This section provides downloads of several useful tools and over 35 articles related to various aspects of the work system approach. Several current working papers are included, and others will be added over time in the hope of providing access to the most recent developments and also generating feedback.

To download any article, just click on its title.

Most of the sections contain brief comments that may help you identify an article of possible interest while skipping over articles that are less valuable or irrelevant for your purposes. Several articles that belong in several sections are listed several times. Some sections are not strictly chronological. Dates are included in parentheses because some of the ideas in the earlier articles were revised subsequently.

Caveat: Many of the articles overlap in one way or another because they needed to re-introduce work system basics as the foundation of whatever new ideas were being explained at the time of publication. Also, there are some inconsistencies between articles because experience led to clearer terminology in later articles.

Tools for Teaching and Analysis

This section provides several tools and guidelines that can be used in teaching or when analyzing an IT-reliant work system in any setting.

The work system snapshot is a one-page summary of six elements of a work system. Many MBA and EMBA students have found this tool extremely useful for clarifying the scope of a system at the beginning of an analysis project or simply in a discussion with   their customers or peers at work.

Although the work system snapshot is a semi-formal tool, adhering to consistency guidelines for work system snapshots leads to better, more understandable one page summaries, which in turn reduce confusion and save time.

It is often useful to think about the extent to which a system in an organization conforms to general work system principles. The work system principles checklist is readily usable for that assessment.

What should you really think about when you evaluate a business process? Flow charts and other documentation tools document the work flow while ignoring many other topics and issues that are important. A one page summary of participant-related concerns provides useful reminders about the essential nature of issues related to people who work within systems.

A recent extension of the work system method uses service responsibility tables inspired by a service value chain framework. You can download a template for a service responsibility table with four columns: provider responsibilities, customer responsibilities, problems and issues, and recommendations. (see explanation in “Service System Fundamentals” article below.

Basic Concepts of IT-Reliant Systems in Organizations

The Work System Basics page on this site summarizes the main ideas in the work system approach, including the work system framework, work system life cycle model, and the goals of the work system method. “Service System Fundamentals” (below) summarizes some of the same ideas, and then adds a service value chain framework that extends the work system approach. The “Sysperanto” article proposes a possible ontology of the IS field and explains why most of the basic ideas of information systems are actually ideas about work systems. The “Service Interaction Theory” working paper introduces a new approach to thinking about system interactions. It contains a preliminary mapping of different types of designed and accidental system interactions, any of which may affect system success. These ideas may be valuable for analyzing ERP implementations where multiple work systems may have conflicting configuration needs related to shared ERP infrastructure.

(2008) “Service System Fundamentals: Work System, Value Chain, and Life Cycle ,” IBM Systems Journal, 47(1), 2008, pp. 71-85.

(2008) “System interaction Theory” Unpublished working paper

(2005) “Architecture of Sysperanto - A Model-Based Ontology of the IS Field,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 15(1), Jan. 2005, pp. 1-40.

(2003) “18 Reasons why IT-Reliant Work Systems Should Replace the IT Artifact as the Core Subject Matter of the IS Field,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 12(23), pp. 365-394, Oct. 2003

(2002) “Navigating the Collaboration Triangle,” CIO Insight, Jan. 2002, pp. 21-27.

New Emphasis on Service and Service Systems

(2008) “Service System Fundamentals: Work System, Value Chain, and Life Cycle,” IBM Systems Journal, 47(1), 2008, pp. 71-85.

(2008) “Seeking Synergies between Four Views of Service in the IS Field,” Proceedings of AMCIS 2008, the 14th American Conference on Information Systems, Toronto, Canada, August, 2008

(2008) “Service System Innovation,” IFIP (International Federation of Information) Working Group 8.2 Conference on IT and Change in the Service Economy, Toronto, Canada, August 2008.

(2008) “Moving toward a Service Metaphor for Describing, Evaluating, and Designing Systems,” European Conference on Information Systems, Galway, Ireland, June, 2008.

(2007) “Customer-Centric Systems: A Multi-Dimensional View,” Proceedings of WeB 2007, Sixth Workshop on eBusiness, Dec. 9, 2007, Montreal, Canada, pp. 130-141.

(2008) “Service Systems and Service-Dominant Logic: Partners or Distant Cousins.” This very preliminary discussion draft requires more work. It was written quickly as a response to a series of widely recognized marketing papers by Stephen Vargo and Robert Lusch that have influenced the marketing and services science communities. They argue that service-dominant logic should replace traditional goods-dominant logic when thinking about economic exchange.

Work System Principles, Risks, and Innovation

The basic ideas of the work system approach are summarized in the work system framework and work system life cycle model. (See Work System Basics.) Taking the work system approach a step further leads to a number of additional ideas related to work system principles, information system risks, and innovation.

(2004)  “Making Work System Principles Visible and Usable in Systems Analysis and Design,” Proceedings of AMCIS 2004, the Americas Conference on Information Systems, New York, NY, Aug. 8-10, 2004, pp. 1604-1611.

(2004 - with Susan Sherer) “A General, but Adaptable Model of Information System Risk,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 14(1), July 2004, pp. 1-28.

(2004 - with Susan Sherer) “Information System Risks and Risk Factors - Are They Mostly About Information Systems?” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 14(2), July 2004, pp. 29-64.

(2004) “IT Innovation through a Work System Lens,” Proceedings of the IFIP Working Group 8.6 Conference on IT Innovation for Adaptability and Competitiveness, Leixlip, Ireland, May 30-June 2, 2004, pp. 43-64.

Essence and Scope of the IS Field

Information systems can be viewed as a special case of work systems, i.e, work systems whose processes and activities are devoted to processing information). Much IS research is actually not about information systems per se, but rather about IT-reliant work systems that include or overlap with information systems. The latter observations lead to a number of questions about the IS field in general and possible directions for its future development.

(2008) “Defining Information Systems as Work Systems: Implications for the IS Field.” This lengthy working paper responds to many frequently asked questions that arise in discussions of viewing information systems as work systems. 

(2004) “Desperately Seeking Systems Thinking in the IS Discipline,” Proceedings of ICIS-25, the International Conference on Information Systems, Washington, DC, December 2004, pp. 757-769.

(2003) “Sidestepping the IT Artifact, Scrapping the IS Silo, and Laying Claim to ‘Systems in Organizations’,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 12(30), pp. 494-526, Nov. 2003.

(2003) “18 Reasons why IT-Reliant Work Systems Should Replace the IT Artifact as the Core Subject Matter of the IS Field,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 12(23), pp. 365-394, Oct. 2003

(2003) “The IS Core – XI: Sorting Out Issues about the Core, Scope, and Identity of the IS Field,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 12(41), pp. 607-628, Nov. 2003.

(2006) “Work Systems and  IT Artifacts - Does the Definition Matter?”  Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 17(14), Feb. 2006, pp.  299-313.

(2001) “Recognizing the Relevance of IS Research and Broadening the Appeal and Applicability of Future Publications,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Special Issue on Research Relevance, 6(3), March 2001. 

Systems Analysis and Design in the IS Field

Systems analysis and design in the IS field emphasizes producing or improving configurations of computer hardware and software. Business issues that do not involve hardware and software tend to be de-emphasized. Systems analysis and design using a work system approach focuses on improving the performance of work systems, based on the assumption the required changes may or may not involve IT, and that focusing mainly on IT-related changes introduces a bias toward ignoring may important issues.

(2008 - with Xin Tan and Keng Siau) “Integrating Lightweight Systems Analysis into the Unified Process by Using Service Responsibility Tables,” Proceedings of AMCIS 2008, the 14th American Conference on Information Systems, Toronto, Canada, August, 2008.

(2008) “Where Do Services Fit in Systems Analysis and Design?” Proceedings of SIGSAND Symposium, Provo, UT, May 2008.

(2007) "Service Responsibility Tables: A New Tool for Analyzing and Designing Systems," Proceedings of AMCIS 2007, the 13th American Conference on Information Systems, Keystone, Colorado, August, 2007.

(2006) “Pitfalls in Analyzing Systems in Organizations” Journal of Information System Education, 17(3), Fall 2006, pp. 295-302.

(2005 - with Glenn Browne) “A Broad View of Systems Analysis and Design,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 16(50), Dec. 2005, pp.  981-999.

(2004) “Possibilities for Cross-Fertilization between Interpretive Approaches and Other Methods for Analyzing Information Systems,” European Journal of Information Systems, 13(3), September, 2004, pp. 173-185. 

DSS and Knowledge Management

Despite promising myself to stay focused on developing the work system approach, I wrote the “Dark Side of Knowledge Management” article because I was intrigued by a Call for Papers on that topic. The DSS article explains my belief that a work system approach is very useful in understanding decision support systems, the topic of my original research.

(2006) “Goals and Tactics on the Dark Side of Knowledge Management,” Proceedings of HICSS-39, the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, Poipu, HI, Jan. 4-7, 2006

(2004) “A Work System View of DSS in its Fourth Decade,” Decision Support Systems, 38(3), December 2004, pp. 319-327. 

Development of Work System Ideas

This section is for anyone who is interested how the work system approach developed over time.  Available below are a recent interview and a number of older articles that eventually led to more recent ideas.

(2008) responses to interview questions, later edited and published as David Paradice, “The Systems View of Information Systems from Professor Steven Alter,” International Journal of Information Technologies and the Systems Approach (IJITSA), Vol. 1, Issue 2, Jan-June 2008, pp. 91-98.

(2007) “Could the Work System Method Embrace Systems Concepts More Fully?” Information Resource Management Journal, 20(2), April-June 2007, pp. 33-43.  (draft manuscript)

(2003) “Pervasive Real-Time IT as a Disruptive Technology for the IS Field,” Proceedings of HICSS-36, Thirty-Sixth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Jan. 2003

(2002) “The Work System Method for Understanding Information Systems and Information System Research,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 9(6), pp. 90-104, Sept. 2002.

(2002 - with Alan Dennis) “Selecting Research Topics: Personal Experiences and Speculations for the Future,”  Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 8(21), pp. 314-329, Mar. 2002.

(2001) “Which Life Cycle - Work System, Information System, or Software?” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 7(17), October 2001.

(2001) “Are the Fundamental Concepts of Information Systems Mostly about Work Systems?” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 5(11), April 2001. 

(2000) “Same Words, Different Meanings: Are Basic IS/IT Concepts Our Self-Imposed Tower of Babel?” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 3(10), April 2000. 

(1999) “A General yet Useful Theory of Information Systems,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 1(13), March 1999. 

(1995) “How Should Business Professionals Analyze Systems for Themselves?” manuscript that was declined by a 1995 MISQ special issue on education.

Case Studies

(2004) “The Annual Report on Global Terrorism: An Information System Failure?”  Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 14(4), August, 2004, pp. 76-92.

(2003) “Customer Service, Responsibility, and Systems in International E-Commerce: Should a Major Airline Reissue a Stolen Ticket?” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 12(10), pp. 146-154, Aug. 2003

(2002) “TDG Engineering: Do We Need Another Upgrade?” (with S. Cox, R. Dulfer, D. Han, and U. Ruiz) Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 8(17), pp. 232-250, Feb. 2002.

(1999) “Shopping.com: When E-Commerce is no Bargain,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 2(22), November 1999.