organizational analysis in computer science.txt

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digital signatures (Hartmanis and Lin, 1992:27). In the simple
example, Bob and Alice can send messages reliably if each
maintains a secret key. Nothing is said about the social
complications of actually keeping keys secret. The practical
problems are similar to those of managing passwords, although
some operational details differ because the 100 digit keys may be
stored on media like magstripe cards rather than paper. In real
organizations, people lose or forget their password and can lose
the media which store their keys. Also, some passwords can be
shared by a group of with shifting membership, and the "secret
key" can readily become semi-public. The main point is that the
management of keys is a critical element of cryptographic
security in practice. But Computer Scientists are prone to teach
courses on cryptography as exercises in applied mathematics, such
as number theory and Galois theory, and to skirt the vexing
practical problems of making encryption a practical
organizational activity.

Today, most of the 40,000 people who obtain BS and MS degrees in
CS each year in the U.S. have no opportunities for systematic
exposure to reliable knowledge about the best design strategies,
common uses, effective implementation, and assessments of value
of computing in a social world (Lewis, 1989). Yet a substantial
fraction of these students go on to work for organizations
attempting to produce or maintain systems that improve
organizational performance without a good conceptual basis for
their work. Consequently, many of them develop systems that
underperform in organizational terms even when they are
technically refined. They also recommend ineffective
implementation procedures and are sometimes even
counterproductive.

One defensible alternative to my position is that CS departments
should not take on any form of organizational analysis. They
should aggressively take a role akin to Biology departments
rather than taking on any instructional or research roles like
Medical schools. To be sincere, this position requires a high
level of restraint by academic Computer Scientists. First and
foremost, they should cease from talking about the uses, value or
even problems of computerized systems that would be used in any
organizational setting. Research proposals would be mute about
any conceivable application of research results. Further, they
should make effective efforts to insure that anyone who employs
their graduates should be aware that they may have no special
skills in understanding organizational computing. It would take
an aggressive "truth in advertising" campaign to help make it
clear that Computer Scientists have no effective methods for
understanding computerization in the social world. Further,
Computer Scientists would forsake their commitments to subfields
like software engineering which tacitly deals with ways to
support teams of systems developers to work effectively (Curtis,
et. al. 1988). Computer Scientists, in this view, would remove
themselves from addressing organizational and human behavior, in
the same way that molecular biologists are removed from
professionally commenting on the practices of cardiologists and
obstetricians. CTF argues that this view would be self-defeating.
But it would be internally consistent and have a distinctive
integrity.

In contrast, CS faculty are often reluctant to wholly embrace
Organizational Informatics. But some CS subfields, such as
software engineering, depend upon organizational analysis
(Curtis, et. al., 1988). Further, CS faculty do little to
advertise the distinctive limitations in the analytical skills of
our programs' graduates. Part of the dilemma develops because
many CS faculty are ambivalent about systematic studies of human
behavior. Applied mathematics and other modes of inquiry which
seem to yield concise, crisp and concrete results are often the
most cherished. As a consequence, those who conduct behaviorally
oriented research in CS departments are often inappropriately
marginalized. Their students and the discipline suffers as a
result.

Between 1986 and 1989, the total number of BS and MS CS degrees
awarded annually in the US declined from about 50,000 to
approximately 40,000. The number of students majoring in CS
rapidly declined at a time when computerization was becoming
widespread in many fields. A significant fraction of the decline
can be attributed to many students finding CS programs insular
and indifferent to many exciting forms of computerization. The
decline of military R&D in the U.S. can amplify these trends or
stimulate a more cosmopolitan view in CS departments. The decline
in military R&D is shifting the job market for new CS graduates
towards a markedly more civilian orientation. This shift, along
with the trend towards computing distributed into diverse work
groups, is leading to more job opportunities for people with CS
education who know Organizational Informatics.

The situation of CS departments has some parallels with
Statistics departments. Statistics are widely used and taught in
many academic disciplines. But Statistics departments have often
maintained a monkish isolation from "applications." Consequently,
the application of statistics thrives while Statistics
departments have few students and modest resources. Might the
status of Statistics indicate a future possibility for an insular
approach to CS?

The best Organizational Informatics research in North America is
conducted by faculty in the Information Systems departments in
business schools and by scattered social scientists (cf. Boland
and Hirschheim, 1987; Galegher, Kraut and Egido, 1990; Cotterman
and Senn, 1992; Sproull and Kiesler, 1991). But Computer
Scientists cannot effectively delegate the research and teaching
of Organizational Informatics to business Schools or social
science departments.

Like Computer Scientists, faculty in these other disciplines
prefer to focus on their own self-defined issues.  Computer
Scientists are much more likely to ask questions with attention
to fine grained technological nuances that influence designs. For
example, the professional discussions of computer risks have been
best developed through activities sponsored by the ACM's Special
Interest Group on Software (SIGSOFT). They are outside the
purview of business school faculty and, at best, only a few
social scientists are interested in them. Generally, technology
plays a minor role in social science theorizing. And when social
scientists study technologies, they see a world of possibilities:
energy technologies, transportation technologies, communication
technologies (including television), medicinal drugs and devices,
and so on. They see little reason to give computer-related
information technologies a privileged role within this
cornucopia. As a consequence, the few social scientists who  take
a keen interest in studying computerization are unfortunately
placed in marginal positions within their own disciplines. Often
they must link their studies to mainstream concerns as defined by
the tastemakers of their own fields, and the resulting
publications appear irrelevant to Computer Scientists.

Further, faculty in these other disciplines are not organized to
effectively teach tens of  thousands of CS students, students who
are steeped in technology and usually very naive about
organizations, about systems development and use in
organizations. In North America there is no well developed
institutional arrangement for educating students who can
effectively take leadership roles in conceptualizing and
developing complex organizational computing projects (Lewis,
1989).

CTF is permeated with interesting claims about the social value
of recent and emerging computer-based technologies. While many of
these observations should rest on an empirically grounded
scientific footing, Computer Scientists have deprived themselves
of access to such research. For example, the discussion of
systems risks in the ACM rests on a large and varied collection
of examples and anecdotes. But there is no significant research
program to help better understand the conditions under which
organizations are more likely to develop systems using the best
risk-reducing practices. There is an interesting body of
professional lore, but little scholarship to ground it (See
Appendix).

Computer Scientists have virtually no scholarship to utilize in
understanding when high performance networks, like the National
Research and Education Network, will catalyze social value
proportional to their costs. Consequently, many of the "obvious"
claims about the value of various computing technologies that we
Computer Scientists make are more akin to the lore of home
remedies for curing illness. Some are valid, others are unfounded
speculation. More seriously, the theoretical bases for
recommending home medical remedies and new computer technologies
can not advance without having sound research programs.

                         WHAT IS NEEDED

CTF sets the stage for developing Organizational Informatics as a
strong subfield within Computer Science. CTF bases the expansion
of the discipline on a rich array of applications in which many
of the effective technologies must be conceived in relationship
to plausible uses in order provide attractive social value for
multi-billion dollar public investments.

The CS community needs an institutionalized research capability
to produce a reliable body of knowledge about the usability and
value of computerized systems and the conditions under which
computer systems improve organizational performance. In Western
Europe there are research projects about Organizational
Informatics in a few Computer Science departments and research
funding through the EEC's Espirit program (Bubenko, 1992; Iivari,
1991; Kyng and Greenbaum, 1991). These new research and
instructional programs in Western Europe give Organizational
Informatics a significantly more effective place in CS education
and research than it now has in North America.

The CS community in the U.S. has 30 years of experience in
institutionalizing research programs, especially through the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National
Science Foundation (NSF). There are many approaches, including
establishing national centers, supporting individual investigator
research grants, supporting short institutes to help train new
investigators and supporting research workshops for ongoing
research. All such programs aim to develop and sustain research
fields with a combination of direct research funds, the education
of future researchers, and the development of research
infrastructure. They are all multimillion dollar efforts. Today,
NSF devotes about $125K annually to Organizational Informatics as
part of the Information Technology in Organizations program. This
start is far short of the level of funding required to develop
this field within CS.

The North American CS curricula must also include opportunities
for students to learn the most reliable knowledge about the
social dimensions of systems development and use (Denning, 1992).
These opportunities, formed as courses, can provide varied levels
of sophistication. The most elementary courses introduce students
to some of the key topics in Organizational Informatics and the
limitations of Systems Rationalism as an organizing frame (for
example, Dunlop and Kling, 1991a). More advanced courses focus on
specific topics, such as those I have listed above. They teach
about substantive problems and theoretical approaches for
analyzing them. While many of these approaches are anchored in
the sociological theory of organizations, CS students usually
won't grasp the importance of the theories without numerous
computing examples to work with [4]. They also have trouble
grasping the character of computing in organizations without
guided opportunities for observing and analyzing computerization
in practice. Consequently, some courses should offer
opportunities for studying issues of computerization in actual
organizations.

Fortunately, a few CS departments offer some courses in
Organizational Informatics. In addition, some CS faculty who
research and teach about human behavior in areas like Human-
Computer Interaction and Software Engineering can help expand the
range of research and instruction. Curricula would vary, but they
should include diverse courses for students who seek basic
exposure to Organizational Informatics and those seek more
thorough instruction. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the CS
departments in the US. have faculty who study and teach about
computing and human behavior.

While the study of Organizational Informatics builds upon both
the traditional technological foundations of CS and the social
sciences, the social sciences at most universities will not
develop it as an effective foundational topic for CS. On specific
campuses, CS faculty may be able to develop good instructional
programs along with colleagues in social sciences or Schools of
Management.

But delegating this inquiry to some other discipline does not
provide a national scale solution for CS. Other disciplines will
not do our important work for us. Mathematics departments may be
willing to teach graph theory for CS students, but the analysis
of algorithms would be a much weaker field if it could only be
carried out within Mathematics Departments. For similar reasons,
it is time for academic Computer Science to embrace
Organizational Informatics as a key area of research and
instruction.