The phenomenology of information systems evaluation: Overcoming the subject/object dualism

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that the path to better IS evaluation in organizations is to get beyond the dualisms of subject/object, mind/body, and cognition/action that limit our analysis, understanding, and practice of evaluation in the flow of organizationallife. We present a discussion of the unity of cognition and action using the work of phenomenologists such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Henry. We argue that the subject/object dualism as described in the evaluation literature only seems to exist because we accept and depend on another dualism, namely the assumed split between cognition and action. We propose that managers do not apply methods, propose alternatives, argue costs and benefits, and attempt to subvert these, in order to judge or decide. Rather the applying, proposing, arguing and subverting-the discourse-is exactly already the judging and the deciding. We proceed to present a set of principles that take the unity of cognition and action seriously. We believe these point to a way of making IS evaluation more skillful while taking into account both the rational and the political dimensions that now seem to stand as irreconcilable opposites. © 2003 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.