The Trichotomy of Processes: A Philosophical Basis for Information Systems

The principle of trichotomy from the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce can be used to categorize processes into the triad of transactional, informational, and relational. The usefulness of these categories is explicated by a comparison with structuration theory and control theory, and elaborated with a consideration of democracy in a knowledge economy. These three example applications of the process triad show the generality of the conceptual categories and provide a natural way of bringing ideas from social and ethical theories into information systems design. Modeling the world and understanding business applications through the use of the Trichotomy of Processes should facilitate the development of more valuable information systems.