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Does Ontology Influence Technological Projects? The Case of Irish Electronic Voting

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Professional Knowledge Management (WM 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3782))

Abstract

This paper discusses the relationship between ontology, seen as the doctrine concerned with the nature of reality, and the management of technology. It introduces two ontological positions: realism and constructivism. Realism is the position that holds that reality is objectively given and independent of the observer. Constructivism stands for the belief that reality is constructed by the observer. The implications of this ontological debate are explored using the example of the Irish attempt to introduce e-voting. In order to understand the mistakes made during the Irish e-voting project, it is helpful to consider the ontological position taken by the responsible decision makers. It is argued that only a realist conception of technology can give rise to the sort of mismanagement that was observed in the case study. In conclusion, the paper suggests that following a constructivist ontology would have helped avoid some of the serious mistakes that were made.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier Street, Dublin 2, Ireland

    Bruno Zelić

  2. Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, UK

    Bernd Carsten Stahl

Authors
  1. Bruno Zelić
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  2. Bernd Carsten Stahl
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, University of Hildesheim, Marienburger Platz 22, 31141, Hildesheim, Germany

    Klaus-Dieter Althoff

  2. Knowledge Management Department, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Andreas Dengel

  3. Department of Business Information Systems II, University of Trier, Trier, Germany

    Ralph Bergmann

  4. Department for Experience Management, Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Kaiserslautern

    Markus Nick

  5. Knowledge Management Department, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) GmbH, Trippstadter Straße 122, 67663, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Thomas Roth-Berghofer

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Zelić, B., Stahl, B.C. (2005). Does Ontology Influence Technological Projects? The Case of Irish Electronic Voting. In: Althoff, KD., Dengel, A., Bergmann, R., Nick, M., Roth-Berghofer, T. (eds) Professional Knowledge Management. WM 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3782. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11590019_73

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11590019_73

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-30465-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31620-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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