International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2021

IT scholars’ explorations in the research of financialisation and the technologies

(Abstract)

ZOU Jun

There have appeared a series of themes, issues and critical debates in the financialization literature. Scholars attempt to identify information technology as playing an important role in financial markets and in financialisation. Methodologically, correlation and causality   require greater transparency in financialisation studies which sometimes confuse outcomes as being the direct result of policy decisions or technological change. It is critical to problematize financialisation as a phenomenon, which requires more refined definitions and disciplinary integration. Importing the latter into the area of IT research will require the development of a critical awareness of the various meta-theoretical assumptions in the field. Information technology researchers will need to acknowledge that the selection of relevant research questions as well as the methods used to answer them and the interpretation of research results are influenced by tacit paradigmatic assumptions. The researchers lay the epistemological ground for connecting financialisation with information technology  research by adapting Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) paradigmatic decomposition matrix to the analysis of technological development.