Information systems design and planned organization change: applying Unger's theory of social reconstruction

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Abstract
Much has been learned in recent years about how information technologies can be introduced effectively to established organizations. Progress has been more limited, however, in exploring the opportunities the technologies provide to rethink conventional assumptions about organizing, Traditional approaches to planning require an early specification of desired end results and are of limited value in the development of unfamiliar roles and structures. Unger's social theory suggests a different approach. It emphasizes how the cognitive schemas people use in everyday life interact with social and institutional structures to provide a set of pragmatic assumptions which obscures recognition of alternatives. The approach can be used to explain why ambitions for organizational change through the introduction of new technologies are likely to be limited, but it suggests that techniques can be developed to alert designers and end-users to the ‘formative contexts’ within which they are working, to review their inevitability, and to develop alternatives.