Øgland, Petter, University of Oslo, Department for Informatics, P.O.Box 1080 Blindern
0316 Oslo, Norway, petterog@ifi.uio.no
From my understanding, based on how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has been lectured and discussed in INF5210, the aim of ANT seems, at least by some of the early contributors to ANT (Latour &
Woolgar, 1979; Latour, 1993), to be to do an anthropological investigation of scientists and engineers, as if they were part of a strange primitive tribe. The values of this tribe are characterized by how they interact with machines and do something called ‘research’. As expected by such a narrow-minded culture, the “modern” culture, meaning that ANT as an acronym (ant) ‘was perfectly fit for a blind, myopic, workaholic, trail-sniffing, and collective traveler’ (Latour, 2005).
If we consider Malinowski’s statement that the goal of anthropology should be to grasp the native’s point of view, then Latour and the IS researchers describe the information infrastructure oriented culture as a culture that seems to be more or less completely devoid of meaning. This seems to fit nicely with Ortego y Gasset’s saying that science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre.
Anyway, through the perspective of ANT it is possible to write about science and technology from the perspective of power and structure, talking about scientists and engineers as if they were politicians; making allies, producing networks, manipulating, negotiating and behaving in ways to convince others and achieve their goals. Latour’s story of Pasteur (Latour, 1987) appears to be representative in the way that ANT can be useful for telling stories about “heroes” or “would-be-heroes”, producing mythology similar to what has been collected by Campbell (2003).
Now, of what use could ANT be for doing IS research? Why should we be interested in describing computerized society as an ant colony? What kind of problems do we expect to solve from producing such a mythology? Perhaps a partial answer may be found in reading Latour as a student of Serres
(Serres & Latour, 1995), and seeing the political implications of science, such as World War II and
Hiroshima, as a reason for bringing together the humanities and the conceptual revolutions in science.
Another answer, perhaps, could be Latour trying to write a mythological story about himself, as a heroic scientist, as he seemed to suggest in an interview where he stated that his only ambition was that only ambition is that people would say "I read a Latour 1992" with the same pleasure as they would say "I drank a Latour 1992" (Crawford, 1993).
When it comes to the use of ANT in information systems (IS) research, however, there appears to be a certain extent of controversy, some researchers suggesting that ANT is just the latest fashion for presenting traditional IS ideas, based on conventional socio-technical systems thinking (Cordello &
Shaikh, 2006). Seen from the perspective of ANT, it appears that the IS researchers are trying to translate their interests into the network of people curious of ANT, similarly to how management consultants go about manipulating management by selling old ideas in new packages (Legge, 2002).
1.1
Describe how ANT is used in the given artices (Hanseth & Monteiro, 1997; Braa,
Monteiro & Sahay, 2004; Yoo, Lyytinen & Yang, 2005)
Motivated by the introduction about, my impression is that the use of ANT in IS research would be more or less the same as using “The Prince” (Machiavelli, 1984) as a theory for analysis and design of

information systems. In the world of Callon, Latour and Law, society seems to be like a network of mazes and rats, or game theory-like concepts (von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1944; Holland, 1989;
Axelrod & Cohen, 2000) as a more mathematical way of describing world in terms of actors, strategies and utility functions.
1.1.1
Hanseth and Monteiro: Inscribing behaviour in information infrastructure standards
This paper seems to be using ANT from a fairly traditional perspective, although not it a very accessible manner. While skipping what I believe to be the main reason for talking about
“inscription” in ANT, namely the way scientists inscribe nature into texts and thus make the texts objects for discussion rather than the phenomena in themselves, is undercommunicated by leaping to the idea of semiotics (the world as sign and text), and thus seeing all sorts of things as “immutable mobiles”.
What gets totally lost in this leap, for me at least, is the interesting and controversial point Latour is making about Science and Technology Studies (STS) living in a no-man’s land between the “two cultures” (Latour, 1999). My understanding of what he is saying, is that the ANT perspective views the sociology of science and technology as unfolding itself in “World 1” (Popper, 1978), while the scientists he is describing are using World 1, World 2 and World 3 for making sense of what they are doing. To which extent Latour describe his own research as making contributions to World 3 by studying World 1, is not clear to me, but I would not be surprised if he would say something like this.
However, when Hanseth and Monteiro use the hotel key as the main metaphor for explaining inscription of behaviour into IS standards, seems to me to make the reading of the text rather difficult
(for non-experts), unless, of course, one had discussed the hotel problem in the context of social engineering (Scientific Management, TQM, BPR etc), i.e. in a context of science and engineering.
Figure 1.
An attempt to understand ANT from the perspective of Popper’s three worlds (1978)
The aim of the paper is to describe how behaviour is inscribed into information infrastructure standards,

Are the authors contribution to ANT or to II theory?
1.1.2
Braa, Monteiro & Sahay: Networks of action
One interesting aspect of the paper on “networks of action” is that it may perhaps be read as a two-fold
ANT-analysis, focusing on the actor-network of the engineers designing the health information system and on the actor-network of the scientists collecting data from the design process, building information infrastructure theory. From my point of view, the most interesting aspect of the paper is how it attempts to contribute to the theory of action research through the use of STS. While one sometimes get the impression that most of the
Main concepts are ‘translation’ and ‘alignment’ (p. 342).
1.1.3
Yoo, Lyytinen & Yang: The role of standards in innovation and diffusion of broadband mobile services
In this third paper, the use of ANT seems more …
1.2
Discuss to which extent the writers have a different understanding of ANT
My impression is that the first paper comes the closest to the original ideas of ANT, using ideas similar to how Latour did anthropological studies of scientists as a way of trying to understand how information infrastructures evolve or fail to evolve. The second paper, “networks of action”, builds on the aspects of ANT used in the first paper
2.1
Discuss to which extent the development processes in (Braa, Monteiro & Sahay, 2004;
Yoo, Lyytinen & Yang, 2005) correspond with the design theory in Hanseth & Lyytinen
(2004).
2.1.1
Action research
What I personally find the most interesting in the “networks of action” paper, is the implied idea of networks at different levels. Within each of the sites discussed, there are health information systems that are being evolved as parts of national health information infrastructure, but we also have a network of action researchers, linking the national infrastructures into an international infrastructure.
What I see as interesting here is a reflection of how research is carried out in international networks everywhere. Researchers are working in their laboratories or fields, but in order to claim scientific validity for their findings and theoretical constructions, they need to take part in international research networks, typically consisting of journals and conferences. The idea of using the scientific networks as a way of crossing national and political borders, and, in general, as a way of developing infrastructures in general is an interesting idea. Internet becoming an interface for scientific work, through online journals and search engines like Google Scholar, makes the research community an increasingly important and relevant way for cultivating and regulating other information infrastructures, if those responsible for building such infrastructures are willing to collaborate with researchers or let their people working with such issues evolve into researchers.

2.1.2
Complex adaptive systems (CAS)
Although the design ideas presented by Hanseth & Lyytinen (2004) are interesting, the illustrations of good design (Internet infrastructure) and bad design (hospital infrastructure) makes me less convinced.
In the case of the Internet, my understanding is a lesson saying something about the “survival of the fittest” where the “fittest” have been identified as those who survived when the struggle was over.
Perhaps the Internet can be used for writing mythology on how to build networks, but I wonder if there are any real insights in that case, i.e. valid observations that can be generalized from the case and used for building other sustainable networks.
The hospital case, to me, seems like something doomed for failure. As it appears that the IT have very little or no formal IT education, are being understaffed, uncreative, no understanding of process- and project management, it seems like a miracle that the failure wasn’t greater than what is reported in the paper. Although sociological analysis, like ANT, should be carried out regularly, like it is suggested in the first step of the action research cycle (,1978) and most other process improvement frameworks, my feeling is that the success of organizational develop in one should use a proper design theory, like
Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) (e.g. Dooley et al, 1992; Goldstein, 1991), rather than doing even more ANT analysis.
2.2
Suggest improvements for the design theory, based on the insights from the two first papers. The INF5210 project may also be used as an example for illustrating the effects of the suggested improvements
The way I see it, the only thing that seems to make ANT useful for design purposes is that it provides a perspective of the world that seems to be similar to that of the ant colony, as mentioned in section 1.
From the perspective of ant colonies and the like, there are well-known design theories, such as complex adaptive systems (CAS), that should prove much more useful than ANT.
While ANT may be a useful tool for describing data in terms of intelligent networks, built up from unintelligent actants, a theory without any basis in mathematics seems pointless as a basis for engineering design. What the designer probably have to do, is to translate the ANT documents into traditional design structures, perhaps using traditional waterfall models to make it all fit together.
If we had been using CAS instead, the design strategies developed by CAS people (e.g. Holland,
1998) would bring about charts and plans that would be flexible and fit with the epistemology provided by the ANT analysis.
2.3
Discuss to which extent the projects and processes discussed in “From Control to Drift”
(Ciborra et al, 2000) would have given better results, given this revised design theory
In “From control to drift” (Ciborra et al, 2000), there are six case stories. Most of the cases are failure stories illustrating the “normal accident” theory of Perrow (1984), where tightly coupled systems fail as a hole due to the possibilities of domino effects built into the design. More interesting, as pointed out by Monteiro on one of the cases (Ciborra, 2000: p. 79), the motivation for introducing Lotus notes at Statoil had to do with internal politics (the IT department wanting greater power) and had apparently little to do with increasing productivity, quality or flexibility, despite ISO 9001 certification being used as an excuse for the introduction.
Braa, J., Monteiro, E., Sahay, S.: Networks of action: sustainable health information systems across developing countries , 2004. MIS Quarterly, Special Issue on Action Research.

Campbell, J. The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work , 2003. New World
Library: New York.
Ciborra, C. et al.: From Control to Drift , 2000. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Cordello, A. and Shaikh, M. From Epistemology to Ontology: Challenging the Constructed “truth” of
ANT , 2006. Information Technology and People.
Crawford, H. “An Interview with Bruno Latour," Configurations 1 (1993): 247-268
Hanseth, O. and Lyytinen, K.: Theorizing about the design of Information Infrastructures: design kernel theories and principles , 2004.
Hanseth, O. and Monteiro, E.: Inscribing behavior in information infrastructure standards , 1997.
Accounting, Management & Information Technology. Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 183-211
Latour, B. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society , 1993.
Harvard University Press: Boston, Massachusettes.
Latour, B. The Pasteurization of France , 1989. Harvard University Press: Boston, Massachusettes.
Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts , 1979. Princeton
University Press: Princeton, New Jersey.
Legge, K. On knowledge, business consultants and the solling of total quality management , 2002. In
Clarke T. and Fincham, R. (eds.), Critical Consulting: New Perspectives on the Manageemtn
Advice Industry. Oxford: Blackwell.
Machiavelli, N. The Prince , 1984. Bantham Classics: London.
Serres, M. and Latour, B. Conversations on Science, Culture and Time , 1995. University of Michigan
Press: Ann Arbor.
Yoo, Y, Lyytinen, K, Yang, H.: The role of standards in innovation and diffusion of broadband mobile services: The case of South Korea , 2005. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol 14,
Issue 3.

Oppgavesettet består av 2 oppgaver med tilhørende spørsmål. Det kan gjøres presiseringer og fortolkninger av oppgaveteksten, men da må dette spesifiseres tydelig i besvarelsen.
Vennligst husk på at besvarelsen skal være på inntil 6000 ord, eksklusive referanser og eventuelle vedlegg. Den kan skrives på norsk eller engelsk. Fristen for levering er
13.12. kl. 15.00. Det vises til nærmere detaljer på kursets nettsted.
Oppgave 1 a)
Redegjør for hvordan ANT er benyttet (hvilke begreper som brukes, hvilken mening de gis og hvordan de anvendes) i artiklene
1.
Hanseth, O. and Monteiro, E.: Inscribing behavior in information infrastructure standards , 1997. Accounting, Management & Information
Technology. . Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 183-211. ( paper is here )
2.
Braa, J., Monteiro, E., Sahay, S.: Networks of action: sustainable health information systems across developing countries , 2004. MIS Quarterly,
Special Issue on Action Research. ( paper in pdf is here .).
3.
Yoo, Y, Lyytinen, K, Yangb, H.: The role of standards in innovation and diffusion of broadband mobile services: The case of South Korea , 2005.
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol 14, Issue 3. ( link to journal .) b) Vurder i hvilken grad forfatterne har ulik forståelse av ANT.
Oppgave 2 a) Vurder i hvilken grad utviklings-prosessene som beskrives i artikkel 2 og 3 ovenfor er i samsvar med ”designteorien” som beskrives i artikkelen Hanseth,
O., Lyyttinen, K.: Theorizing about the design of Information Infrastructures: design kernel theories and principles . ( paper in pdf is here ) b)
Foreslå forbedringer av denne ”designteorien” med utgangspunkt i de erfaringene som beskrives i disse to artiklene. Du kan også benytte eksemplet fra din prosjektoppgave til å illustrere effektene av forslagene til foredringer. c)
Vurder i hvilken grad de prosjektene eller prosessene som beskrives i ”From
Control to Drift” kunne ha gitt bedre resultat ved at denne ”designteorien” hadde vært anvendt.