REALIZING EMANCIPATORY PRINCIPLES IN INFORMATION-SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT - THE CASE FOR ETHICS

Information systems development methodologies have been the subject of much attention over the years. A substantial body of research has foc used on the need to develop methodologies that support viewing informa tion systems as social constructs, and information systems development (ISD) as a social process. But if development is a social process, wh at principles/ideals should inform it? Recent research has called for ''emancipatory'' ideals to be included. This debate can be expanded to explore not only what emancipatory principles might be applied in inf ormation systems development, but also how. Existing ISD methodologies only partially embrace emancipatory principles. One of these-ETHICS-s eems the most likely candidate to be extended or ''reformulated'' to a chieve emancipatory ideals more comprehensively. Organizations using t his reformulated version of ETHICS should make some progress advancing emancipation while at the same time confronting limited resources and the presence of power and authority. The approach undertaken here is generic; researchers can similarly apply these reformulation technique s to other methodologies based on other paradigms.