INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information technology is a concept that has reached a level of ubiquity which makes it somewhat difficult to define clearly. We all associate many things with IT, from our TV set over the mobile phone that most of us carry by now, to faxes and computers, email, and the Internet. IT has the two roots of information and technology. Information is an entity that we all know something about, but it is hard to define. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary (1999, p. 963), information can have several meanings. Firstly, it stands for definite knowledge acquired or supplied about something or somebody. Secondly, it represents the process of gathering and collecting facts and data, and thirdly, it means that the facts and knowledge are made known and published. Finally, in terms of computers, information is contrasted with data, a difference one can often find in literature about IS. Data is usually understood as the brute facts, the way life is, whereas information is data in an organised form that is presented in an orderly and systematic fashion to clarify the underlying meaning. We can see right away that information has points of contact with a good many sensitive philosophic topics such as knowledge, truth, or meaning. Also, it is a rather intangible asset whose properties of being human, expandable, compressible , substitutable, transportable, diffusive, and shareable (Cleveland, quoted in Mason, Mason, & Culnan, 1995, p. 41) do not really make description and handling much easier.

Technology, on the other hand, seems easier to manage. Technology is associated with machines, artefacts , with the multitude of things we can use to make our lives easier. However, there is more to technology than just physical objects. Gethmann and Gethmann-Siefert (1996, p. VI) suggest the category of action as a definition, more specifically of action based on objects. While this definition stresses the role of the individual there are others who emphasise the importance of the community, society, and interaction. Rayner (1993, p. 216) suggests a definition of technologies as social systems that are mediated by material and devices. The attempt to combine these approaches can be found in Ropohl s definition where technology comprises utilizable artificial objects, human actions and organizations used to produce these objects, and human actions that make use of them (Ropohl, 1996, p. 84).

There is another view of technology that completely neglects the object side, the artefact. In this view what is relevant about technology is the inherent rationality. For Rapp (1994, p. 19) the most natural definition of technology is that of a certain modus operandi , a specific method used to accomplish a given objective. This idea of technology as a relationship of ends and means can frequently be found in the philosophy of technology. Usually the ends are assumed as given and technology is seen as the means of attaining them. A radical example of this is the fact that according to Jonas (1987, p. 164), all technology serves the utility of a user .

Technology s character as a means combined with the supposition of a certain sort of rationality led us to another important property of technology. It can be demonstrated that technology, already in antiquity, was no aimless trialand-error use of natural objects, but intentional planning according to a design (Breil, 1993, p. 208). The success of this use depended strongly on the quality of knowledge. Thus it is one characteristic of technology to be closely linked to science. This relationship of science and technology can be found in the earliest modern definitions of technology (Beckmann, 1777) up to modern definitions in the context of IT. Technology is applied science, the use of a discovery in order to find a better tool to make life easier, safer, or better. As science asks ˜why? technology asks ˜how? (Hauptman, 1999, p. 3). While the direct relationship between science and technology is a simplification of reality (technology is much older than modern experimental science (Lenk, 1994, p. 22)), it is nevertheless useful because it shows the close link between theory and practice that is as constitutive for technology as it was for business.

Apart from these rather abstract attempts to describe the nature and meaning of the term technology, there are some obvious feedbacks to most aspects of life. Technology not only compensates man s shortcomings and produces a certain sort of rationality; it is the driving force behind our modern world (Mittelstra , 1996, p. 4). The ubiquity and importance of technology have led to the development of several philosophical disciplines that try to deal with the complexity of the topic.

Information technology, to return to our question of interest, is the combination of the concepts of information and technology. In this section it was demonstrated that neither of the two terms is simple and clear-cut . The combination is even less so. The general use of the term IT is connected with classical definitions such as, Information technology is the tangible means by which information is manipulated and carried to its ultimate users (Mason et al., 1995, p. 80). Often one finds even narrower definitions of information technology, i.e., IT understood as those technologies whose basis are digital switches and microelectronics (Zerdick et al., 2001, p. 111). After all we have seen so far, it is obvious that these definitions are too narrow. Information as well as technology are notions that are fundamentally social and complex. Their combination in information technology has to reflect that and cannot be confined to the object side. Even though the object side plays an important part and IT would cease to exist without it, the exclusive concentration on artefacts can lead to many problems, some of which will be discussed later on in this book. Also, information technology is caught up in the complex relationship of theory and practice, of science and application.