Research and teaching on IT and socio-economic change at LSE started in the late 1960s when the School was awarded a grant from the National Computing Centre (NCC) to establish teaching and research in the then new discipline of 'systems analysis'. Frank Land, at that time an executive of LEO Computers, was recruited for this initiative. In the early 1970s the pioneering work of Professor Land on socio-technical systems design and of Ronald Stamper on semiotics, led to the launching of the masters programme Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems (ADMIS). The ADMIS programme, starting with a handful of students, and a team of three academic staff, proved attractive and rapidly expanded to reach more than 150 students by the year 2006. In the meantime the academic staff increased to a faculty of 16 members.
A PhD programme, launched in the late 1970s, flourished and some of the leading academics and practitioners worldwide graduated from it.
From 1991 till 2006, as the Department of Information Systems, we established an interdisciplinary research programme on the social study of IT that contributed to the development of conceptual foundations for IS phenomena and digital infrastructures. We became known for social constructionist and phenomenological epistemologies of socio-technical research in IS. In our empirical research we studied information systems in diverse socio-organisational contexts, including financial services, health care, and developing countries.
In 2006 we became one of the four constituent groups of the newly formed Department of Management . Being part of a Department which studies management from a social science perspective has provided opportunities for positioning our research within a multidisciplinary effort that aims to understand and shape the organisations of the contemporary global socio-economic context. To this broader collective effort we bring our in depth understanding of IT-enabled innovation.
In 2011 we launched the MSc Management, Information Systems and Digital Innovation (MISDI) Master's degree programme, which replaced the former MSc ADMIS programme. The MISDI degree builds on our long experience of teaching socio-technical information systems and provides a research led programme on the management of IT-enabled innovation in organisations and on the emerging processes of innovation afforded by the internet and mobile technologies.
Seminal publications
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Information in business and administrative systems
Ronald Stamper, London: Batsford, 1973
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The new barbarian manifesto: how to survive the information age
Ian Angell, London: Kogan Page, 2001
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The labyrinths of information: challenging the wisdom of systems
Claudio Ciborra, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002
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Information systems and global diversity
Chrisanthi Avgerou, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002
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The social study of information and communication technology: innovation, actors, and contexts
Chrisanthi Avgerou, Claudio Ciborra, and Frank Land (eds) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004
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Social theory and philosophy for information systems
John Mingers and Leslie Willcocks (eds), Chichester: Wiley, 2004
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The consequences of information: institutional implications of technological change
Jannis Kallinikos, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2006
Leading in international IS research
Prof Frank Land was a member of the establishing committee, and Prof Chrisanthi Avgerou was councillor for Europe, Middle East and Africa in 1995-1996. Prank Land earned the AIS LEO award and Chrisanthi Avgerou became AIS Fellow.
LSE led the establishment of the annual ECIS Conference and Prof Frank Land chaired the first Conference at Henley. The late Prof Claudio Ciborra chaired ECIS 2003 in Naples, and Dr Leslie Willcocks chaired ECIS 2009 in Verona.
Members of the faculty chaired many of the IFIP WG8.2 series of conferences. Prof Chrisanthi Avgerou chaired TC9 from 2005 till 2011.
The Information Systems and Innovation Faculty Group played a lead role in the formation of UKAIS. Dr Steve Smithson has served as its President, andProf Frank Land as a member of its Management Board.