Now showing 1 - 10 of 40
  • Publication
    Telemedicine in the upper Amazon: Interplay with local health care practices
    (Management Information Systems Research Center, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, 2007-06)
    This article is based on the introduction of a telemedicine system in the jungles of northeastern Peru. The system was designed by a European consortium led by a Spanish polytechnic in cooperation with two universities in Lima and the Peruvian Ministry of Health. The purpose of the system was to improve health conditions by extending science-based medicine into a region with well-established traditional healing practices. The central analytical focus of this article is on the interplay between the public health care system, which used the telemedicine system, and local health care practices. The manner in which scientific medicine was delivered through information technology and public health care services is analyzed in terms of the health personnel's activity, the local population 's conceptions of health, and the trajectories followed by patients seeking recovery. The author participated in the design of the second evaluation of the telemedicine system and acted as a participant observer in the regional hospital and peripheral clinics. In addition to interviewing health care staff from the study area, the author also met with traditional healers, and patients in the districts whether or not they were involved in the telemedicine project. New institutional theory provided the analytical framework for the interpretation of the observed behavior of the public health care staff, traditional healers, and potential patients. Empirically, this study describes the informal aspects of the functioning of the telemedicine system, and its partial mismatch with the definitions of health and illness employed by local communities and healers. An argument is made that people's construction of their health, which is embedded in their normal patterns of action, should be identified, and then considered in the design, implementation, and evaluation of future telemedicine projects. This article problematizes an approach to telemedicine-based health development that is weakly accountable to local social contexts and their diversity.
      378
  • Publication
    A bigger picture: information systems and spatial data infrastructure research perspectives
    A weakness of spatial data infrastructure (SDI) studies has been the limited uptake of research outside of positivist and scientific-technological perspectives. To put it simply, a study of a SDI without considering other philosophies of knowledge will be greatly constrained to technical and administrative organizational dimensions. The ontological uniformity of SDI studies is unnecessarily restrictive. While valuable in a narrowly defined framework of project, SDI studies should consider the larger set of interactions involving actors in political, administrative and socio-technical domains. We review the development of information system research approaches and consider key positions from its diverse ontologies (positivism and interpretivism) and theories (strategic alignment, interactionism and social construction). We point to possible ways to consider these positions in SDI research.
      181
  • Publication
    Scalability as Institutionalization - Practicing District Health Information System in an Indian State Health Organization
    This paper is based on an analysis and of the introduction and scaling processes of a health management information system in the public health care system of an Indian state. The system is developed and implemented by an international action-research network in close collaboration with the local health department. The purpose of the system is to improve health information circulation and use within the health system by establishing action-nets to get institutionalized into organizational practices. Data is being collected by directly participating in this project within an action research framework. This ongoing initiative is presented by introducing the two main organizations involved (the health services and HISP, the implementing organization), and then focusing on the way they are interweaving part of their activities around the health management information system. The conclusive part discusses how this process is relevant for learning and the scaling up of these kinds of systems.
      216
  • Publication
    Buyers of 'Lemons': How can a Blockchain Platform Address Buyers’ Needs in the Market for ‘Lemons’?
    The second-hand automotive market is one with the least trust from consumers. Customers on the second-hand car market suffer from such problems as the car being in worse condition than initially indicated, accident damage that is not disclosed, fraud, etc. Akerlof, described the market for used cars as an example of the problem of information asymmetries and resulting quality uncertainty. In order to cope with quality uncertainties, used car buyers actively engage themselves in information seeking. Blockchain technology promises to automatize the tracking of cars through their lifecycles and provide reliable information at any point in time it is needed. In our study, we investigate the problems car buyers face during information seeking and propose requirements for the design of a blockchain-based system to address these.
      809Scopus© Citations 13
  • Publication
    Narrating the Stories of Leaked Data: The Changing Role of Journalists after WikiLeaks and Snowden
    Traditionally, investigative journalists had a gatekeeping role between their confidential sources of information and the public sphere. Over the last two decades and with the arrival of new media, this role has been undergoing changes. Recent cases of whistleblowing, such as WikiLeaks and Snowden, illustrate how contemporary media allow individuals to release data directly to the global audience. This raises the question of how recent leaks affect how journalists operate. In this study we compare how The Guardian covered two cases of whistleblowing which are commonly referred to as WikiLeaks and Snowden. We analyse how access to leaked data is provided or facilitated on The Guardian website, how readers are invited to interact with these data and how journalists present their own activities. A qualitative analysis of the leading articles further shows how the stories are framed and how much prominence is given to the data and the various actors.The results show how the roles of journalists shift from gatekeeping to data management, interpretation, contextualisation and narration. Journalists may no longer be needed to publish leaked data but they are still needed to tell the stories of leaked data.
      781Scopus© Citations 8
  • Publication
    Openness may not mean democratization - e-Grievance systems in their consequences
    E-government initiatives tend to come charged with expectations of improving the performance of public administrations by reducing inequalities in public service provision. The studies presented here elaborate on implications and consequences of systems to handle citizen complaints and public feedback related to the services provided to and managed for the population of different cities. Two cases from India and one from Europe have been chosen to explore what kind of consequences such systems can have in different settings. All cases are researched with a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Although such systems come wrapped within the rhetoric of universalism and more equitable access, empirical data show that, by facilitating 'participation of the fittest', they get exploited more effectively by those who are better off, already. Therefore bureaucracy tends to become more dependent on the social environment.
      253
  • Publication
    The 'Business' of Authentication - From Iron Cage to Silicon Enclosure?
    (2016-02-02)
    This research aims at relating the currently distant research domains of planning and distributed systems of authentication. The connection addressed here are the so called "smart contracts" and it is approached from an organizational studies perspective.
      130
  • Publication
    The Bitcoin Game: Ethno-resonance as Method
    The global financial crisis and the contemporaneous emergence of the digital currency Bitcoin invite us to think about money and how it often functions almost imperceptibly in society. In this article, we show that Bitcoin is a ‘new object of concern’ that also compels us to reimagine ethnography in a digital age. We present a method, which we term ethno-resonance, that is both a reaction to the conditions presented by the Bitcoin phenomenon and a way of maintaining critical distance from its cyberlibertarian politics. We explicate six aspects of the method, framed around answers to what, why, how, who, when and where questions. Applied to cryptocurrencies, the method leads us to depict Bitcoin as a game, and we analyse the game’s dynamics through mapping the interplay between four foundational myths that animate, complicate and sustain the game. More broadly, this contributes to our understanding of the nature of money and alternative currencies.
    Scopus© Citations 8  933