), or accessing the conceptual design documentation on the e-Government Knowledge Platform (eGovKP), which was designed on these principles and deployed in November 2006 (http:// pkads.bis.ucc.ie/docs/eGovKP.pdf). Principle 1 The human computer interface should be designed so as not to cause a ‘breakdown’ in understanding itself in terms of its use. That is, it should fade into the background as the means to an end, and not be the subject of interpretation for users, rather as Ihde, 1993, p. 40), put it once ‘learned, the [KM Tool] in use withdraws as an object and becomes the means of the experience itself.’ User interface and web design best practice should inform design activities to help achieve this objective – this is yet another example of the need for blending paradigmatic influences.



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Principle 2 The KM technology should help social actors (Gadamerian ‘players’ or knowledge experts) record their interpretations of how they went about repairing the ‘breakdowns’ in understanding of phenomena they encounter in their ‘life-world’ while participating in a ‘community-of-practice’, thus helping them to articulate and capture their ‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’ and share it within this community. Principle 3 Social actors (spectators) who experience ‘breakdowns’ in understanding should be able to use the technology to access the interpretations of others who faced similar situations in the past, to learn from the experiences of these social actors, and apply this learning in repairing their own ‘breakdowns’, build more informed ‘horizons of understanding’, thereby informing subsequent action. Principle 4 The design of the KM technology’s repository should reflect the hermeneutical ‘whole–part’ relationships in the relevant domain of knowledge. A reductionist/analytic should be applied as per the Aristotelian method of division or repeated logical analysis of genera into species or, in hermeneutic terms, of deconstructing the ‘whole’ into its component ‘parts’. For example, an organization operates within an organizational field with specific knowledge interests that describe its domain of knowledge. Internally, an organization is structured into functions, each of which has relatively well-defined knowledge interests (e.g. Finance, Manufacturing, Sales and Marketing, Human Resources, etc.). Each of these functions has identifiable knowledge areas, typically based on institutional structure and processes and related communities-of-practice. In addition, organizational processes and the knowledge interests of certain communities-of-practice will cross functional groupings. This leads to the following related subprinciples that guide the design of application features and the underlying data model: 1 The organization’s top level knowledge interests are grouped into, and represented as, the global domain of knowledge. 2 The global knowledge domain is composed of, and represented by, functional domains of knowledge. 3 Each functional knowledge domain can be decomposed into, and represented by, several areas of knowledge (based on business processes or procedures for service delivery, for example) each of which constitute an individual KA. 4 Each KA can be further subdivided into well-defined categories of knowledge or subtopics. 5 Each knowledge category or topic requires meaningful description. As the Socratic Dialectic is the basic tool for uncovering the meaning of Being, each category/topic can be best described using a dialogue of question and answer. This approach also allows for questions to be posed for which there is, as yet, no answer. 6 Additional knowledge references (Related Resources) should be available at all levels of the above ‘whole–part’ knowledge relationships. These will permit the elaboration of knowledge domain, asset/area, category/topic and dialogue (Q&A) descriptions and enable the Hegelian Dialectic to take place. (These will, in practice, provide direct links to or incorporate a range of objects that include organizational documents, external publications, files of all types, including multimedia files, web-based content, internal and external experts, and so on.)


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Principle 5 Presenting knowledge of a phenomenon in a ‘whole–part’ configuration will permit organizational actors (as users/spectators) to make sense of what may be ‘present-athand’ by readily identifying (navigating to, in terms of the application interface) the constituent ‘parts’ and thereby begin their interpretation with one of these ‘parts’. Ideally, a graphical representation in the form of a circular or hierarchical map (whose purpose is to emulate the ‘circle of understanding’) should be used to orientate users of the application. Principle 6 Roles in communities-of-practice with specific knowledge interests should be defined in terms of ‘players’ and ‘spectators’: the former are those who are active as authors (subject matter experts) in describing the various knowledge domains, assets/areas, topic/categories and dialogue descriptions capturing their interpretations of process and practice; and the latter are those who use the KMS to learn vicariously from the experience (‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’) of others. Thus, ‘players’, who will typically be knowledge experts, will create, edit, delete and read permissions for the application, while ‘spectators’ will have read access only. The subgroup (team of players) who are responsible for authoring the various ‘whole–part’ descriptions should be identifiable. Just as in teams, one or more ‘players’ will play lead roles in authoring and managing the various knowledge dimensions and these details should also be captured. ‘Player’ roles and responsibilities should be visible to ‘spectators’ so that they can locate and communicate with them. These principles will, obviously, need to be validated by application in practice and through further research: indeed this has already occurred in a subsequent action research study, as the following section indicates. It is, however, expected that they will undergo further elaboration, refinement and extension.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

In 2004 the UNFPA was using the pKADS application to promote knowledge sharing among its 1600 knowledge workers. Significantly, the lessons learned by the UNFPA in the action research study described herein have been integrated to the latest version of their KADS to bring it beyond the level of a pilot prototype KM Tool. As of early 2005, 10 organization-wide KAs were deployed for global use across the organization. In March 2004, following the success of the pKADS project, the University researchers undertook a second KM action research project with Irish Government’s Department of Communication, Marine and Natural Resources (DCMNR). The initial 3-month phase (March–May) of this project saw the pKADS application successfully deployed on a pilot basis in one DCMNR division. Working closely with a team of five marine engineers, the researchers further validated the conceptual design of pKADS. From June to September engineers from this Marine Division participated with the R&D team in the development of a web-based KMS based on Open Source technologies and the design principles presented herein. Initially called the eGovKP and subsequently rechristened the KMS, the IT artefact was successfully deployed in two departmental divisions in November 2005. The KMS was subsequently implemented in two additional departments in February



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2006, while a full roll-out was scheduled by end 2006. While the application software will not be distributed under an Open Source Software licence, Business Information Systems at University College Cork will make the application and its source code available to Irish business and software enterprises from end 2006. Thus, two large organizations are currently using KM Tools based on the principles presented herein, which resulted from ‘situated practical theory’ and which were empirically and theoretically validated. This approach accords well with Taylor’s (1985, pp. 111–115) argument that theory ‘[which] is self-consciously about practice’ enables us ‘to understand better what we are doing . . . [thus o]ur action becomes less haphazard and contradictory, less prone to produce what we did not want at all.’ This paper’s application of concepts from phenomenological hermeneutics in the described action research project reveals the ontology of technology-mediated knowledge work. This philosophically informed reflection thus contributed to the identification of the general principles by which a core KM Tool could be designed and developed to effectively enhance social actors’ embodiment and hermeneutic relations with a KM IT artefact so that actors could systematically capture and share their ‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’. If properly applied, the principles presented herein will, it is hoped, help practitioners overcome the limitations of extant approaches used to develop IT-based tools for knowledge sharing in organizations. However, it must be remembered that the UNFPA placed its primary emphasis not on the KM technology artefact, but on the people and processes encompassed by the KMS – indeed this is in keeping with long-established perspectives in the IS field and in recent research on KMS implementation (cf. Bansler & Havn, 2004). Thus, those who design KM Tools for knowledge sharing need to recognize that a KM IT artefact will be of little benefit unless the social and organizational issues surrounding its use receive adequate attention. In conclusion, this paper argues that extant perspectives on the design of IT-based KM Tools are overly conservative and functionalist in their orientation. Resultant design theory and practice may not therefore be sensitive to the type of ontological issues described herein and could fail to capture the social and historical nature of individual and collective knowledge in institutional contexts. On this point, we believe that future studies on the design, development and application of IT artefacts/KM Tools as the technology components in KMS should take a pragmatic interpretive stance, that is informed both by ‘practical theory’ and perspectives from phenomenological hermeneutics; particularly perspectives that centre on ontological design in the philosophy of technology, and those that focus on how ‘phronesis’ and ‘techne’ are developed and applied in organizations. Finally, this paper is further evidence of the relevance of philosophy of technology to the design and development of IS, in particular the most recent addition to the family of IS – KMS.

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joining academia, Tom had an extensive career in the telecommunications industry. His research is primarily qualitative, interpretive and case-based in nature, focusing on the design, development and implementation of information systems in organizations. From 2003 to 2006, he was lead researcher in two action research projects on the design, development and implementation of knowledge management systems (KMS) in the public sector. His research is published in international journals such as the Information Systems Journal, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology and the Journal of End User Computing, and in the proceedings of international conferences such as ICIS, ECIS and IFIP 8.2 and 8.6. Ciaran Murphy is Bank of Ireland Professor of Business Information Systems at University College Cork, Head of the Department of Accounting, Finance and Information Systems, and Director of BIS Innovation Centre. He has over 20 years of research and commercial experience, and has acted as a consultant to a wide variety of organizations in Ireland and internationally. Ciaran was Organizing & Programme Committee Chair of the 1997 European Conference on Information Systems. Coauthor of A Manager’s Guide to Current Issues in Information Systems, he has published widely, including articles in Decision Support Systems, the Journal of Decision Systems, the Journal of Information Technology, and in the proceedings of ICIS and ECIS conferences.

Biographies Dr Tom Butler is a Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems, University College Cork, Ireland. Before
