[AISWorld] CFP – JAIS Special Issue: Advances in Qualitative IS Research Methodologies

[JAIS]

The Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS) announces a call for papers for an upcoming special issue, Advances in Qualitative IS Research Methodologies.

Complete details may be found on the JAIS website: http://aisel.aisnet.org/jais/


Guest co-editors:
Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic, UNSW, Australia
Robert Davison, The City University of Hong Kong, China
Walter Fernandez, UNSW, Australia
Patrick Finnegan, UNSW, Australia
Shan Pan, UNSW, Australia
Suprateek Sarker, University of Virginia, USA


Background
The purpose of the Special Issue is to foster and contribute to methodological advances of qualitative research including new philosophical approaches and innovative research designs and methods that enable more profound, critically engaged, practically relevant and reflexive insights into IS and organizing in the digital era. We invite IS scholars to think differently about these emerging and increasingly intertwined social and technological phenomena and explore bold vision and methodological innovations in conducting IS inquiries.
Building on the rich tradition of epistemological and methodological debates in IS and social sciences more broadly, this Special Issue aims to:
- Provide an unconventional forum for a critical reflection and wide-open debate on fundamental issues in IS research: paradigmatic and philosophical foundations, epistemological and methodologies choices, and implications for knowledge production, justification and relevance;
- Stimulate epistemic developments above and beyond the well-trodden methodological paths to encourage and equip IS researchers to grapple with the complex and emerging IS phenomena of the digital age; and
- Advance IS research by proposing, developing, and show-casing new, visionary and innovative qualitative research methodologies and methods/techniques, and illustrating their contributions to knowledge creation.

We encourage scholars to submit works that contribute to these key aims.  Papers of a methodological and conceptual nature as well as those that are empirical are welcome.  While contributing to any of the three aims, the papers may focus on, but are not restricted to, the following:

General themes:
- epistemological concerns, methodological concerns and concerns with methods – reviews and critical reflections on IS research practices; tensions and challenges of aligning epistemology to methodology and then to method(s)
- methodological questions of adopting new philosophies/approaches in IS research (e.g. sociomateriality, practice theory, process theorizing);
- alternative modes of IS inquiry - innovative approaches, methodologies and methods; new forms and challenges of knowledge production; technologically enabled and assisted IS inquires;
- revisiting generalizability in IS research – past debates vs future challenges;
- new and emerging IS phenomena/objects/foci/domains in the digital era, such as: digitization processes in private, public and third sector; social networking; virtual(izing) reality; openness phenomena (open innovation, value co-creation); global sourcing and crowdsourcing; new technology-enabled modes of working and organizing; electronic markets; vertical and horizontal transformation of industries; enterprise systems, globalization and transformation of organizations;
- qualitative research and methodological challenges in the era of Big Data;
- new answers to old questions: does IS research matter in practice (and for whom) and why should we care?
- new strategies and genres for representing qualitative research in electronic journals such as the Journal of the AIS.

These themes can be explored on their own and also as part of the following tracks:
- Methodological advances in case study research including new perspectives/ approaches in case study research of emerging IS phenomena; methodological challenges in multiple cases research; theorizing from cases – new methods and challenges;
- Methodological advances in field/ethnography/virtual ethnography research including: new ways of doing field work underpinned by novel approaches; field work in new digital environments (virtual, global, distributed, algorithmic worlds); unleashing discovery and learning from field work;
- Methodological advances in action research including different ontological and epistemological assumptions and their implications in conducting Action Research; integration or comparison of the variants of Action Research; innovative ways of approaching and doing Action Research and advancing theoretical and practical contributions of Action Research;
- Methodological advances in Grounded Theory approaches to knowledge production and theory building including: innovative ways of grounded theory development; challenges of grounded approaches in case study and field study inquiries, and technological assistance in grounded knowledge production and theory building.

Researchers are invited to submit their paper that addresses one of the nominated themes/tracks and clearly contributes to the Special Issue aims. Authors will have an opportunity to present their papers at two workshops one held in Istanbul before ECIS 2016 (see https://jaisqual.wordpress.com/), and the other held in Sydney just before ACIS 2016 (which will be held in Wollongong). Participation in a workshop is not compulsory for the submission of a paper to the Special Issue. However, presenting a draft paper at a workshop will be very helpful to the authors for getting early feedback before submitting a paper to the Special Issue.

Important submission dates (a complete list of dates is posted in the call on the JAIS website)

21 Feb 2016 - Deadline for submission of extended abstracts for the pre-ECIS workshop (Istanbul) https://jaisqual.wordpress.com/
 9 Aug 2016 - Deadline for submission of extended abstracts for the pre-ACIS workshop (Sydney)
 1 Feb 2017 - Deadline for full paper submissions to the Special Issue

Abstracts should be mailed to the workshop organizing co-chairs:
Michael Cahalane, UNSW, Australia (m.cahalane at unsw.edu.au)
Daniel Schlagwein, UNSW, Australia (schlagwein at unsw.edu.au)