[AISWorld] From Influential Papers to Influential Ideas - The Discourse Continues - Part 2

[Nik Rushdi Hassan]

Dear IS colleagues,
The issue of the value of IS research keeps cropping up now and again in
different guises. I used to wonder if it was just me feeling that way. I
don't anymore and the many voices in this thread confirms my suspicions.
The issue is complex, but in defense of the field and the community though,
there are pockets of efforts trying their best to transform the field for
the better. The Communications of the AIS's inaugural Debate Section
(thanks to KarlHeinz Kautz) actually got a few senior scholars to examine
this issue ("Value of IS Research: Is there a Crisis?") and I think if
everyone supports such efforts, we can start to see the transformation take
place. For me, the IS field is uniquely positioned, intellectually, to make
great contributions to society and like any other legitimate field of
study, there is nothing inherently inferior about IS as an intellectual
endeavor. It's just up to us to find our place among the giants out there.
Who knows, we might get a Nobel Prize in information systems some day.

Nik


On Wed, Jul 20, 2016 at 12:32 PM, Andrew Urbaczewski <
Andrew.Urbaczewski at du.edu> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues:
>
> Early in my academic career, I noted some of the preening going on one of
> our conferences in the field. Noticing it, a senior scholar with whom I was
> having a private conversation dismissed it and said something like “These
> guys all need to remember that we’re not curing cancer here - get a grip on
> yourselves”.  I then found it interesting to watch that same senior scholar
> doing that same preening not even a half-hour later, but academics have
> never been accused of having small egos.
>
> I too have gotten very discouraged and turned off by the way the research
> of this field has gone the last 15 years.  Models are published not for the
> usefulness or because any practitioner actually cares, but for their
> complexity and number of Greek symbols and partial derivatives.  In the
> last couple of years I’ve had to ask myself several times, “what would I
> rather spend my limited hours working on? Spending the next year working on
> and publishing some abstract math piece that /maybe/ 200 other people in
> the world will actually read (and far fewer will actually use), or helping
> some bachelor’s or master’s student from a bad situation get a job or
> finish a capstone project for a non-profit or governmental organization
> that couldn’t afford the project but will actually use it?”  To me, the
> answer is obvious.
>
> It is not our job to train practitioners in our language.  Practitioners
> are the ones with real problems to solve and real jobs to lose and real
> companies that shut down if things go wrong with their processes.  If we
> screw up, the worst that happens is a paper doesn’t get published or one of
> our grad students takes an extra quarter to graduate.  We are the ones that
> need to keep up with the times, and stay current in the real field as
> Murray Jennex stated in his posts on this matter.
>
> Maybe a better question now is “Why aren’t we curing cancer?”  This is in
> the abstract of course and a response to the original question in the first
> paragraph, but there are real, important, useful questions that we can work
> on. As university professors, we have a privileged place in society to
> research the questions we find interesting and to work on the problems with
> people we choose to work with for the best ends as we determine them.  P&T
> and Deans and FT-45 of course shape these things for our junior faculty,
> and shame on us for allowing that to happen.
>
> So maybe we can have a journal called “Journal of IS Stuff that Matters”?
> or “Proceedings of Using Data to Solve Real Problems” or “IS research your
> grandmother can and will read"?  Interfaces is probably as close as I’ve
> seen to this out there, with MISQE approaching it.  But then to have it
> valued and publicized is another matter.  Until then, when faced with the
> choice on how to spend my limited hours in the day, I know how I will spend
> them.
>
> And funny enough, as I was finishing this email I had a student come by
> who was modeling a problem for our public transit system and I was happy to
> help him, knowing that his project may well make public transportation more
> efficient in Denver later.  It’s not curing cancer, but it may help that
> cancer patient enter and exit the bus system more efficiently.  I can be
> proud of that hour I spent.
>
> With my best to all of you,
> Andrew
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Andrew Urbaczewski, Ph.D.
> Chair, Department of Business Information and Analytics
> Daniels College of Business
> University of Denver
> 2101 S. University Blvd
> Denver, CO 80208-8931
> +1 303 871.4802
>
> SKYPE me at aurbaczewski
>
> > On 19 Jul, 2016, at 23:34 , Samir Chatterjee <profsamir1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Dear IS Colleagues:
> >
> > My simple query on ISWorld has generated passionate debates on all sides.
> > It is clear to me that like myself, many scholars (seniors and juniors)
> are
> > concerned about the status quo when it comes to IS research. I have
> > received many direct responses sent only to me and many of you have said
> > your comments publicly. A number of different (but related) issues have
> > come up. I don’t think my intention was to address all of them. In fact
> > while I appreciate the public discourse, I am a man of action and would
> > like to make progress.
> >
> >
> > I will briefly share a comment that a colleague has made privately to me.
> >
> >
> > “It takes a lot of conviction to point out that the emperor has no
> clothes.
> > This should have been done a long time ago, many thanks for doing it. I
> > have seen even people with technical training dive into behavioral work
> as
> > if that's where the gold lies.” If IS research has had low value and
> > contribution to society let us address that and may be take steps to
> > rectify the situation so that our next generation scholars can be proud
> of
> > our legacy.
> >
> >
> > I know that we publish for mutual admiration, we all want to pat our
> backs,
> > and we have created an academic culture where research is evaluated by
> bean
> > counting, that is, how many hits we have in an obscure basket. Of course
> > there are promotion and tenure issues and business schools in particular
> > are obsessed with rankings. However, we all should take note of the fact
> > that our research should provide value and hopefully societal benefits.
> >
> >
> > That brings me to a question that has been raised: “How do we measure
> > influence or impact?”
> >
> >
> > I can think of numerous variables that can be combined to create a score
> > for influence. Some obvious variables would include citation count,
> > patents, funding from national agencies, commercialization, actual
> > end-users testimony etc etc. I do not want to come up with a formulae
> here.
> > But I definitely feel that a panel on this topic should be held at ICIS
> or
> > some other major AIS conference where we can hear from many scholars
> > worldwide.
> >
> > A colleague mentioned: “Quite how they will measure impact remains to be
> > seen, but I suspect that mere citations will be insufficient. Instead,
> they
> > will look for (even if not find) evidence that the said research has
> made a
> > difference. This has been the call from Geoff Walsham (2012) for some
> time
> > - to use IS to make the world a better place. Studies of Green IS, where
> > the real beneficiary is the Planet Earth, should be framed by this ambit,
> > for instance.
> >
> > Walsham, G. (2012). Are we making a better world with ICTs? Reflections
> on
> > a future agenda for the IS field. *Journal of Information Technology*,
> *27*(2),
> > 87-93.”
> >
> > I also agree that collectively as an academic community we should not
> worry
> > about what journal the paper is in.  But we must list highly influential
> > and cited papers regardless of the journal. The problem with FT-45 or if
> > you consider IS from an economics or social science perspective is that
> you
> > leave out some of the very best people who work on the border e.g.
> software
> > engineering or data analytics. We are increasingly noting that when new
> > position openings are announced, institutions want people who can teach
> > programming, do low-level systems development, but are supposed to have a
> > track record in (and only in) behavioristic journals. These are
> conflicting
> > demands.
> >
> >
> > The language we use in our IS research, the fact that we are publishing
> > "more and more about less and less" – and as others have observed, that
> the
> > publish-or-perish dynamic has gone out of control are all relevant issues
> > but I don’t think we should lump them into the effort to create a set of
> > influential papers or ideas list.
> >
> >
> > I agree with Juhani that individual papers may not be the right unit when
> > one considers the practical relevance of research. Perhaps we should
> focus
> > on ideas (innovations) and their histories.
> >
> >
> > Identifying innovations that can clearly be attributed to IS research is
> > challenging because of the heavy dominance of "the behavioral science
> > research" orientation of mainstream IS research during the last 30 years.
> >
> >
> > The acceptance of Design Science as a research methodology was a welcome
> > change in the community. But many of us now agree that we are still
> talking
> > about the philosophy of DSR rather than doing it. The reason is that top
> > journals keep rejecting relevant and interesting papers sighting lack of
> > theory contribution. The world is changing but our editors are not. The
> > more we do that, the less likely we are going to have an impact or
> > influence to society.
> >
> > Lastly I want to mention that I am very cognizant that research has two
> > ends: basic (deep knowledge which is foundational) and applied (one that
> > industry excels in by creating applications). But let us not kid
> ourselves
> > into believing that IS is a fundamental science field. It is highly
> applied
> > and we should be proud of it.
> >
> >
> > In conclusion I would mention that while many people responded, I hardly
> > received any papers that one could argue has had influence and was
> > originated by IS community.
> >
> > One colleague brought out a paper. “To my knowledge one of the most
> > influential contributions from IS research has been the business model
> > canvas, presented in the Business Model Generation book by Osterwalder &
> > Pigneur (2010). This relatively simple yet effective idea has been
> adopted
> > in start-up business circles everywhere. Osterwalder & Pigneur published
> > their research in CAIS in 2005, and in JAIS in 2013.
> >
> > Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2013). Designing Business Models and
> > Similar Strategic Objects: The Contribution of IS. Journal of the
> > Association for Information Systems, 14(5), 237-244.
> > Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., & Tucci, C. L. (2005). Clarifying Business
> > Models: Origins, Present, and Future of the Concept. Communications of
> the
> > Association for Information Systems, 16.”
> >
> >
> > I am going to start a Wiki Page with some important IS contributions. We
> > may have to debate how we measure influence. I am willing to participate.
> > Are you?
> >
> > Samir
> >
> > --
> > Dr. Samir Chatterjee
> > Professor
> > School of Information Systems & Technology
> > Claremont Graduate University
> > 130 East 9th Street, Claremont, CA 91711
> > (P) 909-607-4651; (cell) 909-730-8898
> > profsamir1 at gmail.com
> > http://sites.cgu.edu/chatterjees/
> > Director, *Innovations Design Empowerment Applications Laboratory* (IDEA
> > Labs) http://www.idea-labs.net/
> > Associate Editor: Health Systems, IJBDCN
> > Editorial Board: Journal of AIS
> > Member: IEEE (senior), ACM (senior), AIS, AMIA
> > Author: http://designscienceresearch.wordpress.com/about/
> > 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner for Contributions to Design
> Science
> > (by AIS DSR community)
> > _______________________________________________
> > AISWorld mailing list
> > AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org
>
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> AISWorld at lists.aisnet.org




-- 
Nik Rushdi Hassan, PhD
Assoc. Professor, Finance & MIS Dept.
Labovitz School of Business and Economics
University of Minnesota Duluth
1318 Kirby Drive, LSBE 335Q
Duluth MN 55812
Office Phone: (218) 726-7453
Fax: (218) 726-7516
Home Page: www.d.umn.edu/~nhassan
Email: nhassan at d.umn.edu
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/nikrushdi/