An "impressionist" ethnography of risk in the development of corporate information infrastructure.

In recent years, a significant body of literature has emerged on the subject of information infrastructure (II) within the IS field. Nevertheless, issues of risk in the development of II have seldom been addressed. This dissertation addresses this important gap by drawing on recent contributions to sociological theories of risk to study the relationship between risk, culture and the occurrence of danger in the development of IT as corporate information infrastructure (CII). The thesis is established on findings from an ethnographic study of risk in the development of II with a multinational banking corporation. This thesis makes several key contributions to the field of IS, firstly to the understanding of risk in the development of II. Secondly, to theory development in IS risk research through the novel integration of sociological theories of risk into a theoretical model for the analysis of risk, culture, and danger in the development of ICT. A further contribution to IS research is achieved through the adoption of the impressionist autoethnographic approach, as a novel means of narrative construction within IS research.