The Culture of an Information Economy

In this book Eileen Trauth peers inside the day-to-day work lives of the people who have been bringing about Ireland's transition from a small agricultural country to a healthy information economy. It is one of few book-length interpretive studies in the information systems field. This book links the disciplines of information systems, international management, economic development, history, and public policy to tell the story behind the statistics about Ireland's economic development. The findings from this ten-year study illustrate the range of socio-cultural factors, which influence the emergence of an information sector. Ireland's story contains a message for other nations that this change to a new way of working and living is intimately connected to the cultural context within which it occurs. This book reveals the ethnographic approach that was used by taking the reader through the interpretive process as it occurred. The Appendix is devoted to additional detail about the methodology.

Audience: This book should be read by PhD students and others who want to learn more about the actual application of ethnographic methods in information systems research. It should be read by students, researchers, teachers, and policy-makers working in several fields including global information systems, the information society, management in the knowledge economy, and economic development.