Effects of Representation Forms on Analysts' Identification of Systems Development Problems - An Empirical Study -

Despite repeated exhortation about the importance of social and human dimensions of systems development, socio-organizational issues continue to be neglected and ignored in the current information systems practice. A review of the human information processing literature suggests that the reasons for this continuing lack of attention to social issues may be found in the limitations of human cognition and information processing capacities. Bostrom and Heinen(1978) and Kumar and Bjorn-Anderson(1990) also suggest that the inadequate attention to social problems and issues by the analyst could originate from the analysts limited problem perception. This research explores how the representation forms of information systems(IS) methodology used in understanding and modeling the problem situation affect such systems development problem perception. Typically, a system development methodology prescribes the use of system models(i.e., system representations) to understand, analyze, evaluate, and design the information system. Given the size and complexity of information systems, and the abstraction and simplification underlying the modeling process, system representations usually depict only a limited set of aspects of the system. Thus, a methodology whose representations are limited to technical aspects will tend to limit the analyst's perspective to a technical one only(Kumar & Welke, 1990). Following the same line of argument, in contrast, it is the conjecture of this study that a methodology which specifies both social and technical aspects of IS development will help the analyst develop a more comprehensive view of the IS problem domain. Based on the above concept, a theoretical model was first developed which explained the systems analysts cognitive process. Drawing on this model, a research model was developed hypothesizing the impacts of representation forms on problem identification. The model was tested using a laboratory experiment with 70 individual subjects. A special computer software was developed with a hypermedia authoring tool to conduct the experiments in order to avoid experimenter biases and to maintain consistency in administrating repeated experiments. The program, designed to replace the experimenter, consisted of functions such as presenting the subjects with problem material, asking the subjects questions, and saving the typed answers of the subjects. The results indicate that representation forms strongly influence problem identification. It was found that the use of the socio-technical representation form led to the findings of more social problems than the use of technical representation form. The results imply significant effects of representation forms on problem findings and also suggest that the use of adequate representation forms may help overcome dysfunctional effects of our limited information processing capacity.