Tarja Tiainen

Information System Specialist Predispositions: Technology-centricity and Masculinity Tarja Tiainen

This book focuses on IS specialists? future visions and opens what kinds of predispositions they include. Predispositions are unquestionable assumptions, beliefs that are taken for granted, common sense and normal ways of behaviour. As IS specialists design and mediate IS and ICT and so they influence the working environment of others in significant ways, it is important to understand what kind of predispositions guide they hold. This study is based on the analysis of two text sets: Essays which are published in the Communications of the ACM and interviews of 24 Finnish IS specialists. The text sets portray the future from a technology-centred perspective; e.g., technology is presented as the most important driving force of development. Furthermore, the text sets include a masculine world view, in which women are presented as problems. In any case, the text sets portray a one-sided view of people. The results not only describe the individuals' predispositions but also the predispositions of the community of IS specialists and the IS field, as well.