Which Way to the Dinosaurs? On Behavioral Paradigm in Business Informatics, Parallels to Organizational Anthropology, and restrictive Boundaries of Disciplines

The main aim of this study is to introducethe behavioral research paradigm into the academic discipline of Business Informatics (BI) in the Czech Republic. Its main motivation is the fact that design-oriented research traditionally dominates in this area and the word “informatics”is perceived mostly in its technical meaning(i.e. Computer Science) in Czech society. In my paper I argue that there should be more socially oriented research in Czech BI and management,as well as less insistence upon quantitative researchmethods and/or design science. From the perspective of a professionally qualified doctoral student, I firstly compare the Anglo-Saxonresearch tradition of Information Systems (IS) with the European one, as well as with the Czech tradition. Consequently I present underlying motivation and well-founded reasons for the behavioral research in BI, summarizing key topics. I also involved the researchers in social science in order to form capable teams with researchers inbusiness and management. So far, there has also been little discussion about the usage of anthropological concepts and tools in BI and management studies. This study takes a transdisciplinary perspectiveand seeks to remedy all these challenges by reviewing of the literature in BI, IS, managementand organizational studies, sociocultural anthropology and business anthropology to reach the conclusion that we need a more integrated approach in order to properly study such complex issues in modern business organizations and knowledge society