Are We Discovering or Making Concepts? Performativity in Concept Defining

Publikation: Beiträge in SammelwerkenAufsätze in KonferenzbändenForschungbegutachtet

Authors

Alongside the emergence of new technologies and management trends, new concepts such as Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity appear. Once introduced, scholars debate these concepts’ definitions. Often, a uniform definition remains elusive in these debates but several different - sometimes conflicting - definitions result. In this short paper, we take a philosophical perspective to concept defining and ask why is it that we end up in these situations where a plurality of definitions exists? We outline two perspectives to concept defining: 1) concept-discovery; and 2) concept-making. We argue that concept defining is largely ill-conceived as an activity of concept-discovery according to which concepts are mirrors of the outside world. In contrast, we argue that viewing concept defining as an act of concept-making will sensitize IS researchers on the practices and processes which make concepts and their ethical as well as political implications.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
TitelPACIS 2022 proceedings
Anzahl der Seiten9
VerlagAIS eLibrary
Erscheinungsdatum07.2022
Aufsatznummer1853
ISBN (elektronisch)978-1-958200-01-8
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 07.2022
VeranstaltungPacific Asia Conference on Information Systems - PACIS 2022: AI-IS-ASIA (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS, IN PACIFIC ASIA) - Virtual, Taipei and Sydney, Taiwan
Dauer: 05.07.202209.07.2022
https://pacis2022.aisconferences.org/

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