[AISWorld] Why top IS journals ignore research in one of the most valuable assets: Data Centers?

[Geoffrey Hubona]

Manuel - Regretfully, this has always been the practical context of the
IS/IT 'behavioral' and 'technical' research articles published in our top
journals (MISQ, MISQ Executive, ISR, JMIS) to 'real world' IS and IT
executives and other business-oriented and profit-oriented organizational
practitioners. The truth is that this research is rarely immediately
valuable to finding useable, actionable, practical insights in dealing with
the thorny issues of making information systems more effective
and/or useful to increasing profit or strategic effectiveness.​

CIOs and senior IT managers do not read these articles and have long
complained that they have little relevance to their jobs. These articles
are read almost exclusively by grad students and other university faculty
in these fields because it is a prime criterion by which they are assessed
on the job.

There is a "reality gap," always has been, between the direction and
guidance afforded by this research and what is actually used in real
businesses to cope with their problems. I know this to be true because I
have spent a significant amount of my professional life in both camps.

Real CIOs and senior IT managers in corporations and government
organizations who have to wrestle with practical, day-to-day problems of
how to extract value, utility, and effectiveness from either the human
side, or the technical side of implementing and using information systems
do not read these research articles in our 'top' IS/IT journals because
these research articles offer little or nothing of immediate value to them.

Best, Geoffrey Hubona, Ph.D.



On Fri, Mar 4, 2016 at 12:40 PM, <mmora at securenym.net> wrote:

> Dear AIS colleagues:
>
> Well, it is well known that IS/IT area is a mix of managerial and
> engineering disciplines. However, it is sad that most top IS journals
> (MISQ, MISQ Executive, ISR, JMIS) ignore totally one of the main
> constructs of our discipline:  data centers.  A search for research papers
> on this construct and real entity (where all ICT operations run daily in
> the largest worldwide organizations) in these top journals reports a
> scarcity of them.
>
> Are we really researchers in IT (technology side)?  I believe AIS must
> re-design it and make a real self-valuation on it. IT needs technical and
> engineering oriented people and top journals and their followers only
> value managerial soft issues.
>
> I have not renewed my subscription to AIS for it, but most important is an
> inquiry: are we really preparing IT technical people correctly?
>
> I am afraid that AIS is not helping too much. Our behavioral colleagues
> are welcome but AIS should be controlled by Engineering ICT people !
>
> Well, this is a discussion list, so my 5 cents contribution !
> Manuel Mora
>
> PS Interested in engineering topics on Data Centers please consider:
>
>
> http://www.issip.org/cfp-engineering-and-management-of-data-centers-an-it-service-management-approach/
>
>
>
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