[AISWorld] CFP ISJ special issue: Making the developing world a better place with high impact IS research

[Antonio Diaz Andrade]

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL: MAKING THE DEVELOPING WORLD A BETTER PLACE WITH HIGH IMPACT IS RESEARCH

Background
The practical impact that IS research can bring to real organisational and societal problem situations and their stakeholders should be of prime concern to all researchers who desire to make the world a better place. Governments and funding agencies increasingly seek evidence that the research they support does bring about valuable impacts. The United Nations has also taken a strong stance with its Millennium Development Goals (http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals), which have now transitioned into the new set of Sustainable Development Goals (http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org). Indeed, the critical need for positive impact is nowhere greater than in the less developed parts of the world.
The focus of this special issue is on high impact research in the specific context of developing countries, also known as emerging economies and the global south. These countries, many of which are located in Africa, Asia, South and Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific, tend to have an underdeveloped industrial base and a low human development index relative to other, more developed countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country). By high impact we are referring to research that demonstrates how IS has actually made a contribution for the better in a specific problem or problem area. The impact must be tangibly measured or corroborated in terms of change or improvement in a developing country context. Further, the impact must be tightly linked to the IS part of the study. This will require the documentation of strong relationships between the IS, any stakeholders, the problem situation and the outcomes. Potential or speculative impacts, or other forms of subjunctive analysis, are not appropriate for this special issue. Further, we are not looking for purely descriptive studies that embody no theory: consistent with normative expectations for the ISJ, we expect that all papers must be methodologically sound, theoretically sound as well as demonstrating high impact in the specific context of developing countries.

Focus of this Special Issue
In order to further the good work already undertaken and to encourage the undertaking of more high impact research in developing countries, in this special issue we are looking for papers that deliberately set out to demonstrate how IS makes a difference to the lives of people (whether as individuals or in groups) in developing countries and thereby makes the developing world a better place. This kind of research must thus be strongly relevant to the practical concerns of people in developing contexts. The impact should be situated in a practical context or situation that is experienced directly by the people who live there. The problem situation needs to be defined carefully and, as a result of the research, ameliorated in some tangible way. Notwithstanding this practical focus, we expect that published papers will still adhere to the ISJ's high standards of research rigour (with respect to method) and theoretical contribution.
The range of topic areas which could be described as suitable for this special issue is far too large to list completely. However, broad areas include (but are not limited to): agriculture; medicine and health; SMEs and micro-enterprises; mobile and electronic commerce applications; microfinance; crowd-sourcing; sustainability. What is critical is that the research should be indigenously situated in a developing country context. Moreover, the context should inform the research design (including theory to be tested or developed): the context is not merely a place to gather data.

Coordinating Editor:
Robert Davison, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,isrobert at cityu.edu.hk

Co SI Senior Editors:
Antonio Diaz Andrade, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand,antonio.diaz at aut.ac.nz
Carol Ou, Tilburg University, The Netherlands,carol.ou at uvt.nl
Angsana Techatassanasoontorn, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, angsana at aut.ac.nz

SI Associate Editors:
Ahmed Imran, University of New South Wales, Australia
Alexandre Graeml, UTFPR, Brazil
Christoph Schneider, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
David Xu, Wichita State University, USA
Devinder Thapa, Agder University, Norway
Julian Bass, Salford University, UK
Kevin Kuan, University of Sydney, Australia
M. N. Ravishankar, Loughborough University, UK
Øystein Sæbø, Agder University, Norway
Petter Nielsen, University of Oslo, Norway
Shan Pan, University of New South Wales, Australia
Wallace Chigona, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Deadlines:
Initial submission of complete papers - December 31st 2016
Completion of 1st round of reviews - March 2017
Revisions due: June 2017
Completion of 2nd round of reviews - Sept 2017
(Final) revisions due December 2017
Final decisions - January 2018

Submissions:
All papers must be submitted at the ISJ's online paper submission website, viz.: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/isj