Chaos, Information Technology, Global Administration and Daily Life Research Project

This project is supported by the Australian Research Council (Grant No. DP0880853) and the UTS Research Centres:

General Outline

The Project investigates the production of disorder in everyday life through Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Despite the all pervasive nature of ICT and our dependence upon it, systems frequently do not work as expected, and little is known about the commonly reported experience of disruption and confusion amongst IT users. Despite continual claims of increased efficiency, administration, when distributed through ICT, routinely seems out of control and unpredictable even to those expecting to hold power. Even good software can unexpectedly produce disorder. If this is a common experience, then it cannot be ignored or taken as unusual or as unimportant.

Our aim is to take disorder seriously, to investigate this sense of disruption, to explore the relationship between order and disorder (and the differing definitions of order) and to produce analyses which will reduce this confusion. Our general hypothesis is that ordering systems create disorder, and thus that disorder cannot always be cured by better or stricter management.

We aim to:
a) Develop new theories of the relationship between social order and disorder in global systems, politics, management and software implementation;

b) Provide a framework to help organisations implement ICT systems so as to allow people to participate productively in government, administration, or the workplace without resenting computer systems or feeling ignored or sidetracked; and

c) Make proposals to help people deal with unexpected organisational chaos. Changing the ways we look at order and chaos will help all Australian leaders deal with a chaotically appearing world situation.
Research Procedure

The research is being conducted in two stages:

Stage 1

The first stage involves conducting interviews. We are appealing to a wide range of people to tell us of their experiences with the disordering effects of software, or the failure of ICT, especially of software installations. These interviews will be used to develop the background to conduct more detailed studies in Stage 2 of the research.
See the Interview Consent form (PDF, 15kb, 2 pages)
Some sample Questions

Stage 2

The second stage involves conducting two field based studies of ICT installations. We want to observe and report upon the state of things before the installation, during the installation and after the installation. Hopefully we can conduct these investigations in both business and NGO settings, so as to see if the different kind of imperatives faced by the organisations affect the installation process.

Project description as submitted to the ARC (PDF, 73kb, 10 pages)

Ethics

Researchers

Dr. James Goodman

Assoc. Prof. Didar Zowghi and

Dr. Jonathan Marshall

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.