Social contexts of IS Ch. 3 – Boddy et al. Political, economic, culture and legal factors e.g how governments affect market entry, business operations or use of the Internet use Legal context data privacy and intellectual property Ethical issues in managing IS Can ethical behaviour pay? Case: Google

Political contexts Rules on market entry government policy (intentionally or otherwise) affects whether suppliers can enter a market – e.g. Wipro Also affects how companies do business – e.g. EU rules on costs of text messages Actions on specific markets – e.g. Attempts to develop a European rival to Google’s library project Such policies reflect the interaction of commercial and political interests in relation to companies’ IS strategies

Economic contexts Economic conditions affect viability of IS projects. Measures (by country or demography) include: number of Internet subscribers – see Figure 3.1; how customers use the Internet during the buying process; level of expenditure per transaction. These and other measures affect focus of, and return from, IS investments

Economic contexts – measures of Internet access Figure 3.1 Internet subscribers by region and access type, 2006 Source: ITU (www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict /statistics / )

Cultural contexts Culture defined (Hofstede 2005) ‘unwritten rules of the social game’ High context and low context cultures Cultures and social networking sites relation to culture affects use organisations value their ability to attract people with identifiable characteristics, so valuable as marketing and recruitment tools Technology as fashion – e.g. mobile phone design Producing and consuming (Toffler 1980) Modern IS change relationship between producing and consuming Consumers create services which they also pay for…

Legal context (1) – data privacy Technical developments and data privacy cookies, tracking, monitoring Protecting personal data code of Fair Information Practices awareness, consent, access, security, redress Interaction between IS and strategy do companies follow the code? See Schwaig (2006), Figure 3.3 compare EU and US approaches Privacy policies vary between countries, reflecting balance of commercial and political interests.

Adherence to the Code of Fair Information Practice Figure 3.3 Privacy Policy Assessment Matrix applied to the Fortune 500 Source: Adapted from Schwaig et al. (2006)

Legal context (2) – intellectual property Intellectual property rights (IPR) intended to protect those who create ideas – music, videos, books etc. Copyright Patents Trademarks Technical developments and intellectual property digital media make it easy to copy and distribute original work – see Figure 3.4

Technology and music distribution .fributopo Figure 3.4 Downloads as a proportion of single sales in the UK, by week, 2004-2006 Source: British Phonographic Industry, quoted in Gowers (2006), p. 28

Law, choice and ethics Figure 3.5 Three domains of human action Source: From Daft, Management (5th edition) (2000). Copyright © 2000. Reprinted with permission of South-Western, a division of Thomson Learning

Ethics and IS Modern systems enable people to act in ways that others may see as unethical: monitoring staff use of websites; passing information between agencies; being careless with personal data; sending unsolicited messages or promotional schemes.

Ethics and stakeholder interests Stakeholder expectations – see Table 3.3 Ethics in context: behaviour depends on situation as well as person – see Figure 3.6

Influences on behaviour Figure 3.6 Trevino’s model of ethical decision-making Source: Trevino (1986). Reproduced with permission

Can ethical behaviour pay? Ethical behaviour only sustainable in competitive situations if the actions meet one or more of these criteria (Vogel, 2005): shareholders see it as enlightened self-interest; serves the corporate mission; avoids negative publicity; supports a strategy – such as building customers’ trust.