Information system artefact or information system application: that is the question

Abstract

Lee et al. () suggest the concept of information system (IS) artefact as an alternative to information technology (IT) artefact, defining the former as a system of an IT artefact, an information artefact and a social artefact. This paper assesses this suggestion, contrasting it with the concepts of IT artefact and IS application as introduced in the prior IS literature. After this conceptual analysis, the paper discusses the relationships between an IS artefact and design and between an IS artefact and design science. The analysis concludes that an IS artefact is problematic as a unit of design because of the great differences in the designability of its constituent parts. Instead, the paper maintains that an IS application is more appropriate as a unit of design, but an IS artefact may be fruitful as an analytical concept to be used in behavioural science research on the interplay of IT artefact, information artefact and social artefact, or – especially if including IS application design – in action research‐oriented design science research. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Anthropomorphic Information Systems

“…Information systems (IS) are socio-technical systems comprised of technical, informational and social artefacts that are embedded in a technical language and in a social context (Iivari 2017;Lee et al 2015). Anthropomorphic IS (AIS) are IS in which the technical and informational artefacts possess cues that tend to lead humans to attribute human-like physical or non-physical features, behavior, emotions, characteristics and attributes to the IS.…”

“…There are many possible conceptualizations of IS and not all explicitly point to the role of information artefacts. Following both Lee et al (2015) and Iivari (2017), the explicit inclusion of the information artefact alongside (information) technology aims to take information seriously as object for analysis and design. This appears relevant to anthropomorphic IS in order to highlight that the anthropomorphic cues within the IS might be part of both the technical artefacts (e.g., an audio interface) and the informational artefacts (e.g., usage of human names).…”

“…This appears relevant to anthropomorphic IS in order to highlight that the anthropomorphic cues within the IS might be part of both the technical artefacts (e.g., an audio interface) and the informational artefacts (e.g., usage of human names). Like any IS, such anthropomorphic IS are in part designed and in part emergent (Iivari 2017).…”

The Information Systems Artifact: A Conceptualization Based on General Systems Theory

“…To some scholars, a clear notion of the IT artifact is essential [8,53], while others doubt the value of such rigid definitions, which, they argue, represent a dominant form of thinking that constricts creativity and intellectual development of the IS field [60]. More recently, some scholars have argued that we should focus on an "IS artifact" instead of an "IT artifact" [39] while other scholars have, in turn, argued that even this notion of an IS artifact is not a useful conception [30].…”

Editorial: The limitations of limitations

“…In the third paper, Iivari () discusses the concept of “IS artefact” as introduced by Lee et al () as a system of an IT artefact, an information artefact and a social artefact. Iivari assesses this suggestion, contrasting the ‘IS artefact'with the concepts of IT artefact and IS application as introduced in the prior literature.…”