AUTHOR
Valérie Chanal and Chris Kimble

ABSTRACT

Communities of practice were originally described in terms of a set of emergent social arrangements, termed legitimate peripheral participation, that act as a vehicle for spontaneous and situated learning (Brown and Duguid 1991; Lave and Wenger 1991). Later, what was essentially a social dynamic within a relatively small group became, first, a theory of organizational learning (Wenger 1998) and was then presented as a tool for knowledge management (Wenger, McDermott et al. 2002), to be deployed by consultants as a component from their knowledge management toolboxes. The theory behind the ‘implementation’ of communities of practice, holds that it is possible to bring people together with the objective of sharing knowledge and then to ‘cultivate’ a community of practice that will produce a planned and predictable benefit for the host organization.

In our paper, we will portray this move as a shift from the spontaneous, emergent and creative groups described in the early work – to borrow a term from Hutchins (1995), communities that are ‘in the wild’ – to the cultivated, confined and controlled groups described in Wenger’s later works – in effect, communities that have been captured, tamed and domesticated.

This second view of ‘tame’ communities of practice has often lead them to being presented as a form of risk free, social-based technology for knowledge management (e.g. Lesser and Storck 2001). According to this view, traditional ICT tools will take charge of the more easily captured and codified explicit knowledge, while communities of practice provide a solution to the management of the more problematical tacit knowledge, which, because it cannot be transferred directly, is seen as a key source of competitive advantage (Grant 1996). From an organization’s standpoint, this view has some obvious attractions, but it is not without its problems.

Empirical studies of the ‘implementation’ of communities of practice suggest that it may not easy to create a community of practice to order. Gongla and Rizzuto (2004) note that when an organization ‘spotlights’ a community of practice and tries to manage it, the members may simply pretend to disperse and go underground. Similarly, Thompson (2005) provides an example of how a company attempted to ‘clone’ a community of practice and spread its example of ‘best practices’ throughout the organization. As with Gongla and Rizzuto’s example, in the end, the members of the group withdrew and the company only succeeded in stifling what it sought to nurture.

The objective of this paper is to examine the view that communities of practice can be used as a tool for KM by asking if it is possible to instrumentalize them. Within the context of our ‘wild’ vs ‘domesticated’ typology, the questions we ask are the following: can organizations instrumentalize communities of practice in order to create and share knowledge? What are the risks of instrumentalizing communities of practice? What (if any) part of communities of practice should stay wild and what parts can be domesticated in the service of organizational learning?

To answer these questions, we will use the findings of action research that was carried out in a small microelectronics firm over a period of two years (Cappe 2008). The company develops microelectronic systems for the medical, telecommunications, automotive and aerospace markets. An initial analysis of the knowledge management systems in this organization highlighted the limits of an existing intranet as a means of knowledge sharing. It appeared that the people who needed the technical knowledge it contained did not use it because the knowledge was not sufficiently ‘situated’. As a result of this study, the management of the company began to explore the possibility of setting up communities of practice to facilitate knowledge sharing in certain key technical and strategic areas.

The aspect of this case that is of particular interest and value is that it was possible to follow the design and development of two intentionally formed communities of practice from their very beginnings. These communities were formed around two groups of people who played a key role in the company: project managers and technical experts. Before this experiment, these two groups had little opportunity to meet and to exchange knowledge about their practices.

The results show that there were indeed some positive aspects to bringing people together in such a community of practice. For example, in the same way as the claims processors in Wenger’s study (Wenger 1998), it appeared to answer a deep demand for more social links between persons doing the same job in an organizational context of heavy control and tight quality management procedures. However, it also brought to the surface areas of friction, especially with the management of the company, with whom the conditions for the existence of these groups, their identity and their autonomy of action, had to be constantly negotiated.

The way an organization is capable of absorbing these tensions by redefining its own rules appears to be a key factor in the success of such an experiment. The outcome of the learning within a community of practice cannot be confined to the boundaries of the community. We observed that when the management resisted the group’s suggestions of improvement, this led to the demotivation of the members. This demotivation and resentment of the community’s members was linked to a search for legitimacy within a company where the only activities acknowledged as valuable were those that were project oriented.

Our conclusion is that the study illustrates that the instrumentalization of communities of practice is a managerial myth. Thinking of communities of practice as a safe and domesticated social-based KM technology is flawed. Rather we should think of the ‘implementation’ of communities of practice as an experiment that carries with it the risk of creating a potentially disruptive ‘untamed’ element that can act as a lever for unpredicted organizational change.

In the closing section of the paper, we indicate how this work could be developed further. We link the literature on communities of practice with that on organizational improvisation (Weick 1998) to argue that other forms of spontaneous social phenomena, such as storytelling (Salmon 2008), could be analyzed using a similar perspective. We believe that the connection between practice, often seen as a routinized way of doing something, and improvisation, usually seen as a creative and spontaneous act, is one that deserves further research.

REFERENCES

Brown, J. S. and P. Duguid (1991). “Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation.” Organization Science 2(1): 40-57.

Cappe, E. (2008). Conditions d’émergence et de développement des communautés de pratique pour le management des connaissances. École doctorale de Sciences de Gestion. Grenoble, France, Universite Pierre Mendes. PhD: 413.

Gongla, P. and C. R. Rizzuto (2004). Where did that community go? Communities of practice that “disappear”. Knowledge networks: Innovation through communities of practice. P. Hildreth and C. Kimble, Idea Group Publishing: 295-307.

Grant, R. (1996). “Toward a Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm.” Strategic Management Journal 17(Special Issue: Knowledge and the Firm): 109 – 122.

Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge MA, MIT press.

Lave, J. and E. Wenger (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Lesser, E. L. and J. Storck (2001). “Communities of Practice and Organizational Performance.” IBM Systems Journal 40(4): 831-841.

Salmon, C. (2008). Storytelling, la machine à fabriquer des histoires et à formater les esprits. Paris, La Découverte.

Thompson, M. (2005). “Structural and Epistemic Parameters in Communities of Practice.” Organization Science 16(2): 151 – 164.

Weick, K. E. (1998). “Improvisation as a Mindset for Organizational Analysis.” Organization Science 9(5): 543-555.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York, Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E., R. A. McDermott, et al. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. Boston, Harvard Business School Press.

AUTHOR
Terrell Ward Bynum

ABSTRACT

Predicting the future of society is a risky activity typically left to fools and sages. Nevertheless, this presentation will contain outright predictions about the future of society and the future of ICT-related ethical issues. It will presuppose James Moor’s “policy vacuums” account of the nature and importance of information ethics, and it will assume the truth of Norbert Wiener’s prediction that cybernetic machines will play an increasingly important social role as time goes on. Most importantly, it will take as a central assumption Wiener’s prediction that machines and living organisms, increasingly, will be merged together to create entities that are part biological and part mechanical. Today, such beings are often called “cyborgs” (cybernetic organisms).

According to Wiener, all animals and some machines are cybernetic entities that take in information from their environment, then process that information in ways that empower them to react to their environment and adjust themselves to it. Such information processing activities include, for example, perceiving, recognizing, categorizing, remembering, calculating, inferring, deciding, acting, and so on. In the past, some philosophers have assumed – mistakenly, I believe – that only humans (and perhaps angels, devils and gods) can engage in such “sophisticated” activities as categorizing, recognizing, inferring, deciding and acting. In this presentation, I will assume that all humans, many animals, and some machines can engage in such activities. I also will assume that “aspects, parts and pieces” of such information processing activities can be electronically instilled into objects and organisms that did not have them in the past – thus, creating “ambient intelligence”.

Given the above-described assumptions, I will argue that today’s “information societies” are rapidly evolving into societies in which humans, other animals, and machines – even buildings, clothing, furniture, roadways, and other objects – will be interrelated and coordinated by ambient intelligence technology to create increasingly complex “cyborgian units”. Thus, when virtually everything interacts and communicates with everything else, and the difference between “online” and “offline” essentially disappears, then individual persons, particular animals, certain machines and other entities will be electronically united and coordinated to create powerful “cyborgian units” and thereby achieve previously unattainable goals. In such a society, a person or an animal or a machine or an object could function simultaneously as part of many different cyborgian units; and those units could also be combined to generate even larger and more sophisticated “meta-units”. Finally, all such units and meta-units working together could constitute an entire society – becoming, quite literally, a “cyborgian society”.

In the coming cyborgian societies, the above-described units and meta-units will utilize capacities and qualities of many different entities to bring into existence a staggering number of new possibilities that could not have been realized in the past. The result will be innumerable “policy vacuums” (to use Moor’s apt turn of phrase) that cry out for new laws, new rules of behavior, and new standards of good practice – new “policies” to assure that cyborgian societies will be ones in which justice and ethical behavior are encouraged and preserved.

AUTHOR
J. J. Britz and Ms S. R. Ponelis

ABSTRACT

Introduction

The global migration of people is an authentic sign or the times we are living in. The global workforce, amongst others, includes many who are skilled and come from rich educational heritages. They seek new opportunities to share their knowledge in the newly formed global communities; this includes the many international scholars that travel around the world attending conferences in order to obtain feedback and input to their work prior to publication. However, not all academics are born equal: for example, conferences held in African countries are few and far between and often not attended by many academics from outside of Africa, which necessitates these academics to travel more widely to conferences in Europe and North America. However, no African academic (traveling on a passport from an African country), even with impressive credentials, can merely get on an airplane to attend such a conference, not only because of geographic and financial reasons, but also because of political reasons. Most European countries, as well as the USA and Canada, have strict visa requirements for most African countries. And although technology makes it possible to make presentations virtually, not being physically present does limit the opportunities for knowledge sharing and exchange – an important component of such gatherings and one of the reasons conferences continue to be held and attended in spite of the current economic climate.

To put this in practical terms: why should scholars from Africa, just because of their country of origin, be restricted in many ways to travel to Europe to attend conferences while the same does not apply to their counterparts from countries like the USA and Canada? This state of affairs seriously hampers development and creativity that will benefit humanity by limiting the ability to learn from one another and to share knowledge. Thus it is a matter of social justice, not only because of the limits placed on international travel (irrespective of the reasons given as justification) but also because of the impact that this limitation imposes on human development. The global movement of people demand a fresh look at the interpretation and application of social justice – particularly as it pertains to the rights of nation states and the right of freedom of movement of scholars to share their knowledge on global platforms.

The intention of our paper is not to provide clear-cut answers to all the questions relating to the international movement of people, but to open the debate following our claim that we need to rethink, from a social justice perspective, the international movement of particularly African scholars and their ability to share their knowledge globally.

The research problem and content

It is this moral imperative that prompts our research question which specifically focuses, from a social justice perspective, on the political hindrances that many African scholars face in their efforts to attend and participate at international conferences in Europe and North America. In using Amartya Sen’s capability approach we argue that the global sharing of knowledge between scholars should be regarded as one of the ‘basic capabilities’ (Sen, 1993) since it does not only create opportunities for the development of Africa , but it is also instrumental to our freedom and to achieve human well-being. The strict travel arrangements by most European countries and the USA and Canada for African scholars form part of what Sen refers to as the social and structural constrains that influence and restrict global human development and well being.

We argue therefore that the international community has a moral and legal responsibility to create a more open and fair structure that should support the freer flow of knowledge between African scholars and their counterparts in Europe and North America. We view justice as one of the most important virtues regulating human behavior in the global knowledge society. We therefore use it as a normative instrument to argue our case for a fairer structure that will allow Africans more flexibility to travel and at the same time acknowledging the rights and responsibilities of the nation-state towards it own citizens (for example national security, human trafficking and disease control) but also towards global citizens (allowing scholars more from African countries more freedom of movement). We identified and use five categories of social justice in our analysis. These are:

• Justice as recognition according to which the moral dignity of fellow beings necessitates equitable and fair treatment with respect to freedom of movement.
• Justice as reciprocity that requires fundamental fairness with respect to exchanges between academics as a group and in particular that the same rules and norms will apply in similar situations.
• Justice as participation that requires the creation of equal opportunities for scholars to exchange their knowledge at international conferences.
• Justice as enablement which demands from society at large to enable the self-enablement and self-determination of individuals.
• Justice as contribution that supports our contention that society should be structured in such a manner so that scholars are able to make a productive contribution to their own and the broader global society.

Based on our moral analysis we develop a set of moral guidelines and we propose an ‘academic travel card’ for African scholars that should meet the criteria of social justice. According to this, such a card should be agreed by all participating countries and as an expression of global justice it should be embedded in international rules and regulations that will allow African academics the same basic rights of freedom of movement, freedom of expression and freedom to privacy as their counterparts in Europe and North America. We deliberate also on the different rights and responsibilities of both the nation-states as well as African scholars regarding the use of the proposed travel card.

Structure of the paper

The paper is structured in the following manner: first, we emphasize the importance of the exchange of knowledge that contributes to human development. As indicated we base our discussion on Sen’s capability approach. Following from this, we elaborate specifically on the problems that African scholars experience in this regard whilst at the same time seeking to strike a fair balance between rights of nation-state and the rights of individuals to freedom of movement. We make use of both empirical evidence as well as statistical data in support of our argument. In the third part of the paper we analyze the abovementioned issues from a social justice perspective and in the final part of the paper we developed a set of moral guidelines and propose an ‘academic travel card’ for African scholars that should meet the requirements of social justice as argued in the previous part.

REFERENCES

Summary Report. 2009. Academic Freedom In West African Universities, University Of Ghana, Legon, 15-16 April 2009 [online]. Available: http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/Documents/Ghana_report.pdf (accessed July 24, 2007)

Britz, J.J. 2007. Critical analysis of information poverty from a social justice perspective. D.Phil thesis, University of Pretoria.

Renewing the African University [online]. 2005. Available: http://www.aau.org/gc11/adocs/pdf/eng/aau-acu-sauvcaprog.pdf (accessed July 23, 2009).

Sen, A. 1993. Capability and well-being. In: The quality of life, edited by M. Nussbaum and A. Sen. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Unesco Academic Freedom Conference. 2006. Problems and Challenges in Arab and African Countries, Alexandria, Egypt, 10-11 September, 2005.

AUTHOR
M. C. Bottis and H. T. Tavani

ABSTRACT

The principle of informed consent is a standard feature in medical research, including international documents, statutes, protocols, guidelines and other “hard” or “soft” law texts. This principle is ethically significant for participants (i.e., human subjects) in research in that provides both: (a) respect for the person, and (b) protection of the person’s autonomy. So, there are good reasons for defending and preserving the principle of informed consent in medical research involving human subjects. However, research in population genomics, which depends on DNA databanks and data mining technology, has introduced some serious challenges for the informed-consent process.

1. Background

The principle of informed consent originates from a strict, two-part relationship: the physician-patient relationship. Informed consent in the setting of medical research has usually involved patients who are required to take a drug (or placebo). In this context, the subject must know the nature and purpose of the research, as well as its consequences and risks. Consent must be expressed (or explicit), specific, and documented. International documents such as the Oviedo Biomedicine Convention also require that some additional information be given to the research subject – viz., information about:

• any foreseen potential future uses, including commercial uses of the research results, data or biological materials;
• the source of funding of the research project;
• access to the research results in the future.

Undue “influence concerns,” such as misuse of a position of trust, have also led to additional safeguards for human subjects who voluntarily participate in research.

2. DNA Databanks

We argue that the donation of tissue, blood samples, etc. by human subjects to DNA databanks used for population-wide research purposes has introduced some challenges for the informed-consent process. Initially, one might assume that that an individual’s donating some blood or tissue carries no risk of immediate harm to that consenting individual. Indeed, the act of giving a sample of one’s blood, hair, or body tissue for research would seem harmless; in fact, refusing to do so might be interpreted as an “antisocial” act that also violates the principle of “solidarity” underlying DNA research. Consider that without these research “materials,” there can be no DNA research at all.

However, donating one’s blood, etc., for research in a DNA databank presents some new challenges for the informed-consent process because of the special nature of population-wide genomic research projects and because of the kinds of technologies involved (e.g., data mining). For one thing, the familiar two-part relationship involving researcher and patient is seriously threatened in these kinds of projects. It also raises an important question: What is the nature of a “population’s consent”? And this question, in turn, raises two additional questions: (i) What is it that a whole population needs to know before consenting? (ii) How can we ensure “fair consent” from everybody involved? Consider that any harm resulting from “unconsented” and unprincipled research in this area is directed not only against a person, but against an entire population.

Another challenge has to do with the so-called DNA/gene factor; we are not yet sure what it is that we are providing when we donate our DNA for research. For example, is it information about our “entire self” – i.e., our past, present and future? Is it information about who we are now, at the moment of donation, or is it also a “future diary”?

An additional challenge for the consent process in this area of research has to do with Onora O’Neill (2002) calls the “opacity of consent.” The consent process in DNA research involving databanks and data mining is “opaque” or nontransparent because of the secondary uses of that information made possible by data mining. Suppose a person, A, consents to procedure B. Further imagine that B entails C (and that A is unaware of C). Does it follow that A consented to C? This problem arises in DNA research because of the kinds of subsequent uses of information made possible by data-mining technology.

The solutions put forth thus far to the challenges affecting informed consent in population-based genomic research include aspects of three traditional models:

• presumed consent (the researcher takes the tissues, presuming that the person from whom they originate wouldn’t disagree);
• informed consent (documented by signing pre-drafted forms);
• community consent (the ‘leader’ of a community consents for every member and the members consent, also, for themselves).

We argue that these models are inadequate. Our proposed solution examines some alternative schemes, including the “charitable trust” model for informed consent.

REFERENCES

Andersen B. & Anrason E., Iceland’s database is ethically questionable, BMJ 1999, Jun 5;318(7197):1565

Austin M.A., Hardin C. & McElroy, Genebanks: a comparison of eight proposed international genetic databases, Community Genet. Vol. 6, no 1, 2004, 37-45

Bottis, M., deCode Iceland and Genetic Databanks: Where ‘Consent’ to Generic Research Means Patenting a Nation’s Genes. In Proceedings of the Ethicomp2005 Conference: Looking Back to the Future, Linkoeping, Sweeden, 2005

Gertz R., Withdrawing from Participating in a Biobank – a Comparative Study”, European Journal of Health Law, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 381-390, 2008

Hansson M.G.G., Building on relationships of trust in biobank research, JMed Ethics vol. 31, no 7, 2005, 415-418

Harper P.S., Research samples from families with genetic diseases: a proposed code of conduct, BMJ 306, no 6889, 1993, 1391-1394

O’Neill, O., Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002

Rothstein M.A., Expanding the ethical analysis of biobanks, J Law Med Ethics vol. 33, no 1, 2005, 89-101

Santosuosso A., The right to genetic disobedience: the Iceland case, in Ethics and Law in Biological Research, ed. Mazzoni C.M., Kluwer Law International, 2002, pp. 163-172

Tavani, H.T., Genomic Research and Data-Mining Technology: Implications for Personal Privacy and Informed Consent, Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2004, 15-28

Winickoff, D. & Winickoff R., The Charitable Trust as a Model for Genomic Biobanks, 349 New England Journal of Medicine 12: 1180-1184, 2003

Zoega T. & Anderson B., The Icelandic health sector database: decode and the “new” ethics for genetic research, 1999

AUTHOR
William T. Bonner

ABSTRACT

In this paper I argue that, with respect to privacy, actions taken with new ICTs have taken us backwards. Each time questions of privacy emerge around uses made of new ICTs attention tends to be reactive, focusing on the specific context in which the question arose and with that focus a very limited conception of privacy is considered. Cycles of reactions to uses made of new ICTs compounds this further, relegating privacy as a broad concept to the sidelines as actors jockey for position on the actual substance of rules created for the narrow conception of privacy defined in each specific context. With rules created the focus shifts to interpreting the rules with two consequences. First, experts around those rules emerge, those that speak for the rules, and as their voices increase the question of privacy broadly and ethics specifically are displaced. Second and related, the rules originally set out as minimal expectations for behavior become the maximum target for experts interpreting the rules. In this paper I focus on fair information principles (FIP) as one instance where rules displace ethics and that rules, once created, are minimally interpreted to further narrow the concept of privacy.

These observations have emerged from ongoing research, starting with a puzzle around how privacy was so easily defeated in a specific instance involving the sale of citizen information by the government of Alberta, Canada. The argument in favour of the continued sale of this personal information was examined in depth employing Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and found to lack substance but it carried the day anyway (Bonner, Chiasson, Gopal, 2009). This finding led to parallel another ANT investigation into the substance of privacy’s representative in this enactment of balance, fair information principles (FIP). FIP were created as a reaction to concerns about the modern computer that arose in the 1970s and 1980s and they focus on the thing that computers process, data (Bonner, Chiasson 2007). With FIP in place the focus in this balancing act shifted to interpreting the rules. Since FIP did not prohibit the sale of this personal information it was interpreted to be permissible. In effect, the minimum requirements of the rules become the maximum action taken. Questions of ethics and propriety had no place in this world view.

Subsequent research on the sale of student information by the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) in Alberta, to a company in California in exchange for hosted email services, revealed another instance where rules become the focus and expert interpretation of those rules resulted in the minimum becoming the maximum. The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of Alberta ruled that the exchange of student information for services and potential revenue was unacceptable and must cease (Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, 2002). On the question of whether the CBE should disclose personal student information to outside organizations at all the OIPC ruled that if the CBE decided that the use of the information was necessary to carry out its educational mission, then the CBE was free to disclose this information and no parental permission was necessary. In interpreting this ruling the CBE has decided that since parental permission is not required it is not necessary for the CBE to advise parents that personal student information is being released to outsiders at all.

That is now CBE policy (Bonner 2007). Nothing prohibits the CBE from letting students and parents know what information is being released to outsiders, but the official rule is that it is not necessary and the minimum necessary has become the maximum done. It could have been otherwise but it is not.

It is this notion that it could have been otherwise and is not that bears examination as my own ongoing research is making it clear that it is not the innovation that limits the concept of privacy employed but rather a focus on the context in which it is employed. This is reflected in the field of MIS as we tend to focus on the artefact of our field, the computer and that which it processes – data. An assumption arising from that focus on context is that FIP can be employed as privacy’s representative (Smith, Milberg and Burke 1996, Liu, Marchewka, Lu and Yu 2005). At times FIP are granted the status of an ethical standard (Culnan, 1993, Culnan and Armstrong 1999). This something FIP cannot be. FIP are a narrow set of principles focused on data that have to be interpreted and enacted in specific settings. In the two examples provided (government sale of citizen information and the CBE sale of student information) it was FIP in practice that produced those results; an interpretation of rules that were created based on FIP.

I see this pattern of a focus on context within MIS research repeating with what I see as an emerging branch of “privacy” research that focuses exclusively on online activities as though privacy online is separable from privacy offline (Awad and Krishnan 2006; Liu, Marchewka, Lu and Yu 2005; Malhotra, Kim and Agarwal (2004). My concern here is reflected in a comment by Hinduja (2004), “What is appropriate in business ethics offline should be seamlessly transferred to the online milieu, and persons should not need to reassess their perceptions of the practice of corporations simply because of the change of context” (Hinduja 2004). What makes this statement stand out is that it starts from the premise that privacy and ethics transcend context; it is the concept and not the context that is important.

We in the field of MIS/CIS are implicated in this focus on context, as noted. This focus defines the concept of privacy ahistorically and so narrowly that questions of ethics have no place to appear. If we want to keep the question of ethics visible we have to critique the narrow constitution of rules that have emerged, the narrow conception of privacy embedded in them and show how it could have been and still could be otherwise.

REFERENCES

Awad, N.F., & Krishnan, M.S. (2006). The personalization privacy paradox: An empirical evaluation of information transparency and the willingness to be profiled online for personalization, MIS Quarterly, 30(1), 13-18.

Bonner, W.T. (2007) Locating a Space for Ethics to Appear in Decision-making: Privacy as an Exemplar, Journal of Business Ethics, 70(3), 221-234.

Bonner, W.T., Chiasson, M. (2005). If fair information principles are the answer, what was the question? An actor-network theory investigation of the modern constitution of privacy, Information and Organization, 15(4), 267-293.

Bonner, B., Chiasson, M., Gopal, A, (2009). Restoring balance: How history tilts the scales against privacy. An Actor-Network Theory investigation, Information and Organization, (19, 2), 84-102

Culnan, M. J. (1993). ‘How did they get my name?’ An exploratory investigation of consumer attitudes toward secondary information use, MIS Quarterly, 17(3), 341-363.

Culnan, M. J., & Armstrong, P. K. (1999). Information privacy concerns, procedural fairness, and impersonal trust: An empirical investigation, Organization Science, 10(1), 104-115.

Hinduja, S. (2004). Theory and policy in online privacy, Knowledge, Technology and Policy, 17(1), 38-58

Liu, C., Marchewka, J.T., Lu, J., & Yu, Chun-Sheng, (2005). Beyond concern – a privacy-trust-behavioral intention model of electronic commerce, Information & Management, 42(2), 289-304.

Malhorta, N.K., Kim. S.S., & Agarwal, J. (2004). Internet users’ information privacy concerns (IUIPC): The construct, the scale, and a causal model, Information Systems Research, 15(4), 336-355.

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta: 2002, ‘Order 2001–038’, Edmonton Alberta, September 23, 2002.

Smith, H. J., Milberg, S. J., & Burke, S. J. (1996). Information privacy: Measuring individual concerns about organizational practices, MIS Quarterly, 20(2), 167-196.

AUTHOR
Andy Bissett and Kai K. Kimppa

ABSTRACT

When considering the development, operation and maintenance of IT systems, we would really like a guarantee that ‘wise, experienced, knowledgeable professionals will conscientiously perform their duties’ (Shibl et al, 2008: 61). Accountability mechanisms (such as quality management systems) can help to a degree, but a paradox of such ‘technical’ strategies is that without strong guiding ethical values, these measures alone cannot guarantee the successful employment of information systems (ibid.).

An idea of professional duty is examined and elaborated using three seafaring fictions by Joseph Conrad – Youth, written in 1898, The End of the Tether appearing in 1902, and The Shadow Line published in 1917. The use of fiction as a source for research poses some interesting questions about the ‘evidence status’ of such material. However, sufficient support is available from the literature to provide reassurance that this procedure can be valid, provided that it is carefully used (Banks & Banks, 1998). For example, Strom (2007) demonstrates the use of fictive scenarios in industrial software development, and Bolton (1994: 56) argues the general case that fiction can be used to drive the exploration of complex or ambiguous issues, although ‘A fictional text does not present a complete picture any more than it offers a set of facts’. Fictional material can be employed to shed light upon important matters in the realm of less accessible – subjective – issues, such as identity. Of particular relevance is the use of fictional material to explore professional development (Bolton, 1994; 2000).

Whilst important criticism has been levelled at some of Conrad’s work (Achebe, 2001), the seafaring fictions provide a vivid and compelling account of the dedication that those working in the field of ICT might recognise as part of ‘professionalism’. Most IT projects do not contain the life-or-death, high drama of these seafaring tales, but important features and trends can be discerned and some lessons drawn out. The seafarer’s duties from the age of sailing ships – to the crew, to the owner, to the vision of their vocation – can enliven and enrich the conception of professional duty today. Especially relevant is the issue of professional identity, which is often at the heart of these stories. Conrad’s protagonists frequently function on the subjective terrain of professional identity in a fashion that (later in the Twentieth Century) might be called existentialist, although this vision of vocation can also be related to Wenger’s ‘communities of practice’ (1999). Professional duty and professional identity are closely bound together here. The capacity for personal self-regulation often appears in these stories via identification with an ideal professional model, not simply through an unthinking respect for the law, and certainly not by reward, which Conrad labels ‘distasteful’. In this respect there is an echo of Kant’s conception of duty and the need to think, and voluntarily follow the categorical imperative in any given moral situation (Kant, 1785).

Conrad’s conception of duty rests in large part on his essentialist conception of ‘human nature’. His view is the traditional (and much-criticised) one that civilisation is a thin veneer keeping humanity away from chaos and bestiality. Duty becomes a critical guiding factor when circumstances (and other people) conspire to threaten chaos. Duty becomes a critical test of vocational dedication in these stories. In difficult circumstances a key strength in Conrad’s conception of professional duty is provided by the idea that an individual professional forms part of a continuous ‘dynasty’, formed by experience, training, tradition, and a self-conscious acceptance of duty. This may represent a difference with the modern IT industry, wherein a mobile, fast-changing aspect is evident. The relative lack of tradition in the IT industry may limit the formation of a professional identity, or at least give it a particular character as discussed by Sennett (2006).

Nonetheless, Conrad’s conception of duty is worth exploring. Questions of probity, integrity, and the conscientious performance of duty under difficult circumstances resonate throughout these stories, which have been read and studied for around one hundred years. Although fictional, their meaningfulness for millions of people is hard to dispute. We highlight the current day implications. We argue that these stories can provide a stimulating and entertaining resource for developing concepts of professionalism that are relevant to IT practitioners today and in the future.

REFERENCES

Achebe, C. (2001) An Image of Africa: racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, New York: Norton

Banks, S.P. and Banks, A. (1998) Fiction and Social Research: by ice or fire, Lanham MD: AltaMira Press

Bolton, G. (1994) Stories at Work: fictional-critical writing as a means of professional development, British Educational Research Journal, 20 (1), 55-68

Bolton, G. (2000) Reflective Practice: writing and professional development, London: Sage

Kant, Immanuel (1785) Originally Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, several translations used, most commonly translated as Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals as in http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/texts/kant/kantc.htm, last checked 4.11.2004, but e.g. Brendan E. A. Liddell’s translation is called Kant on the Foundation of Morality

Sennett, R. (2006) The Culture of the New Capitalism, London: Yale University Press

Shibl, R., Fielden, K., Pain, D., Bissett, A. (2008) Trust and Clinical Information Systems, in P. Duquenoy, C. George, K. Kimppa (editors) Ethical, Legal & Social Aspects of Medical Informatics, Hershey, PA: Medical Information Science Reference (IGI Global). 48-64

Strom, G. (2007) Stories with emotions and conflicts drive development of better interactions in industrial software projects, Proceedings of the 19th Australasian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (OZCHI), (251), 115-121

Wenger, E. (1999) Communities of Practice, Cambridge University Press