Im Rahmen des PRIME (Paderborn Research Colloquium on Information Management & Engineering) begrüßt das Department Wirtschaftsinformatik Assistant Prof. Dr. Iris Beerepoot (Utrecht University). Wir laden alle Interessierten zu ihrem Vortrag "Situated Temporality of Sociotechnical Systems: The Workaround Lens" ein.
Iris Beerepoot is an assistant professor at Utrecht University and a member of the Process Science research group. Her research focuses on work processes in organisations and the extent to which this work is supported by and recorded in information systems. Her work has been published in the proceedings of leading conferences such as BPM, ICPM, ICIS, and ECIS, as well as in journals such as Computers in Industry, Business & Information Systems Engineering, Information Technology and Management, and the Journal of Biomedical Informatics. She served on several organising and program committees at BPM and ICPM, was awarded the BPM runner-up best dissertation award, and won an outstanding reviewer award at ECIS for two consecutive years. She chairs the AI Lab for Public Services which currently houses ten Ph.D. students.
Abstract:
Most Information Systems (IS) theories implicitly or explicitly assume that information systems remain stable over time. Design and design science research traditionally conceptualize IT artifact development as an engineering process, producing artifacts with a finite set of structural features shaped by the spirit of the feature set as envisioned by their designers. Similarly, behavioral IS theories assume that socio-technical constructs—such as application system use, business value, and affordances—emerge in consistent and predictable ways, enabling researchers to theorize their antecedents and outcomes. However, this perspective often overlooks emergent effects that are idiosyncratic, context-dependent, and time-sensitive, yet critical for understanding information systems’ use in situ. In this paper, we highlight the significance of temporal complexity—a concept from organizational science—for understanding information systems, using workarounds as a theoretical lens. Traditionally, workarounds are seen as static responses enacted by process participants to address misfits in workflows, providing stable fixes for recurring problems. Drawing on case data from three organizations, we challenge this view and demonstrate that workarounds interact dynamically with temporal complexities, including temporal holes, unfolding in ways that are time-bound and contextually nuanced. Our findings reveal that information systems are not static constructs but are deeply influenced by temporal dynamics, necessitating a shift away from assumptions of stability to a recognition of their evolving, emergent nature. This perspective underscores the critical role of temporal complexity in shaping the design, use, and theoretical understanding of information systems.
