Claudio Ciborra: the Labyrinths of Information: Challenging the Wisdom of Systems - Book Review

Organization Studies, Oct, 2003 by Walter Baets

2002, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 195 pages

Ciborra's book is eloquently summarized by John Seely Brown's quote on the back of the book: 'Ciborra brings his rich understanding of bricolage and phenomenology to the fore in providing fresh insights about organizations and the building and use of complex information systems.' For those willing to challenge their day-to-day involvement in the world of information systems (IS), this book is thought provoking. It is, however, a version of a number of papers the author has published over recent years: the added value is that the papers have been reworked to read as a book.

The introduction invites the reader to leave behind the so-called scientific approach to IS when entering the real world. Two of Ciborra's key concepts, 'bricolage' and 'tinkering', are explained. In the context of bricolage, he refers to the MIR space station, which in spite of being a technical impossibility is still up and running. Soviet and later Russian scientists are masters in bricolage. Within a socio-technical tradition, the author draws the attention to the important role people play in IS design and development. Although not referred to explicitly, the reader will also recognize much constructivist thinking in the book. The overall tone of the book is to bring management information systems (MISs) into the real world, which is imperfect, co-created but very much alive.

Chapter 2 ('Krisis') reports on some recent and pertinent ICT success stories. Not only have these advances in technologies and business applications been ignored by MIS research, it would have been impossible to develop them using classical IS development methods. Should we be concerned with method? If so, has MIS failed as an academic discipline? The false belief in a correct geometric world often disregards the actors. The author illustrates this point with two cases which have received much attention in academic literature: the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and IS strategy alignment. He illustrates the weaknesses of the approaches and suggests we opt either for the ideal, or for the real.

Chapter 3 ('Bricolage') is used to develop some major concepts and arguments. Interesting trends in business are rarely dealt with in MIS research, and if they are it is often too late for the insights to be relevant. Business creates strategies that make these trends, often without any scientific support. Competitive advantage, as a method, is always copiable. The non-copiable difference is the corporate culture. Familiar examples of successful strategic IS developments (SABRE, Minitel, etc.) were never intended to be of strategic importance. Companies make strategy through bricolage and tinkering in order to overcome the cognitive barriers that stand in the way of innovation. An innovative project then suddenly becomes of strategic importance, ex post. What the author understands by 'bricolage' is highly situated, experience-based, competent improvisation: an evolutionary approach. The author positions the limited success of IS methodologies in the corner of a weak yet inflexible corporate strategy.

In Chapter 4 ('Gestell') the difference between infrastructure (the 'gestell') and MIS is developed. According to Heidegger, the essence of modern technology is the frame, the shelf, the skeleton. Infrastructure needs to be understood as socio-technical networks where components, usually considered as social and/or technical, are linked together into networks. The essence of an infrastructure is the movement, the enchainment, the multiple actions. The danger for a company is that the infrastructure becomes the 'real world'. Ciborra draws up a corporate agenda for introducing this network view of MIS into a corporate setting.

Chapter 5 ('Derive') moves on to discuss the dynamics of ICT infrastructure as a socio-technical network. The corporate context plays a crucial role, as reality is often a runaway learning organization, dynamic and unpredictable. Situatedness, drifting, chaos rather than order, are some of the supporting ideas explored in this chapter. Ciborra compares industrial-age thinking (procedures) with thinking in a web of externalities. He strongly argues against procedures, since their neatness, structure and articulation focus mainly on the spatial dimension of IS, often ignoring the temporal dimension. This insight necessitates a new language for the age of dynamic efficiency, which is developed in Chapter 6 ('Xenia').

Ciborra describes 'pathologies' for failure, using concepts such as hospitality and teams instead of the more traditional concept of control. Companies should consider new technologies as an ambiguous stranger and the organization as the host. If the technology violates values, fights and identities it can turn into an enemy. Hospitality leads to innovation and learning, turning systems development methodologies into rituals.

In Chapter 7 ('Shih') the author elaborates the example of Olivetti. He argues that Olivetti is probably one of the first networked organizations, one that conceives its platform as a laboratory for rapid restructuring. It generates new combinations of resources efficiently as it works as a cognitive engine, enacted by a pool of flexible people. In this chapter it becomes very clear that Ciborra is talking about corporate strategy while referring to IS strategy. This opens an interesting discussion about the real subject of MIS and its future as an academic discipline. If IS strategy is indeed just corporate strategy, what can be expected from IS research methods?