Forty years of the corporate information technology function at Texaco Inc. – A history

Information Systems History: What is History? What is is History? What is History? … and Why Even Bother with History?

“…Histories can provide analyses of the historical record in order to offer bases for making sense of and explaining contemporary phenomena. For example, Porra et al (2005Porra et al ( , 2006 in their extended study of IT at Texaco seek to offer an explanation why, despite recognized success, the IT Department over many years failed to be fully accepted by Texaco management, and was constantly attacked and finally largely outsourced. The authors accomplish this using systems theory as a tool for analysing the historical record, producing an historical account from a particular perspective that adds to existing narratives.…”

“…There are historical analyses on the development of the MIS field, such as that by Dickson (1981), also Friedman and Cornford (1989) on the evolution and growth of the systems analyst profession and the systems analysis function. Porra and colleagues have sought to take up the earlier work of Mason et al (1997) and McKenney et al (1997) in their historical accounts published in MIS Quarterly (Porra et al, 2005) and Information and Organization (Porra et al, 2006). History continues to be made, both in the sense of historians writing history and in the sense of unfolding events.…”

“…Some progress in that direction is being made with, for example, the numerous case studies emerging from IS research. But these primarily focus on the corporate world, helping to engender an understanding of IS success or failure -for example, Clemons and Row (1988) focuses on success, Mitev (1996) on failure, and Porra et al (2005Porra et al ( , 2006 attempt to explain a puzzling phenomenon. A few others have 'written-up' studies of old applications, partly to show what lessons can be learned from them, but also partly to put on record the achievements of the IS pioneers (Land, 2006).…”

Editorial: The History and Philosophy Department

“…The project produced several exemplary studies that demonstrate the impact of IT and systems on companies and industries, including the case of American Airlines' Sabre electronic reservation system (Copeland & McKenney, 1988) and Bank of America's electronic banking system . Except for several notable studies of Texaco's information technology (IT) function (Hirschheim, Porra, & Parks, 2003;Porra, Hirschheim, & Parks, 2005;Porra, Hirschheim, & Parks, 2006) and Mitev's (2006) study of the French Railway ticketing system, it would take another quarter of a century before Frank Land (2010) reminded the IS field that it had not yet established a historical tradition and that it might have been missing such an opportunity. Realizing this state of affairs,…”

Seizing the Opportunity: Towards a Historiography of Information Systems

“…But what it clear is that this software has become a differentiating myth for American Airlines. Long-term History of financial, human and technical resources can help conceptualise further how the combination of resources over the History of an organisation evolves (see Penrose, 1959) and is intertwined with IT (Porra et al, 2006).…”