Empathy and teamwork: reflections on the legacy of Claudio Ciborra through the phenomenology of Edith Stein.
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2007-06Author
Costello, Gabriel
Donnellan, Brian
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Costello, G. J., Cresham, M. and Donnellan, B. (2007) Empathy and teamwork: reflections on the legacy of Claudio Ciborra through the phenomenology of Edith Stein. 15th European Conference on Information Systems, St. Gallen, Switzerland, June 7-9, 2007.
Abstract
Claudio Ciborra argued that the position of information and communications technology
(ICT) in organisations requires a shift from the present focus on the ¿scientific paradigm¿ to
an ¿alternative centre of gravity: human existence in everyday life¿. The paper proposes to
make a contribution by examining the role of ¿empathy¿ in relationships among people
working in industrial teams. Relevance is addressed by means of empirical evidence that
emerged during interviews carried out in the longitudinal case-study of a supply chain
transformation initiative in American Power Conversion (APC) Ireland. Rigour is applied by
building on the legacy of Ciborra viewed through the lens of the phenomenology of Edith Stein
which was developed during her doctoral studies as a student of Edmund Husserl.
Furthermore it is proposed that Stein¿s philosophy of ¿empathy¿ can provide a theoretical
framework for the understanding of organizations, teamwork and information systems. The
concept can also provide impetus for future work in the area of human computer interaction
(HCI) that is increasingly being employed in automated business transactions. In addition, it
is suggested that Husserl¿s proposition that ¿an objective external world can only be
experienced inter-subjectively¿ has the potential to contribute some new insights to the
present impasse within the positivist-interpretivist debate.