Response to Jones and Karsten, "Giddens's Structuration Theory and Information Systems Research"

A critical response by Marshall Scott Poole on the paper by Jones and Karsten titled, 'Gidden's structuration theory and information systems research', is discussed. Jones and Karsten provide a thoughtful and measured review of the application of Anthony Gidden's theory of structuration in information systems research. Poole believes Jones and Karsten have taken an overly narrow reading of AST and associated empirical work, portraying it as organized around an 'agenda heavily oriented to deterministic, functional research. They seem to adopt a dichotomus view of research methods that divides them into positivistic and interpretive-critical, with a clear dividing line between them. Jones and Karsten's analysis centers on Gidden's statement that structures exist only in memory traces. Giddens seem to have come to this idea through combining the paradigmatic view of structure advanced by the French structuralists, who influenced his initial formulation of structuration quite strongly.