The order of technology: Complexity and control in a connected world

This paper examines some of the implications associated with the growing complexity of the contemporary world, consequent upon the expanding economic and organizational involvement of ICT-based systems and artefacts. Drawing on Luhmann, traditional forms of technological control are analyzed in term...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information and organization Vol. 15; no. 3; pp. 185 - 202
Main Author: Kallinikos, Jannis
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2005
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects:
Connectivity
Control
Functional closure
Functional simplification
Information systems
Information technology
Organization
Studies
Technology
Connectivity
Control
Organization
Functional closure
Technology
Functional simplification
ISSN:1471-7727, 1873-7919
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper examines some of the implications associated with the growing complexity of the contemporary world, consequent upon the expanding economic and organizational involvement of ICT-based systems and artefacts. Drawing on Luhmann, traditional forms of technological control are analyzed in terms of functional simplification and closure. Functional simplification involves the demarcation of an operational domain within which the complexity of the world is reconstructed as a simplified set of causal or instrumental relations. Functional closure implies the construction of a protective cocoon that is placed around the selected causal sequences to ensure their recurrent unfolding. While possible to analyze in similar terms, current developments, as manifested in the diffusion of large-scale information systems and mostly the internet spin a web of technological relations that challenge the strategies of functional simplification and closure and the organizational practices that have traditionally accommodated them.
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ISSN:1471-7727
1873-7919
DOI:10.1016/j.infoandorg.2005.02.001