A Socio-technical Perspective on Back-end Technologies

Abstract

This is a submission to the 3rd Annual Social Informatices SIG Research Symposium: The Social Web, Social Computing and the Social Analysis of Computing. This concept paper mainly deals with the question whether back-end technology such as Web Services or concepts such as the Service Oriented Architec-ture (SOA) have any social meaning (and if so, how social science can conceptualize it). Both technologies are discussed broadly in academia and business. However, most of the research points on pure tech-nical questions and barely analyzes social and or-ganizational issues. Since not much work has been done before in this field by social scientists, this paper tries to answer the research question coming from a very broad perspective. It follows a three step approach. First, in putting together insights from very diverse fields of research I want to show, different ways how to conceptualize isomorphism between Information Technology (IT) at the one side and the organizational and social dimension respectively on the other side. Second, I apply basic statements of this discussion to understand the organizational and social issues of SOA. Third, these assumptions are evaluated and compared shortly with early results from empirical field work. Theoretical reflections and impressions from expert interviews lead us to an affirmative answer of the research question. This results finally in a pleading for more interdisciplinary research. For this purpose intellectual approaches which cross traditional lines of research like Social Informatics (SI) might provide further support.