Embracing the Institutional Complexity of IS Design with Democratic Characteristics : A Configurational Study of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Software

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our societies with unprecedented magnitude. Various social rules and technological solutions have been designed to limit the spread of the virus. We have seen that governments have chosen very different approaches in utilizing mobile tracing software products to control the pandemic. We utilize fuzzy set qualitative analysis to investigate the causal complexity underlying institutional conditions and the information systems (IS) design outcome. By drawing from a data set of 48 case countries, we are able to make visible configurational paths leading to democratic and autocratic characteristics of IS design. This study’s contribution to the research is two-fold. First, we advance the theorization of institutional conditions influencing IS design outcomes. Second, we demonstrate how qualitative comparative analysis can provide a rigorous method to analyze organizational aspects in medium N case studies in IS research.