On Developing Organisational Semiotics as An Empirical Science: The Need for Scientific Method and Rigorous Debate

摘要

Organisational Semiotics must have a clear paradigm to help define its tasks as a "normal science" (Kuhn, 1962). It studies information systems as patterns of organised human behaviour, emphasising information as a social instrument employing technologies of all kinds. The OS community can appropriately adopt Popper's Refutationism as its research method, which entails formulating hypotheses capable of unequivocal falsification by empirical evidence. These hypotheses, according to Popper, should be "bold" and court falsification, they should explain more than earlier theory explained but at least do so more elegantly. The community should aim to refute the new hypotheses by presenting counter examples, making crucial observations and engaging in rigorous debate. This paper illustrates the style of debate by critically examining a paper from an earlier OS Workshop that contrasted one of our methods and tools - ontology charting - with several flow oriented methods. Some significant errors in the comparative study are exposed, hopefully the right spirit of scientific inquiry. At the same time, this illustrates a) the openness of information field theory to empirical falsification, unlike the flow-oriented methods, b) the understanding it casts on the social norms that underlie information systems, c) the greater explanatory power of information field theory over the flow-oriented orthodox theories and d) its treatment of real world semantics as opposed to inter-machine semantics. The paper concludes by asking how to facilitate our debates through good working relationships and improved institutions.