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Information, Organisation and Technology pp 1–48Cite as

Semiotics, Virtual Organisations, and Information Systems

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Part of the book series: Information and Organisation Design Series ((INOD,volume 1))

Abstract

Traditional information system methods and organisation theories fail to give a clear account of virtuality, virtual organisations, horizontal organisation structures and governance forms, and multiple active representations. Semiotics helps us in finding new approaches for analysis and design of virtual organisations and information systems at the social level, the pragmatic level, and the semantic level. At the social level, the perspective on the role of information systems in organisations has shifted from a problem of the application of information and communication technology to an opportunity for constructing a virtual domain. In the elaboration of the basic idea on which an information system or virtual organisation is based, information system metaphors can be used. At the pragmatic level, the perspective on work and coordination has shifted from integrated planning and design to communication, cooperation, and coordination in multi-actor systems. The definition of the behaviour of information systems in terms of use cases, semiotics and language action theory gives us levels of interaction and patterns of interaction that can be used as norms of behaviour. At the semantic level, the perspective on the use of symbol structures has shifted from central processing of data to the self-organisation of multiple active representations.

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Authors
  1. Henk W. M. Gazendam
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, Staffordshire University, Beaconside, Stafford, ST18 0DG, UK

    Kecheng Liu

  2. Department of Information Systems, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, North Wollongong, NSW, Australia

    Rodney J. Clarke

  3. Center for Human Computer Interaction Department of Information and Media Science, University of Aarhus, Åbogade 34, DK-8200, Aarhus N, Denmark

    Peter Bøgh Andersen

  4. MEASUR Ltd, London, UK

    Ronald K. Stamper

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Gazendam, H.W.M. (2001). Semiotics, Virtual Organisations, and Information Systems. In: Liu, K., Clarke, R.J., Andersen, P.B., Stamper, R.K. (eds) Information, Organisation and Technology. Information and Organisation Design Series, vol 1. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1655-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1655-2_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1655-2

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