ISIG Faculty Research Seminar

Mobile Information Technology at Work Creativity, Collaboration and Control

Carsten Sorensen, Silvia Elaluf-Calderwood & Ben Eaton
ISIG, LSE

1500-1700
Tuesday 16 February 2010

Room NAB 1.15

• view slides from this presentation
  • Sorensen
  • Eaton
  • Elaluf-Calderwood
     

There are in February 2010 over 4.7 billion mobile phone connections in the world and a growing number of other mobile information technologies permeate broad aspects of life. The around 1 billion mobile phones in developing countries comes close to matching the global total of the around 1.5 billion Internet connections. It is estimated that 6 billion mobile phone connections will be reached by 2013. Such a phenomenon clearly deserves to be studied and a growing body of research is exactly doing so. The mobile phone offers a highly visible new information technology (IT) that has found its way into social- and organisational life. Characteristic for by far most research of mobile IT is therefore a concern for this one single technology - the mobile phone. This is of course not strange given the sheer numbers but still relatively little research has so far broadened the focus to include a range of mobile information technologies, mainly as such technological arrangements are not yet mainstream even though it is not uncommon to find people managing complex portfolios of mobile IT. Event still, the organisational use of mobile IT, enterprise mobility, is the most striking area still needing much further research, and one raising critical issues in our understanding the intersection between the individual experience with mobile IT at work, collaboration in teams, and the organisational concern for efficiency. The aim of this presentation is to explore some of the key issues in the experience with mobile IT at work based on a number of empirical efforts conducted between 1993 and 2009. The advent of a variety of mobile technologies in organisational contexts raises issues of: Individual creativity in both utilising new opportunities, and in avoiding pitfalls; fluid teamwork collaboration; and the role of technology in establishing organisational control. In particular, the presentation will discuss the challenges of understanding the complex relationships between affordances and performances. One of the core theoretical concerns within the academic debate of mobile IT in general and enterprise mobility in particular is the need to identify and unfold a theoretical discourse of issues of particulars interest to the understanding of mobile information technology. So far this explosive technological phenomenon has largely failed to manifest itself in a significant number of high-quality Information Systems publications.

The presentation will contain two elements. The first part is a presentation of some of the research in Enterprise Mobility conducted at LSE the past decade. The second part is a brief presentation of current research with the Mobile VCE consortium. Silvia will present our ongoing study of the design of future mobile infrastructures as flexible networks. Ben will then conclude with a brief account of the ongoing project studying technical innovation processes aiming to establish new mobile interaction modalities. The aim is for the presentations to last one hour, leaving time for discussion.

If you are a visitor from outside LSE, please send a confirmation to f.white@lse.ac.uk. You will need to sign in at the reception desk of the New Academic Building. Please note places will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis - registration is not required for LSE students and staff.

Please note that public events organised by ISIG are normally videoed and streamed from our website. If you do not wish to appear in the video please inform the camera operator before the start of the session and seat yourself where you will not be inadvertently be in the field of view of the camera. If you do not inform us of your wish not to be recorded we will presume your consent to being included in the video.

For any further queries regarding this seminar or to request information about future events please contact Frances White. Research Coordinator.

page last updated 22 February, 2010

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