Geographic information technologies, structuration theory, and the world trade center crisis

Abstract

Advocates of geographic information technologies (GIT)have long claimed significant advantages to bringing a spatially oriented perspective to bear on organizational and policy decision making, however, for a variety of reasons, these advantages have been more difficult to realize in practice than might be supposed. In this article, we argue that awareness and appreciation of the potential value of GIT changed dramatically as a result of the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks on September 11, 2001. We use a structurationist theoretical perspective to show that GITs were "enacted" in a variety of novel ways by social actors thrust together by the demands of the crisis to form interorganizational systems, and we illustrate this process through three extended examples of GIT adaptation and innovation during the crisis. One lasting consequence of this episode is that GITs have moved from serving as a relatively static reference tool to a dynamic decision-making tool for emergency situations. We conclude by suggesting that the crisis was a catalyst for change in the use of GIT and, reciprocally, in the social structures in which GIT will be deployed in the future.

Enterprise systems and government organizational changes

“…This explains why improvised usage of technical features can override the originally intended purposes [5]. While acknowledging that technological properties have inscribed in them the designers' intentions and knowledge at the time of development, this view focuses on the selection and modification of particular technological capabilities by users [1].…”

Enterprise system implementation in national and local Korean police agencies

“…Properties of technological artifacts may be determined by the system designers' intents and knowledge at the time of development, while users in adopting organizations recognize, select, and modify technological artifacts [11,27]. In other words, the view posits that technology is composed not only of physical artifacts implemented by developers, but also of the ongoing process of use and adaption.…”

“…Structuration theory has been applied to discretionary technologies such as Lotus Notes [29], a group decision support system (GDSS) [7], an automated computer simulation technology [17], and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) [11]. One of the major characteristics of these technologies resides in the fact that it is possible for users to modify technological properties of the systems.…”

“…Structural features are rules and resources that are embedded in information processing capabilities of technologies [11,20]. Spirit is defined as "the general intent with regard to values and goals underlying a given set of structural features" [7, p.126].…”

Object Based GIS-T Data Model for Road Infrastucture Maintenance in Uganda

“…Geographical Information Technologies (GITs) which are specialised Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that deal with the collection, management, storage and manipulation of geo referenced data are quite fundamental in dealing with this relevant data for decision making. More recently, it has become clear that GIS, together with GPS, aerial photography, RS techniques, and other spatially related tools for decision making, comprise a larger array of complementary tools that can be grouped together under the more comprehensive title of GIT [2].The use of these technologies is increasingly shifting from reference to dynamic decision making tools. And yet these technologies are under utilised for Road Infrastructure Maintenance (RIM) works.…”