[AISWorld] "IS not capable of coming up with native theories" says its senior scholar

[Juhani Iivari]

Hi All,

In my opinion, the point is not whether theory is native or not, but whether it is IS/IT-specific. The calls for "native theories" are just calls for the IS research community to develop IS/IT-specific theories and not just to borrow theories from reference disciplines, Those borrowed theoris tend not to be particularly IS/IT-specific.

So, Mikko's example is misleading. Covid vaccines are based on (highly) vaccine-specific theories. I am not any expert on them but there are fairly detailed explanations ("theories") of how they work (e.g. Pfeizer/BioNTech-vaccine).

Based on my extensive experience of taking corona vaccines (three times), I guess that most people who take corona vaccine trust that they have been developed by experts in vaccines. i.e. they implicitly assume that they are "native theories" in vaccinilogy (?). I don't know whether there are recent counter examples where vaccines (to be taken seriously) are developed by people not experts in vaccines.

Mikko's point about the success is, of course, relevant. But again, ordinary laymen must trust that the empirical studies have been conducted in the appropriate way.

All the best,

Juhani


________________________________
From: AISWorld <aisworld-bounces at lists.aisnet.org> on behalf of Siponen, Mikko <mikko.t.siponen at jyu.fi>
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2021 10:23 PM
To: Nik Rushdi Hassan <nhassan at d.umn.edu>
Cc: AISWorld <aisworld at lists.aisnet.org>
Subject: Re: [AISWorld] "IS not capable of coming up with native theories" says its senior scholar

Hi Nik

Thank you for asking. To quickly make a long story very short:

1) The role of “native” theories is overplayed in Organizational and Management Research as well as in IS.  The philosophy of science does not suggest that the success of sciences or disciplines (in general) is related to the “native” theories. Lets give a simple example familiar with most people:
- e.g. for Covid vaccines: Which one of you asked, when taking the vaccine, if it was based on a “native theory”? I bet you did not ask this.

For Covid vaccines, the issue is not to ask "did anyone develop a ‘native’” theory, but to ask the degree of EMPIRICAL SUCCESS, i.e., how successfully are these vaccines. In this specific case, you may want to have high Average Treatment Effect (ATF; usually presented as statistical generalisation of the predictive effect, e.g., 60% effect), minimal side effects, long time effect window, etc. Further, you would like to know the empirical success of each vaccine against different virus variants. These matters - not whether there was (or was not) a “native theory”.


2) usually (in the philosophy of science) fundamental scientific goals relate to “understanding”, OR “explanation” OR “prediction”. E.g. again, we want to know the empirical success of a CoVid vaccine as illustrated above, which is predictive success. IF e.g. predictive success is the fundamental scientific goal, as it is often the case in applied sciences, then (to simplify) this is what matters. If a “non-native” theory offers a better track record of EMPIRICAL SUCCESS for some phenomenon, then we go with it.


By and large, e.g. medical research did not became successful by developing native theories, but with a track record of empirical success.

IS community has a lot of competence. But is the search for “native theories” the best way to use this competence? If IS is an applied field, perhaps we should put our key focus on empirical success. Later we will see if “native” theories offer better empirical success in different IS cases than non-native theory.

This is the short story, from a less senior IS scholar....


Mikko Siponen
D. Soc. Sc., Ph.D.
Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters
Professor of Information Systems
University of Jyväskylä
Tel. +358 505588128



On 12. Dec 2021, at 17.43, Nik Rushdi Hassan <nhassan at d.umn.edu<mailto:nhassan at d.umn.edu>> wrote:

Dear colleagues,
A very distinguished senior IS scholar who has a long string of
accomplishments including chief editorship of top IS journals shared with
me that "I have been doubtful that the IS discipline can come up with
Native Theories. I believe that the IS discipline is simply not ready, not
yet sufficiently developed to come up with Native Theories."
Today, the SIGPHIL at ICIS workshop
<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsigphil.wordpress.com%2F9th-concurrent-sigphilicis-workshop-on-products-of-theorizing-towards-native-theories-of-emerging-information-technology-dec-12-13-austin-texas%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C2e8d3b74f0bf4df9ddfd08d9bd86c218%7Ce9662d58caa44bc1b138c8b1acab5a11%7C1%7C0%7C637749208760285797%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=FzsoRIUMMAxtbPtz5GG0Zz6s%2BYJp0HRoq7I%2BPVPOKAY%3D&reserved=0>
that starts at 1pm CST virtually on Zoom addresses that claim, one way or
another. Will the list of work-in-progress papers, mostly by younger
researchers, vying for a place in the Journal of Information Technology
Special Issue on Products of Theorizing: Towards Native Theories of
Emerging IT
<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournals.sagepub.com%2Fpb-assets%2FJIT%2520CFP%2520SI%2520Theory%25202022-1638784677553.pdf&data=04%7C01%7C%7C2e8d3b74f0bf4df9ddfd08d9bd86c218%7Ce9662d58caa44bc1b138c8b1acab5a11%7C1%7C0%7C637749208760295794%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=3H9cgscte%2BtI%2FX1eWBhn60lWoXGB6h6XFyqS%2FeOV77c%3D&reserved=0>,
show that we just don't have what it takes?

What do you think?

--
Nik Rushdi Hassan, PhD and Assoc. Professor of MIS
Labovitz School of Business and Economics
University of Minnesota Duluth
1318 Kirby Drive, LSBE 385A
Duluth MN 55812
Office Phone: (218) 726-7453
Fax: (218) 726-7578
Home Page: https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.d.umn.edu%2F~nhassan&data=04%7C01%7C%7C2e8d3b74f0bf4df9ddfd08d9bd86c218%7Ce9662d58caa44bc1b138c8b1acab5a11%7C1%7C0%7C637749208760295794%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=%2BsFUll7C%2BNltKYCuTfWkYgNABWCyQbSMeJOTbVxl1dM%3D&reserved=0
Email: nhassan at d.umn.edu<mailto:nhassan at d.umn.edu>
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