<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Call for Papers<br><br>17th Americas Conference on Information Systems<br>August 4-7, 2011, Detroit, MI, USA<br>Track: Global, International, and Cultural Issues in IS<br>Mini Track: Philosophy, Epistemology and Research Methods in Information Systems<br><br>DESCRIPTION:<br>In this minitrack, we solicit papers that either clarify the philosophy of information systems (IS), or apply one or more philosophical concepts towards understanding IS phenomena. By applying the prefix "philosophy of," we are attempting to develop, through debate, a framework of understanding of what is essential to our field, its core concepts, theories, and methodologies. For instance, critical social realism and a broad range of philosophical approaches, including hermeneutics and phenomenology, have been shown to be
applicable to IS research (Mingers & Willcocks 2004). As such, we seek and encourage papers that propose competing theoretical and philosophical lenses that will help to enrich our current understanding of the IS field. We seek insights and to encourage debate on a wide variety of issues including:<br><br>- Where is the relevance of philosophy to IS research and practice?<br>- What differentiates IS from other fields (ontology) and are the current approaches towards knowing in IS - positivism, interpretivism and critical realism - adequate for IS (epistemology)?<br>- How should researchers handle methodological pluralism in IS research?<br>- What does the “linguistic turn” in the human sciences, modern, postmodern and poststructuralist approaches imply for IS research and practice?<br>- In the age of the global village, socially-networked society, organizations without boundaries and WikiLeaks, what is shape of the future IS field and the
potential status of IS as a reference discipline?<br><br>SUGGESTED TOPICS:<br>Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:<br>- IS ontology and epistemology<br>- Philosophical foundations and methodological choices for IS research<br>- Novel IS research methods and techniques<br>- Applications of specific philosophical theories or methods (such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical realism, and others)<br>- Sociomaterial philosophy and methodology<br>- Modern, linguistic, poststructuralist, and postmodern theories and approaches<br>- Philosophical issues in quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods<br>- Ethical and normative issues<br><br>REFERENCES:<br>Mingers, J. and Willcocks, L.P. (Eds.). Social Theory and Philosophy for Information Systems. John Wiley & Sons, London, 2004.<br><br>SUBMISSION SITE<br><span><a target="_blank"
href="http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amcis2011">http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amcis2011</a></span><br><br>IMPORTANT DATES<br>17-Feb-2011: Deadline for paper submissions<br>24-Mar-2011: Notification of acceptance<br>21-Apr-2011: Final copy due<br><br>CHAIRS CONTACT INFORMATION<br>Trevor T. Moores<br>moores@essec.fr<br>ESSEC Business School<br>FRANCE<br><br>Nik R. Hassan<br>nhassan@d.umn.edu<br>University of Minnesota Duluth<br>USA<br></div>
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