A three-faceted view of information systems

Reviewer: Angela Ungurianu

To the challenge of change and the need for flexibility, the computing field has responded in a number of ways. Systems and software architectures have been developed to offer various notions of independence at many levels of abstraction: data independence and orthogonal persistence in databases, distribution transparency in distributed systems, and code mobility in programming languages. This paper is divided into four sections: “The Three Facets of IS,” “Characterizing the Change,” “New Technologies to Support Traceability across Facet Boundaries,” and “Challenges for Research and Practice.” The authors, recognizing that various areas of computing, business administration, and social sciences have made substantial advances in understanding and dealing with change from their viewpoints, advocate a strategy that builds on these advances. The authors believe that change-related issues for information systems arise from three areas of concern: systems, group collaboration, and organization. This approach is useful for classifying the origins and impacts of change. As change processes transcend the boundaries of these three areas, tracing their changing interrelationships becomes critical for understanding, consistency management, and continuous evolution. The authors give several examples of technologies to support traceability across facet boundaries: DCOM and CORBA are grand unifying system frameworks. In computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), scripting languages or software engineering allow locally controlled automation of stereotypical subprocesses. Email, HTTP, and Lotus Notes are used for the integration of human and system communications. Schema translators, reengineering tools, access control tools, IDL stub generators, and user form generators are used to maintain links between systems, their users, and organizational models through metadata. ERP software (SAP R3, Baan, and Oracle Financials) makes heavy use of metalinks between analysis and design models on the one hand, and data dictionary and software repository elements modified during system customization and operation on the other. Reflective languages (including Java, Smalltalk, and Visual Basic) provide mechanisms for inspection (and possibly modification) of their own structure and behavior in the course of their long operation in an organization; they have the potential to eliminate the need for metalanguages and metamodels to manage links between the system and its models at higher levels of abstraction. CSCW includes various forms of support for communication coordination and sharing in order to transcend spatial and temporal separation as naturally and unobtrusively as possible. There is an urgent need to develop information systems capable of supporting and managing change in all its manifestations and ramifications. Current research communities focus on one or two facets of IS. The CSCW community focuses on work practice and systems, the cooperative information systems community mainly addresses systems issues, and the IS community emphasizes organizational issues. The authors hope that this paper will improve information systems research and practice on change management.