Dissertation Research: ICT Development in the NGO Sector: The Case of Greenpeace

这笔科学和技术研究论文改进补助金将提供资金，用于记录和分析绿色和平组织的信息系统发展，绿色和平是一个著名的跨国环境组织。绿色和平组织之所以声名鹊起，在很大程度上是因为它成功地利用大众媒体进行环境倡导，该组织传统上强调在环境倡导服务中进行技术创新。它在较大的环境组织中是独一无二的，它采用了对抗性策略、技术复杂性和相对等级化的治理结构。这一特点的结合使其成为调查适当的宣传机构和做法与商业环境中的机构和做法之间的协同作用和不协调的理想环境。在过去十年中，信通技术发展已成为绿色和平的一个战略领域，管理层的关注增加和投资增加了三倍就证明了这一点。目前，有明显迹象表明，高级管理人员正在重新考虑技术创新，他们认为从商业环境中借鉴的模式是适应外部变化的一种手段。该项目将分析本组织开发共享的、地理上分散的信息系统的努力所涉问题。它将使用参与者观察、人种学访谈和档案研究作为三个信息系统项目详细历史的基础。这项研究的主要概念问题将是将信息系统的开发和使用与其不断扩大的组织和社会背景联系起来。在这项研究的主要研究地点--国际绿色和平组织，对中央办公室信息技术支持工作进行了广泛的参与者观察。后续阶段的研究将侧重于使用信息系统的分布式环境--该组织的许多国家办事处。通过在倡导背景下审查社会技术系统，这项研究将有助于组织信息学、社会运动和全球化的研究。这项研究的结论将以一篇论文的形式提出，探讨大型环境组织信息系统开发的战略和操作层面。这篇论文将被改写成书稿。这项工作的一部分将在绿色和平国际会议上介绍，主要目标是为信通技术投资和信息系统项目管理提供信息战略规划，次要目标是展示背景调查的洞察力如何为组织内的社会技术设计提供信息。

This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant will provide funds to document and analyze the development of information systems at Greenpeace, a prominent, transnational environmental organization. Greenpeace grew to prominence largely from its successes in using mass media for environmental advocacy, and the organization has traditionally emphasized technical innovation in the service of environmental advocacy. It is unique among the larger environmental organizations in incorporating confrontational tactics, technical sophistication, and a relatively hierarchical governance structure. This combination of traits makes it an ideal setting for investigating the synergies and discordances between institutions and practices proper to advocacy and those found in commercial settings. Over the past decade, ICT development has emerged as a strategic area for Greenpeace, as is witnessed by increased management attention and a three-fold increase in investment. At present, there are clear indications that technical innovation is being rethought by senior managers, who see promise in models borrowed from commercial settings as means of adaptation to external change. This project will analyze the implications of the organization's efforts to develop shared, geographically distributed information systems. It will use participant observation, ethnographic interviews, and archival research as the basis for detailed histories of three information system projects. The primary conceptual problem of the study will be relating the development and use of the information systems to their successively larger organizational and societal contexts. Extended participant observation of central office IT support work has been conducted at the study's main research site, Greenpeace International. Subsequent phases of research will focus on the distributedenvironment in which the information systems are used-the organization's many national offices. By examining socio-technical systems in an advocacy context, this study will contribute to research on organizational informatics, social movements, and globalization. Conclusions of this research will be presented as a dissertation that explores the strategic and operational dimensions of information systems development by large environmental organizations. The dissertation will be reworked into a book manuscript. Portions of this work will be presented at Greenpeace International with the primary goals of informing strategic planning for ICT investment and management of information systems projects, and the secondary goal of demonstrating how the insights of contextual inquiry can inform socio-technical design within the organization.