In this theoretical article the author explores how information technology (IT) innovation can be harnessed to promote the socioeconomic growth of developing nations. Adopting a behavioral perspective, he proposes that effective IT-based societal development requires the learning of a key competency, termed as IT artfulness: the creative or ingenious transformation of work/social practices through the contextually appropriate use of IT tools. The elaboration of this perspective is based on the nature of IT artifacts, and the way meaningful action in IT-based practices is constituted through articulation, which refers to the process by which interpretive schemes shape behavior or perception. Harnessing IT as an effective spur to socioeconomic development is seen to require the modification of relevant interpretive schemes in society that permit: (a) the innovative potential of IT to be recognized, and (b) human and material resources to be skillfully managed to achieve desired changes and heightened welfare. C 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

This paper essays the viewpoint that the development or innovation in society of technologies, such as information and communication technologies, should be self-cultivated rather than imported. Ideas are drawn from multiple research disciplines to inform the elaboration of this perspective. A behavioral notion of development, based on the notion of structural conditioning of behaviors of social units, is discussed and adopted. Concepts of change from cybernetic theory are then delineated, to be used analogously later on for illustrating behavioral aspects of technology adoption and societal development. Subsequently, current theoretical formulations in the economic literature on technological change are reviewed, to muster key insights for furthering an understanding of the behavioral notion of development. The paper then recruits principles and ideas from current developments in sociotechnical systems (STS) theory. The applicability of these ideas for promoting understanding of macro-phenomena in national development systems is discussed. Finally, the paper integrates these various strands of theoretical formulations into the assertion that it is more important to invest in the cultivation of the patterns of behavior that underpin the various technological innovations of modernization than it is to invest in the pervasive uptake of information and communication technologies.

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Recent advances in systems theory have significantly raised its utility for supporting problem-structuring activity in organizations. However, this approach has been inadequately developed for representing and evaluating the nature and outcomes of organizational functioning. Toward that end this paper introduces a new method, called interpretive systems analysis, which incorporates ideas from semiotic theory. Using this method, the complex web of agents, actions, means, and circumstances in organizational functioning may be analytically discriminated into multiple courses of action that are emphasized on dimensions of legitimacy, motivation, and power. An integrative appraisal of key elements and factors shaping organizational performance may then be achieved through the formulation of "systems of significance," formed of oppositional and associative relations. Organizations can thus be illuminated in terms of principle inconsistencies and tensions shaping their operations. The application and utility of this method is illustrated through a case study of customer service operations.