Revealing the Socio-Technical Design of Global E-Businesses: A Case of Digital Artists Engaging in Radical Transparency

Global e-businesses such as Google, Amazon and E-bay affect both users and society. How can society begin to understand this duality in the socio-technical affordances of e-business? This paper examines a digital art performance as an example of the tensions between capitalist businesses and the public commons. Using notions of transparency and knowledge as a form of Knowledge Management rooted in Nonaka’s SECI Model, it examines ways in which knowledge about how Google uses the Internet are made explicit through the digital art performance. It discusses the implications for both defining a macro level of socio-technical design and using dimensions of transparency to understand technology based Internet business, positing global Internet business as having two levels of socio-technical design—1) the micro level, dealing with user interaction, and 2) the macro level, dealing with the social design and implications for society inherent in pervasive technology based businesses. The Macro level of design is operationalized through a combination of knowledge management theory and dimensions of transparency. DOI: 10.4018/jskd.2012100102 International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development, 4(4), 18-31, October-December 2012 19 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. than one level, we can begin to make sense of ways in which technology links the two. This article tells the story of digital artists looking at Google, and creating a digital art performance that reveals Google’s business model from a critical perspective. The criticism emerging from this piece, Google Will Eat Itself (GWEI) opens up a space for understanding socio-technical design on two levels—the macro-level and micro-level. It also compels us to expand our understanding of the intersection of business models and socio-technical design. First, this paper will establish a basis for understanding socio-technical design on two levels—macro and micro—and examine perspectives on transparency within this frame of reference. Then I will describe the case—a digital art performance called Google Will Eat Itself (GWEI), performed by a digital artist group called Ubermorgen. Finally, the framework for understanding socio-technical design will be used to analyze GWEI, followed by a discussion of implications both for our understanding of socio-technical design and for our understanding of global e-business. 2. UNDERSTANDING SOCIOTECHNICAL DESIGN ON TWO LEVELS—MICRO AND MACRO In her article about the history of socio-technical design as a field, Mumford (2006) situates the field at the interaction of technology and industry by describing the role of socio-technical design in the co-evolution of technology use and business processes & practices. As she examines future directions for socio-technical design, Mumford points out two key characteristics of the field: 1) Socio-technical design brings a core of user-centered ethics to industry/business practices and processes by looking at the human consequences of technology and 2) the future of both socio-technical design and industry/ business are linked to future business paradigms which need to take the social responsibility of industry/business towards people into consideration. Given this strong link articulated between business paradigms and socio-technical design, how can we operationalize a macro-level of socio-technical design that addresses the issue of how technology can drive societal structures? Although Mumford (2006) criticized a business paradigm based on competition and efficiency and described that as the current state of global capitalism, I contend there is a more nuanced direction for business, which is moving toward social responsibility. The growing field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is in the process of questioning the configuration of responsibility between business, governments and society (Matten & Moon, 2005; Matten & Crane, 2004). CSR has developed in parallel with socio-technical design as a multi-disciplinary field emerging from problems in the workplace with a core focus based in ethics. In turn, what socio-technical design can add to the conversation is a set of frameworks for understanding the role of technology in connecting business, government and society not only at the micro level which addresses the need of workers, but also at a macro level, which focuses on the interaction between technology and ways in which key societal institutions function. One example of this might be capital investment institutions or financial institutions. Questions of the extent to which technologies disrupt and change the affordances of macrosocio-technical systems such as global finance, need an element of socio-technical design to shape them and subsequent knowledge emerging from their answers. An argument for distinguishing between micro and macro levels of socio-technical design and theory can be seen in the movement of technology between business and social domains. The macro level can be seen in the movement of technology between these domains, which, over time results in sociotechnical (re)configurations of both business and society. This connection between business and society via technology is evident in many ways, with many technologies developed in business contexts finding their way into daily 12 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/article/revealing-socio-technical-designglobal/74847?camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Journals, InfoSci-Journal Disciplines Communications and Social Science. Recommend this product to your librarian: www.igi-global.com/e-resources/libraryrecommendation/?id=2