2738 2003 — Ninth Americas Conference on Information Systems NOW THE TWAIN SHALL MEET: COMBINING SOCIAL SCIENCES AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING TO SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF EMERGENT SYSTEMS Sandeep Purao Pennsylvania State University spurao@ist.psu.edu Duane Truex Florida International University Duane.Truex@fiu.edu Lan Cao Georgia State University lcao@gsu.edu Abstract This paper introduces a research program aimed at aligning two research communities which share similar aims and research questions, but which are largely unaware of the work and the epistemological stance of the other. Both communities are concerned with the design and deployment of information systems in organizations and both recognize the mutual interdependence of these technologies and social systems. But each of these communities struggles with the nature of those interactions in different ways. It is our contention that by calling attention to the differences and similarities in approaches we maybe able to tap into a useful synergy. We hope to further the development of mid-range theories and models to help align these two epistemological stances. Keywords: Information system development, problem space, design space, representation techniques Introduction Much current research in information system development (ISD) focuses on creating IT artifacts (Information Systems) that support users’ activities in organizational contexts. The software engineering community, in focusing on techniques and processes for developing these artifacts, has paid insufficient attention to the complex relationship between the Information System (IS) and the organizational context in which it is embedded (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001). On the other hand, branches of the MIS community, such as the IFIP Working Group 8.2, have paid limited attention to translating their insights on organizational context into actionable techniques that may be used for building more effective information systems. Without the benefit of integration, these two streams have traveled down paths that may be viewed as increasingly specialized, making dialog difficult between the two communities. We suspect that this lack of dialog has resulted in increasing emphasis on minutia and decreasing relevance of the research outcomes to the IS community. As an applied research discipline, IS research is concerned with the understanding of IT in organizations and society. Without the benefit of an integrated perspective, the research outcomes, therefore, are likely to touch upon only parts of the solutions required for solving complex problems. This paper makes an attempt to combine important insights from these two research streams. A specific goal of the paper is to argue for the development of specific representational techniques that achieve this integration. The remainder of the paper is organized in three sections. Section 2 outlines theories that have driven investigation of IT in organizations. In section 3, we describe current research thrusts in software engineering. The reconciling of the two research streams is discussed in section 4. Finally, section 5 develops the argument for representational techniques that can help operationalize the lessons learned from social theories with the help of tools available to software engineers.