Investigating Mid-level IT Affordances as Drivers for Societal Change: Addressing the Education Data Challenge in The Gambia

Valbø, Bjørnar; Sanner, Terje Aksel

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-19429-0_28

Cited by 1 publication

(6 citation statements)

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“…The affordance lens has gained traction in IS research (Fromm et al, 2020;Valbø, 2021), serving as a useful tool to understand ICT-related organizational change. The notion of affordances was first introduced by Gibson (1977Gibson ( , 1979 to the field of evolutionary psychology:…”

Section: Theory: Affordances In Ismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Gibson, 1979, p. 127) The concept was picked up in the HCI field (e.g., Gaver, 1991;Norman, 1988) and later found its way to the IS community. However, because the concept was adopted by IS (and HCI) researchers before it was fully developed in the original field (Fromm et al, 2020), there is a divergent use of the affordance lens among IS scholars (Leidner et al, 2018;Valbø, 2021;Volkoff & Strong, 2017). A frequently used affordance definition is that of Volkoff and Strong (2013), being "the potential for behaviors associated with achieving an immediate concrete outcome and arising from the relation between an object (e.g., an IT artifact) and a goal-oriented actor or actors'" (p. 823).…”

Section: Theory: Affordances In Ismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Leidner et al (2018) also subscribe to this idea, urging IS researchers to avoid focusing on lower-level technology-use affordances. Valbø and Sanner (2023) propose a nested affordance process model as a tool to nudge IS scholars toward the appropriate level of analysis in case studies using the affordance lens. In the present study we develop a framework for the identification of micro-, meso-, and macro-level affordances.…”

Section: Theory: Affordances In Ismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions. In an attempt to unite different frameworks that are addressing similar issues, 2 Valbø and Sanner (2023) propose a nested affordance process model (Figure A1), combining ideas from Gaver (1991), Strong et al (2014), Burton-Jones and, and Thapa and Sein (2018):…”

Section: Conflict Of Interest Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…… The trajectory along which an affordance travels (Thapa & Sein, 2018) is illustrated with the arrows, and the facilitating conditions serving as prerequisites for the emergence of the affordances are illustrated with the dotted arrows. (Valbø & Sanner, 2023).…”

Section: Conflict Of Interest Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Informing sustainable development in education: Identification and actualization of layered IS affordances

Valbø,

Sanner

2023

E J Info Sys Dev Countries

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This paper reports from a qualitative case study in the Gambian education sector. The study applies an affordance perspective to the ongoing strengthening of the national education management information system. Our analysis distinguishes between micro‐level technology‐use affordances (e.g., civil servants using IT for data capture and reporting), meso‐level information system (IS) affordances (e.g., data‐driven decision making at the organizational level), and macro‐level affordances, which include policy interventions to ensure the attainment of education sector goals. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, the paper introduces a stepwise framework for IS affordance identification in terms of granularity levels (micro, meso and macro). Second, the paper outlines how use of IT at the micro‐level allows for the actualization of meso‐level IS affordances, which in turn serve as a foundation for the articulation of higher‐level interventions. Far too often, ICT for development (ICT4D) projects focus on putting technology in the hands of users with the assumption that “better data” will drive development. The significant work involved in identifying and actualizing meso‐level IS affordances is often not explicated and recognized in related plans and budgets. By highlighting meso‐level IS affordance actualizations, the paper explicates the link between public sector IT adoption and use and intended societal‐level impact, which remains a key policy and research concern.

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Section: Theory: Affordances In Ismentioning

confidence: 99%