Steven Alter
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How Can You Verify that I Am Using AI? Complementary Frameworks for Describing and Evaluating AI-Based Digital Agents in their Usage Contexts Open
This essay explains complementary frameworks for understanding and managing AI in usage contexts. In contrast with broad generalizations about the nature and impact of AI, those frameworks focus on specific AI-based digital agents used by …
A Framework for Describing Theoretical Perspectives: Overview and Application to the Work System Perspective Open
This paper summarizes a framework for describing theoretical perspectives (an FDTP) and uses it to describe the work system perspective (WSP) in a way that integrates ideas that often had been discussed in isolation from each other. It als…
An Open-Ended Work System Knowledge Model for Visualizing, Organizing, and Accessing Knowledge about Information Systems in Organizational Settings Open
This essay presents a new approach for visualizing and organizing IS-related knowledge and expanding that knowledge. It mentions other possibly relevant approaches and then proposes a new approach that combines ideas from two sources, a ta…
Facets of Work: Enriching the Description, Analysis, Design, and Evaluation of Systems in Organizations Open
This conceptual contribution introduces the idea of “facets of work” and explains how it can be applied to challenges in today’s IS discipline. The notion of facets of work emerged from earlier attempts to bring more knowledge and richer, …
It is not my job: exploring the disconnect between corporate security policies and actual security practices in SMEs Open
Purpose This paper aims to present empirical results exemplifying challenges related to information security faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It uses guidelines based on work system theory (WST) to frame the results, thereby i…
Applying Facets of Work as a Source of Knowledge and Insight for Requirements Determination Open
This conceptual contribution explains how the idea of “facets of work” can bring more knowledge and richer, more evocative ideas to the development of system requirements in organizational settings. Focusing on facets of work potentially p…
How Facets of Work Illuminate Sociotechnical Challenges of Industry 5.0 Open
This conceptual contribution explains how the idea of “facets of work” can refocus traditional sociotechnical concerns to increase their relevance in increasingly automated and digitalized workplaces far removed from situations studied by …
How Well Do Service Concepts Apply to Digital Services and Service Digitalization? Open
This paper explores the extent to which typical service concepts apply to digital service (DS) and service digitalization. It defines service, service systems, digital, digitalization, digital objects, digital agents, digital service, and …
Satisfying Four Requirements for More Flexible Modeling Methods: Theory and Test Case Open
Recent research in conceptual modeling and enterprise modeling calls for relaxing common assumptions about the nature of modeling methods and related modeling languages and metamodels. This paper pursues that goal by proposing a new vision…
Adopted globally but unusable locally: What workarounds reveal about adoption, resistance, compliance and non-compliance Open
We undertake an exploratory case study to investigate how warehouse employees work around an Enterprise Resource Planning software that cannot be used as designed due to work practices required by local conditions. Our research illustrates…
Applying Socio-technical Thinking in the Competitive, Agile, Lean, Data-Driven World of Knowledge Work and Smart, Service-Oriented, Customer-Centric Value Creation Ecosystems Open
This article responds to a need for a socio-technical systems (STS) perspective that fits in a world that has changed greatly over the decades since the socio-technical movement began. This article identifies conditions and paradoxes that …
Design principles for establishing a multi-sided open innovation platform: lessons learned from an action research study in the medical technology industry Open
Innovation in the medical technology (med tech) industry has a major impact on well-being in society. Open innovation has the potential to accelerate the development of new or improved healthcare solutions. Building on work system theory (…
A Systems Perspective on IS User Satisfaction in Digitalized Organizations: Conclusions from Five Case Studies Open
We present a systems perspective on IS user satisfaction that is more appropriate in digitalized organizations than prominent streams of user satisfaction research from several decades ago that focused largely on voluntary, individual use …
Work System Modeling Method with Different Levels of Specificity and Rigor for Different Stakeholder Purposes. Open
This paper proposes a modeling method (the work system modeling method - WSMM) that addresses key issues related to enterprise and process modeling. Those issues lead to modeling method requirements that call for relaxing common assumption…
Digital Transformation in Service Management Open
The digital transformation of single companies and of entire service businesses is an omnipresent topic – not only in the academic discourse but also in the current public debate. The topic is often approached phenomenologically. We invite…
Applying Seven Images of Science in Exploring whether Information Systems Is a Science Open
This paper contributes in two parts to a debate that McBride (2018) initiated. The first part focuses on clarifying the discussion topic. It defines science, information system, and the scope of the IS discipline because McBride does not d…
Using a Work System Perspective to Expand BPM Use Cases for Research Open
Business Process Management (BPM) has developed as a research field centered within the computer and information systems sciences – but also touching other fields as well. Recently, van der Aalst (2013) analyzed the results of some of thes…
A Balanced Perspective on the Bright and Dark Sides of IT Based on a Systems Theory of IT Innovation, Adoption, and Adaptation Open
This conceptual contribution explains how a systems theory of IT innovation, adoption, and adaptation provides a balanced perspective on the bright and dark sides of IT. It starts by explaining how the bright and dark sides of IT are often…
Using a Work System Perspective to Expand BPM Research Use Cases Open
Business process management (BPM) has developed as a research field primarily situated in the computer and information systems sciences. Recently, van der Aalst (2013) analyzed the results of these research efforts and identified a set of …