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Towards a theory of organizational information services

  • Research Article
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Journal of Information Technology

Abstract

The use of information technology (IT) in organizations has undergone dramatic changes during the past 30 years. As a result, it has become increasingly common to adopt services rather than traditional systems perspective to more accurately capture contemporary practices. There is, however, a lack of theories that can help us understand, assess, and design information services in organizational contexts. On this backdrop, we combine general notions of information processing options and requirements to outline a contingency theory of organizational use of information services. The theory suggests that information services are configurations of heterogeneous information processing capabilities; these services are evoked by organizational actors to help execute tasks, and evoking different configurations may lead to equally satisfactory outcomes. The theory distinguishes between four types of services computational, adaptive, networking, and collaborative services, and it suggests that organizational actors need portfolios of information services that are suited to the equivocality and uncertainty profile of the information processing they face. The paper defines four types of services and how they relate to information processing requirements; it applies the theory to a study of information services in response to vehicle policing; and it outlines how the theory relates to standardization and unintended consequences of information services. We conclude by discussing the theory and its implications for research and practice.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the editors and reviewers, Dale Goodhue, Charles Perrow, Wanda Orlikowski, Steven Alter and our colleagues at Georgia State University and London School of Economics for providing valuable critique on earlier versions of the manuscript. Thanks to Daniele Pica for providing access to his fieldwork on policing in a UK police constabulary and for helping us with the article. Finally, thanks to the numerable colleagues, IT professionals, and students who have been subjected to these thoughts as part of our interactions over the past years. We, of course, accept full responsibility for the perceived quality of the end result.

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  1. Centre for Process Innovation, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, 30302-3989, USA

    Lars Mathiassen

  2. Department of Management, Information Systems and Innovation Group, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    Carsten Sørensen

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  1. Lars Mathiassen
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Correspondence to Carsten Sørensen.

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The two authors are listed in alphabetical order only and have contributed equally to the paper.

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Mathiassen, L., Sørensen, C. Towards a theory of organizational information services. J Inf Technol 23, 313–329 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2008.10

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