The uncertainty of information systems: Cause or effect of VUCA?

Abstract

The growing demand for information, an increase in personal computer skills and the key figure-driven management of companies have made IT ubiquitous, even indispensable. However, are users and decision makers better informed than their ancestors, more secure in their decisions today? Or does the ubiquity of information lead to a higher uncertainty, to an endless search for undisputable decision-making to no avail? Our subjective familiarity with information technology borders to over-assessment, and may lead to us taking higher risks both in economic, but also social nature. The article follows this question along three infrastructural spheres, based on F.A. von Hayeks "pretence of knowledge": the development of technology relies on an existing technology infrastructure (the Internet), which allows to connect even smallest information feeds (the Internet of Things). Based on this, the knowledge infrastructure allows sustainable business models to provide new economic services. Both technology and knowledge follow a "spontaneous order", and so it is a requirement for us humans to develop and maintain a legal order to provide acceptable borders between which the development of secure and safely to use information technology can take place.