European inventory of
societal values of culture

Kvasny & Truex - Information technology and the cultural reproduction of social order

Kvasny, L. & Truex, D. (2000) Information technology and the cultural reproduction of social order. In Baskerville, R., Stage, J. and DeGross, J. I. (eds) Organizational and Social Perspectives on Information Technology, (277-294). New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

This paper introduces the critical social theory of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The objective of Bourdieu’s theoretical framework is to uncover the buried organizational structures and mechanisms that are used to ensure the reproduction of social order. This theoretical framework will be used in a research program that examines the structural processes by which information technology may be constrained from emancipating humankind, and may actually be disempowering and abandoning significant numbers of societal members.