Information systems technology grounded on institutional facts
Robert M. Colomb · 2005
This paper presents a theory explaining the success of information systems development based on SQL-type database technology by showing that the assumptions underlying that technology correspond very closely to the way Searle’s institutional facts are created. The theory presented is a theory of action and design, so its productivity is shown by retrodiction of the necessity for business process engineering to achieve integration of information systems within an organisation, and prediction that interorganisational integration of information systems using the internet can succeed only if the applications share institutional facts. The theory is used to predict that autonomous intelligent agent applications can succeed in the information spaces populated by these common institutional facts.