A critical look at the approach IS structurationist: A comparison with the approach Foucauldian

Abstract

This research paper aims at questioning the structurationist perspective in information
systems and to establish a parallel with the Foucauldian perspective. Indeed, Anthony
Giddens and Michel Foucault share the same critics of essentialism and dualisms, and
both question concepts that are crucial in IS research questions. Yet, these perspectives have
not received the same attention in IS research. While the structurationist perspective in IS
appears as one of the dominant paradigm of IS research, the Foucauldian perspective has
long been neglected in French IS research. We thus seek to highlight the limitations of the
structurationist perspective in IS, and to show how the Foucauldian perspective could
enrich our understanding of the relationships between IS, the organisation and individual
members, without falling into the traps raised by the structurationist approach in IS.