Technology in the time of corona: A critical institutional reading

IF 5.7 2区 管理学 Q1 INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE Information and Organization Pub Date : 2021-03-01 DOI:10.1016/j.infoandorg.2021.100342
Tammar B. Zilber , Yehuda C. Goodman
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引用次数: 7

Abstract

Drawing on institutional theory and using examples from Israel, we offer a critique of technology's deployment in responses to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). We distinguish between technologies-in-use (“small ‘t' technologies”), the bundle of artifacts and practices that bring them into being, and “Big ‘T' Technology,” the latter being technology as an institution – shared meanings, structures, and practices that govern thought and action. Using the conceptual tool kit of institutional theory, we make three interrelated arguments. First, the deployment of technologies-in-use in response to the pandemic is embedded in diverse and contradictory institutions, the institution of technology among them. These technologies participate in the very construction of crisis, which fosters the revert to known and established ways of being and doing. Thus, technologies-in-use are not necessarily the most efficient and rational but rather the most legitimate and readily available. Second, putting certain technologies into action has not been happening by itself. Instead, we have witnessed contestations among relevant agents – like politicians and experts – who engage in institutional work to serve their interests. Third, despite its global reach, technology is locally adapted and implemented in specific contexts. All in all, institutional theory helps us to explore further and critique the naïve belief, common in public discourse, in technology as a remedy of all things. Instead, it offers a more critical understanding of the cultural dynamics involved in putting technology to work in the coronavirus crisis. This critical lens carries implications for policymaking and implementation in times of crisis.

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电晕时代的技术:一种批判性的制度解读
根据制度理论并以以色列为例,我们对应对冠状病毒病(COVID-19)的技术部署提出了批评。我们区分了正在使用的技术(“小技术”)和“大技术”,前者是使它们成为现实的人工制品和实践的集合,后者是作为一种制度的技术——共享的意义、结构和控制思想和行动的实践。利用制度理论的概念工具,我们提出了三个相互关联的论点。首先,为应对这一流行病而部署使用中的技术根植于各种相互矛盾的机构中,其中包括技术机构。这些技术参与了危机的构建,它促进了对已知和既定的存在和行为方式的回归。因此,正在使用的技术不一定是最有效和合理的,而是最合法和最容易获得的。其次,将某些技术付诸实践并不是自动发生的。相反,我们目睹了相关代理人(如政治家和专家)之间的争论,他们从事机构工作以服务于自己的利益。第三,尽管技术的影响力遍及全球,但它是在当地适应并在特定情况下实施的。总而言之,制度理论帮助我们进一步探索和批判naïve信念,这种信念在公共话语中很常见,认为技术是解决一切问题的良药。相反,它对在冠状病毒危机中运用技术所涉及的文化动态提供了更批判性的理解。这一关键视角对危机时期的政策制定和实施具有启示意义。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
11.20
自引率
1.60%
发文量
18
期刊介绍: Advances in information and communication technologies are associated with a wide and increasing range of social consequences, which are experienced by individuals, work groups, organizations, interorganizational networks, and societies at large. Information technologies are implicated in all industries and in public as well as private enterprises. Understanding the relationships between information technologies and social organization is an increasingly important and urgent social and scholarly concern in many disciplinary fields.Information and Organization seeks to publish original scholarly articles on the relationships between information technologies and social organization. It seeks a scholarly understanding that is based on empirical research and relevant theory.
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