[AISWorld] Cfp: AIS SIG Prag & Pre-ICIS workshop on Action Research & Design Research Integrations

[Göran Goldkuhl]

AIS SIG Prag & Pre-ICIS workshop on
Action Research & Design Research Integrations
Call for papers
December 14, 2013, Milano, Italy
Background
Among information systems (IS) scholars there is a great interest for research approaches such as action research (AR) and design science/research (DR). AR is an established research approach within social research and during the last decades it has also been an established approach within IS. Based on the works by Susman & Evered (1978) a type of canonical AR has emerged within IS (Baskerville & Wood-Harper, 1998; Davison et al, 2004). Even if there has existed design-oriented research within IS for a long time, it has not had a clear research-methodological foundation until rather recently. The articulation of DR as a research approach within IS (made by Nunamaker et al, 1991; March & Smith, 1995; Hevner et al, 2004) has had a great effect on how to conceive research in IS that involves any development/design efforts. There is now a huge increase of IS research that self-identify as DR.
Both research approaches go beyond pure explanation and understanding and they are associated with improvement and change. These resemblances have inspired several scholars to compare these approaches and claim similarities (e.g. Burstein & Gregor, 1999; Cole et al, 2005; Järvinen, 2007; Papas et al, 2012; Alturki et al, 2012). However, not all scholars acknowledge that they should be seen as similar. Iivari & Venable (2009) have identified several differences between AR and DR and they have objected towards treating them as research approaches of similar kinds. Comparisons of AR and DR have been conducted in different ways; sometimes an analysis based on empirical material; sometimes just a conceptual analysis; and sometimes including an investigation of paradigmatic foundations.
Based on identified affinities between AR and DR, several proposals for integrations of these two approaches have been put forth. One early one was made by Cole et al (2005). This proposal can be seen as a forerunner to “Action Design Research” (ADR) presented by Sein et al (2011). ADR can be seen as DR with a strong flavour of AR emphasising intervention in local practices. ADR has already received a great interest among IS scholars. There exist, however, several other proposals for AR/DR integrations. Another integration of AR and DR is made by Baskerville et al (2009) in their “Soft design science methodology”. They integrate AR and DR through the use of a well-known AR approach; Soft Systems Methodology – SSM (Checkland, 1981). Wieringa & Morali (2012) have presented a combined AR and DR approach called “Technical Action Research” (TAR). This is defined as a researcher-driven approach based on ideas of idealized design. They have explicitly contrasted their approach to ADR, which is labelled as “problem-driven”. Another integrated approach is presented by Lee (2007). This is based on dialogical action research (Mårtensson & Lee, 2004) and defines roles for researchers and practitioners. A recent AR/DR approach is presented by Goldkuhl (2013). This is called “Practice Research through Intervention and Design” (PR-ID). There exist also several empirically-based reflections on combinations of AR and DR; e.g. Sjöström (2010), Goldkuhl (2012) and Papas et al (2012).
“Design science/research” is a fairly modern label of research within IS. However, design has occurred as a natural ingredient in many earlier intervention-oriented IS research endeavours; both in what has been called “action research” and under other labels. Examples of this are the Multiview approach (Wood-Harper, 1985; Baskerville & Wood-Harper, 1998), AR with prototyping (Chiasson & Dexter, 2001), collaborative practice research (Mathiassen, 2002) and AR inspired by design thinking (Figueiredo & Cunha, 2007). Research following the lines of participatory design (e.g. Kensing et al, 1998) and cooperative design (e.g. Greenbaum & Kyng, 1991; Bødker et al, 2000) should also been mentioned here, since they build on a reflected combination of design and intervention.
A fundamental reason for a combined interest in AR and DR is their common basis in pragmatist philosophy (Cole et al, 2005; Ågerfalk, 2010; Goldkuhl, 2012). Epistemologically, these two research approaches go beyond pure description and understanding and they aim for knowledge in the doing and in the making.
There is obviously a growing interest in studying, combining and integrating action research and design research. This international workshop builds on this great interest and attempts to bring together scholars in order to extend the knowledge on action research and design research and their possible combinations and integrations.
Workshop topics
Possible topics, but not limited to:

·        Characteristics of AR and DR

·        Outcomes of AR vs. DR

·        Process stages in AR vs. DR

·        Researcher roles in AR vs. DR

·        Practitioner roles in AR vs. DR

·        Theorizing in AR vs. DR

·        Evaluation in AR vs. DR

·        Similarities between AR and DR

·        Differences between AR and DR

·        Review of existing AR/DR comparisons

·        New comparison of AR and DR

·        Criteria for comparing AR and DR

·        Considerations for choosing between AR and DR

·        Considerations for combining AR and DR

·        Review of one or more AR/DR integrations

·        Proposal for a new AR/DR integration

·        Proposal for a modified AR/DR integration

·        Application of some existing AR/DR integration

·        Other combinations of design and intervention in IS research

·        Reflections on conducted research from an AR and/or DR perspective

·        Philosophical foundations of AR and DR
Workshop organization
The workshop will be conducted as a pre-ICIS event in Milano, Italy on December 14, 2013. It will be organized by the AIS special interest group on Pragmatist IS research (SIG Prag). The workshop will consist of presentation of papers (selected based on peer-review) and a panel with representatives from different AR/DR integrations.
Dates and submission details
Submissions: October 1, 2013
Notification: November 1, 2013
Final manuscripts: December 1, 2013
Workshop: December 14, 2013, Milano, Italy (just before the International Conference on Information Systems, ICIS-2013)
The workshop website is www.vits.org/sigprag2013/. The workshop will follow an ordinary scientific procedure with submission of papers and selection of papers through peer-review (pursued by an international program committee). We welcome full research papers as well as shorter papers (work-in-progress or position papers). Submit your paper to https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sigprag2013. We use an ICIS-like template that will be found at the workshop website. Workshop proceedings will be electronically published and distributed.
Workshop co-chairs

·        Pär Ågerfalk, Uppsala University, Sweden (par.agerfalk at im.uu.se)

·        Göran Goldkuhl, Linköping University, Sweden (goran.goldkuhl at liu.se)
PC members

·        Stephan Aier, Switzerland

·        Joao Carvalho, Portugal

·        Stefan Cronholm, Sweden

·        Brian Donnellan, Ireland

·        Owen Eriksson, Sweden

·        Ulrich Frank, Germany

·        Matt Germonprez, USA

·        Rob Gleasure, Ireland

·        Shirley Gregor, Australia

·        Markus Helfert, Ireland

·        Ola Henfridsson, UK

·        Dirk Hovorka, Australia

·        Philip Huysmans, Belgium

·        Fredrik Karlsson, Sweden

·        Finn Kensing, Denmark

·        John Krogstie, Norway

·        Matthew Levy, USA

·        Kalle Lyytinen, USA

·        Lars Mathiassen, USA

·        Jeffrey Nickerson, USA

·        Andreas Opdahl, Norway

·        Jan Pries-Heje, Denmark

·        Sandeep Purao, USA

·        Matti Rossi, Finland

·        Kurt Sandkuhl, Germany

·        Maung Sein, Norway

·        Jonas Sjöström, Sweden

·        Hans Weigand, the Netherlands

·        Roel Wieringa, the Netherlands
More members to be announced.
References

Ågerfalk P J (2010) Getting Pragmatic, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 19 (3), pp 251–256

Alturki A, BandaraW, Gable G (2012) Design science research and the core of information systems, Proceedings DESRIST 2012, LNCS 7286, Springer, Berlin

Baskerville R, Pries-Heje J, Venable J (2009) Soft design science methodology, in Proceedings DESRIST ’09, Malvern

Baskerville R, Wood-Harper T (1998) Diversity in information systems action research methods, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 7, p 90–107

Bødker S, Ehn P, Sjögren D, Sundblad Y (2000) Co-operative Design - perspectives on 20 years with ‘the Scandinavian IT Design Model’, Proceedings of NordiCHI 2000, Stockholm

Burstein F, Gregor S (1999) The systems development or engineering approach to research in information systems: An action research perspective, Proc. 10th Australasian Conference on Information Systems

Checkland P (1981) Systems thinking, Systems practice, John Wiley, Chichester

Chiasson M, Dexter A (2001) System development conflict during the use of an information systems prototyping method of action research. Implications for practice and research, Information Technology & People, Vol 14 (1), pp. 91-108

Cole R, Purao S, Rossi M, Sein M (2005) Being Proactive: Where Action Research meets Design Research, Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth International Conference on Information Systems, Las Vegas, p 325-336

Davison R M, Martinsons M G, Kock N (2004) Principles of canonical action research, Information Systems Journal, Vol 14, p 65–86

Figueiredo A, Cunha P (2007) Action research and design in information systems: Two faces of a single coin, in Kock N, (Ed. 2007) Information Systems Action Research. An Applied View of Emerging Concepts and Methods, Springer

Goldkuhl G (2012) Pragmatism vs. interpretivism in qualitative information systems research, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 21 (2), p 135-146

Goldkuhl G (2013) Action research vs. design research: using practice research as a lens for comparison and integration, accepted to the 2nd Workshop on IT Artefact Design & Workpractice Improvement, Tilburg

Greenbaum J, Kyng, M (Eds, 1991) Design at work: Cooperative design of computer systems, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale

Hevner A R, March S T, Park J, Ram S (2004) Design science in information systems research, MIS Quarterly, Vol 28 (1), p 75-115

Iivari J, Venable J (2009) Action research and design science research – Seemingly similar but decisively dissimilar, Proc of 17th European Conference on Information Systems, Verona

Järvinen P (2007) Action research is similar to design science, Quality & Quantity, Vol 41, p 37–54

Kensing F, Simonsen J, Bødker K (1998) MUST: A method for participatory design, Human–Computer Interaction, Vol 13 (2), pp 167-198

Lee A (2007) Action is an artifact: What action research and design science offers each other, in Kock N (Ed. 2007) Information Systems Action Research. An Applied View of Emerging Concepts and Methods, Springer

March S T, Smith G F (1995) Design and natural science research in information technology, Decision Support Systems, Vol 15 (4), pp 251-266

Mathiassen L (2002) Collaborative practice research, Information Technology & People, Vol 15 (4), p 321-345

Mårtensson P, Lee A (2004) Dialogical action research at Omega corporation, MIS Quarterly, Vol 28 (3), p 507-536

Nunamaker J, Chen M, Purdin T (1991) Systems Development in Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol 7 (3), p 89-106

Papas N, O’Keefe R, Seltsikas P (2012) The action research vs. design science debate: reflections from an intervention in eGovernment, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 21 (2), p 147–159

Sein M, Henfridsson O, Purao S, Rossi M, Lindgren R (2011) Action design research, MIS Quarterly, Vol 35 (1), p 37-56

Sjöström J (2010) Designing information systems. A pragmatic account, Ph Diss, Uppsala University

Susman G I, Evered R D (1978) An assessment of the scientific merits of action research, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol 23 (4) p 582-603

Wieringa R, Morali A (2012) Technical action research as a validation method in information systems design science, Proceedings DESRIST 2012, LNCS 7286, Springer, Berlin

Wood-Harper T (1985) Research methods in information systems: Using action research, in Mumford E et al (Eds, 1985) Research methods in information systems, North-Holland, Amsterdam
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