Integrating systems thinking into IS education

Abstract

IS failure has been observed and documented in various articles (Barker and Frolick, 2003; Beresford et al., 1976; Bostrom and Heinen, 1977; Bussen andMichael, 1997; Heeks, 2002; Kay et al., 1999; Kaye, 1990; Keil and Robey, 2001, Mitev, 1994). Many researchers have tried to understand the phenomenon by studying success or failure factors (Birks et al., 2003; Peterson et al., 2002; Poon and Wagner, 2001; Schmitt and Kozar, 1978; Senn, 1978) with the hope that IS professionals can learn from these lessons (Ginzberg, 1981; Lyytinen and Robey, 1999). For example, Clemons and Row (1995) found that reasons for BPR failures are unrelated to the technical ability of organizations to implement information systems, but were instead due to the organization’s inability to understand its uncertain future strategic needs and its inability to make painful and difficult changes in response to these future strategic needs. Lorenzi and Riley (2003) have shown that reasons for IS failure include problems in communication, complexity, organization, technology, and leadership. They classified IS failure into four major categories: technical shortcomings, project management shortcomings, organizational issues, and the continuing information explosion. It is our view that we need to investigate the root of the problem of IS failure: IS education. Lyytinen and Robey (1999) noted that IS professionals commonly assume that their biggest challenge is to acquire new technical knowledge, and this is one of the barriers preventing IS professionals from learning from IS failure. A systems view would provide a more useful paradigm to understand IS failure in organizations. They call for reforming IS education to make the learning process effective for IS professionals. In this paper, we argue that the problemwith many IS failures comes partly from the lack of systems thinking in the IS curriculum. We suggest the incorporation of a systems thinking component into IS education as a longterm strategy to improve IS professionals’ capacity and to deal with the IS failure problem. The paper is organized in the following manner. We first view IS in organizations as a complex system and IS as an interdisciplinary field. Thenwe discuss the nature of many current IS curricula focusing on linear thinking and a single perspective. The next section reviews current trends of systems thinking and how they