Information, Systems and Information Systems making sense of the field Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell Lancaster University, UK Science-based technology helps to shape our lives, and no technology is more powerful in this respect than that associated with information. But the emerging linked fields of information systems and information technology are still in a very confused state. There is a torrent of technical developments but the concepts which bring structure to the field and make sense of it lag behind. This book seeks to dispel that confusion, and aims to make sense of IS and IT as a whole. Conventional theory bears little relation to the experience most people have with computer-based systems in organizations. Based on real-world experiences in both the private and public sectors, this book from Peter Checkland and Sue Holwell tackles the subject afresh. Information, Systems and Information Systems provides a practice-based approach to the thinking needed to underpin provision of information support in organizations. Starting from fundamentals, the book develops a coherent account of the field. The book is thus a work of conceptual cleansing. It presents a well-argued and tested account of IS and IT which is both holistic and coherent. The sense-making models which emerge can encompass any particular assumptions about the nature of organizational reality and management, whether 'hard' functionalist or 'soft' interpretive ones, though the authors' sympathies are with the latter.|Das Gebiet der "Informationssysteme" ist den Kinderschuhen noch immer nicht entwachsen. Die Überfülle der IS-Literatur am Markt ist oft realitätsfern und trägt noch zur Verwirrung bei. Ziel dieses Buches ist es, Sinn und Zweck des großen, unübersichtlichen Gebietes der IS herauszuarbeiten und IS eindeutig von IT (Informationstechnik) abzugrenzen - etwas, das vielen Leuten noch immer Schwierigkeiten bereitet. Entwickelt wird ein geschlossenes, wohlbegründetes und vertretbares Konzept der IS, dessen Praxisnähe sich darin zeigt, daß es für die Anwender von IS und IT verständlich und robust genug ist, den technologischen Wandel zu überleben.