Jannis Kallinikos
Encyclopedia
Jannis Kallinikos is an organization and communication scholar and intellectual. He was born in the town of Preveza
, western Greece. He is also a citizen of Sweden. Kallinikos is currently a professor in the Information Systems and Innovation Group, Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science
(LSE). His scholarly projects have over the years covered several themes ranging from the significance writing and notation has assumed in the making of modern organizations through the understanding of markets as semiotic systems to the study of bureaucracy and institutions. His concerns have recently shifted to the investigation of the conditions associated with the penetration of the social and economic fabric by technological information. Kallinikos calls this emerging socio-economic environment, marked by the ubiquitous presence of the Internet, information-based services and software-mediated culture, the habitat of information. The term indicates that the growing involvement of information in society, economy and culture is associated with important changes in the ways institutions operate as well as shifts in behavioural, cognitive and communicative habits.
. After completing his MSc in 1979 Kallinikos pursued doctoral studies and was awarded his PhD in 1985 from the same department.
when Claudio Ciborra
was in charge of it. The department merged in 2006 with three other departments into a newly founded Department of Management. Kallinikos has been a visiting professor at various universities, including the University of Bologna, University of Uppsala, Vaxjo University, Umea University, University of Macedonia, Greece, Stanford University and the European Institute of Advanced Studies in Brussels. LSE promoted him to full professor in 2007. Kallinikos served as member of the LSE Research Committee (2003–2008) research chair of the Information systems and Innovation group (2005–2008) and director of the MSc Programme in Information Systems and Organizations Research (ISOR) (2006–2008).
s with specific emphasis on the range of objectified techniques and methods by which organizations are constructed as particular social entities and rendered predictable and durable. The study of information
, information technology
and information systems
forms part of that intellectual project. According to Kallinikos, the proliferation of digital means of information processing and transmission, and the growing involvement of the Internet in social life are altering the socio-economic environment in which organizations and institutions are embedded.
Over the last years Kallinikos has worked on the idea of the information habitat to capture how increasingly abstract and disembedded data processing and calculation restructure organizations and institutions. He sees information technologies as electronic successors to writing, notation and paper-based means of dealing with information. In this new setting underpinned to a great extent by the internet, information is increasingly generated out of existing information through a variety of automated and autonomic procedures afforded by interconnected information systems and computer technology. In order to study the habitat of information, Kallinikos has formed The Information Growth And Internet Research Group (TIGAIR).
In his recent research, he further elaborated on his framework of Information Growth and Information Habitat by focusing on the ephemeral and amorphous nature of digital objects (e.g. software applications, hypertext documents, computer games, etc.) which differ from material, physical objects in non-trivial ways. At the core of his Theory of Digital Objects lies the argument that digital objects are to be seen as computational operations. Digital objects are objects only in a euphemistic sense. With this argument, Kallinikos has become a strong advocate for a small but growing community of social scientists, such as Jochen Runde and Philip Faulkner from the University of Cambridge,UK, or Paul Leonardi from Northwester University, Illinois) who share a common interest in the research on ICT enabled, digital and immaterial objects and their ontological modes of existence in various institutional fields and organizations.
Kallinikos’s overall outlook is constructivist in the sense of focusing on the semiotic and communicative means by which social reality is fashioned and made durable. However, drawing upon scholars such as Shoshana Zuboff
, Nelson Goodman
, Niklas Luhmann
and Albert Borgmann
, Kallinikos has sought to distance himself from popular constructivist approaches and their focus on local settings. He has claimed in several of his works that information and communication technologies mediate a coherent set of principles for framing and acting upon reality. The social and behavioural implications of such principles transcend the human-technology interface and cannot be sufficiently studied as an instance of local adaptation and interpretation of technological systems and artifacts by willful agents.
Other key publications include:
Preveza
Preveza is a town in the region of Epirus, northwestern Greece, located at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. It is the capital of the regional unit of Preveza, which is part of the region of Epirus. An immersed tunnel, completed in 2002 which runs between Preveza and Actium, connects the town...
, western Greece. He is also a citizen of Sweden. Kallinikos is currently a professor in the Information Systems and Innovation Group, Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
(LSE). His scholarly projects have over the years covered several themes ranging from the significance writing and notation has assumed in the making of modern organizations through the understanding of markets as semiotic systems to the study of bureaucracy and institutions. His concerns have recently shifted to the investigation of the conditions associated with the penetration of the social and economic fabric by technological information. Kallinikos calls this emerging socio-economic environment, marked by the ubiquitous presence of the Internet, information-based services and software-mediated culture, the habitat of information. The term indicates that the growing involvement of information in society, economy and culture is associated with important changes in the ways institutions operate as well as shifts in behavioural, cognitive and communicative habits.
Education
Kallinikos completed his undergraduate studies in the Athens University of Economics and Business in 1977 and moved to Sweden for postgraduate studies at the Department of Business Studies at Uppsala UniversityUppsala University
Uppsala University is a research university in Uppsala, Sweden, and is the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. It consistently ranks among the best universities in Northern Europe in international rankings and is generally considered one of the most prestigious institutions of...
. After completing his MSc in 1979 Kallinikos pursued doctoral studies and was awarded his PhD in 1985 from the same department.
Academic career
In 2001, Kallinikos joined the Department of Information Systems at LSELondon School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
when Claudio Ciborra
Claudio Ciborra
Claudio Ciborra was a professor of Information Systems and PWC Chair in Risk Management in the London School of Economics. Prior to the LSE, he was professor at the Theseus International Management Institute....
was in charge of it. The department merged in 2006 with three other departments into a newly founded Department of Management. Kallinikos has been a visiting professor at various universities, including the University of Bologna, University of Uppsala, Vaxjo University, Umea University, University of Macedonia, Greece, Stanford University and the European Institute of Advanced Studies in Brussels. LSE promoted him to full professor in 2007. Kallinikos served as member of the LSE Research Committee (2003–2008) research chair of the Information systems and Innovation group (2005–2008) and director of the MSc Programme in Information Systems and Organizations Research (ISOR) (2006–2008).
Research area
Kallinikos’s research comprises the study of formal organizationFormal organization
Formal organization is a fixed set of rules of intra-organization procedures and structures. As such, it is usually set out in writing, with a language of rules that ostensibly leave little discretion for interpretation...
s with specific emphasis on the range of objectified techniques and methods by which organizations are constructed as particular social entities and rendered predictable and durable. The study of information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...
, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
and information systems
Information systems
Information Systems is an academic/professional discipline bridging the business field and the well-defined computer science field that is evolving toward a new scientific area of study...
forms part of that intellectual project. According to Kallinikos, the proliferation of digital means of information processing and transmission, and the growing involvement of the Internet in social life are altering the socio-economic environment in which organizations and institutions are embedded.
Over the last years Kallinikos has worked on the idea of the information habitat to capture how increasingly abstract and disembedded data processing and calculation restructure organizations and institutions. He sees information technologies as electronic successors to writing, notation and paper-based means of dealing with information. In this new setting underpinned to a great extent by the internet, information is increasingly generated out of existing information through a variety of automated and autonomic procedures afforded by interconnected information systems and computer technology. In order to study the habitat of information, Kallinikos has formed The Information Growth And Internet Research Group (TIGAIR).
In his recent research, he further elaborated on his framework of Information Growth and Information Habitat by focusing on the ephemeral and amorphous nature of digital objects (e.g. software applications, hypertext documents, computer games, etc.) which differ from material, physical objects in non-trivial ways. At the core of his Theory of Digital Objects lies the argument that digital objects are to be seen as computational operations. Digital objects are objects only in a euphemistic sense. With this argument, Kallinikos has become a strong advocate for a small but growing community of social scientists, such as Jochen Runde and Philip Faulkner from the University of Cambridge,UK, or Paul Leonardi from Northwester University, Illinois) who share a common interest in the research on ICT enabled, digital and immaterial objects and their ontological modes of existence in various institutional fields and organizations.
Kallinikos’s overall outlook is constructivist in the sense of focusing on the semiotic and communicative means by which social reality is fashioned and made durable. However, drawing upon scholars such as Shoshana Zuboff
Shoshana Zuboff
Shoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School . She was born in 1951 and is an American citizen. One of the first tenured women at the Harvard Business School, she earned her Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University and...
, Nelson Goodman
Nelson Goodman
Henry Nelson Goodman was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, irrealism and aesthetics.-Career:...
, Niklas Luhmann
Niklas Luhmann
Niklas Luhmann was a German sociologist, and a prominent thinker in sociological systems theory.-Biography:...
and Albert Borgmann
Albert Borgmann
Albert Borgmann is an American philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of technology. He was born in Freiburg, Germany, and is a professor of philosophy at the University of Montana.-Philosophy:...
, Kallinikos has sought to distance himself from popular constructivist approaches and their focus on local settings. He has claimed in several of his works that information and communication technologies mediate a coherent set of principles for framing and acting upon reality. The social and behavioural implications of such principles transcend the human-technology interface and cannot be sufficiently studied as an instance of local adaptation and interpretation of technological systems and artifacts by willful agents.
Selected publications
Kallinikos has published numerous monographs, peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, reviews, and edited several books. A representative picture of Kallinikos’s thinking can be found in:- Governing Through Technology. Information Artefacts and Social Practice, Palgrave Macmillan. 2010.
- The Consequences Of Information: Institutional Implications of Technological Change. Edward Elgar. 2006.
Other key publications include:
- (with Aaltonen, A. and Marton, A.) A Theory of Digital Objects. First Monday 15(6), 2010.
- On the Computational Rendition of Reality: Artefacts and Human Agency, Organization, 16/2: 183-202, 2009.
- (with Nardi, B.) Human-Computer Interaction. In Donsbach, W. (ed.): International Encyclopedia of Communication and ICT. Blackwell. 2008.
- Information Technology, Contingency and Risk. In Hanseth, O. and Ciborra, C. (eds): Risk, Complexity and ICT. Edward Elgar. 2007.
- The Order of Technology: Complexity and Control in a Connected World. Information and Organization 15(3):185–202. 2005
- Farewell to Constructivism: Technology and Context-Embedded Action. In Avgerou et al. (eds): The Social Study of Information and Communication Techonology. Oxford University Press. 2004.
- Deconstructing Information Packages: Organizational and Behavioural Implications of ERP Systems. Information Technology and People 17(1): 8–30. 2004.
- The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic Order. Organization, 11/1: 13-36, 2004.
- (with Hasselbladh, H.) The Project of Rationalization: A Critique and Reappraisal of Institutionalism in Organization Studies. Organization Studies, 21/4: 697-720., 2000.
- Technology and Society: Interdisciplinary Studies in Formal Organization. ACCEDO. 1996.
- Cognitive Foundations of Economic Institutions: Markets, Organizations and Networks Revisited, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 11/2: 119-137.