Job ready or future-ready? The role of IS research in PG IS curriculum

Research on IS curriculum focus on how IS curriculum objectives are consistent with what ICT/IS employers’ demand. Emerging IS trends are the motivation for research on updating IS curriculum. Of particular concern is that most scholarship on IS curriculum is focused on undergraduate studies, with little literature on post-graduate curriculum. There is a gap in the current literature that trending research issues, as articulated in IS journals, have not been explicitly linked to the development of IS curriculum. Consequently, how the AIS/ACM curriculum models reflect current IS research issues has not been explicitly investigated. We would argue that the link between research and curriculum is particularly relevant to post-graduate studies. We conducted a review of recently published papers in the IS basket of eight journals and listed key subject terms that emerged from our review and compare the subject terms with the IS competency realm proposed in IS2020

Understanding the Structure of Agile Software Development Using Text Analytics: A Preliminary Analysis

The tenets of agile software development (ASD) were formulated over fifteen years ago. Since then, a number of methods and best practices have emerged, which, in turn, have spawned many research ideas. This study attempts to chronicle the evolution of thought in agile software development by using text analytics, an approach that is becoming invaluable in our efforts to understand unstructured text. Specifically, we use text analytics to unravel latent semantic relationships within the agile domain in order to get a sense of where we started, where we are today, and what to anticipate in the future

'Meet the parents': the importance of 'pre-conception' conditions in facilitating high-technology spin-out companies

Encouraging the spinning out of high tech companies from higher education institutes (HEIS) is now a major tenet of industrial policy in the UK and other European countries. New enterprise formation is seen as a vehicle for technology transfer and the commercialisation of research by universities, and independent and government funded research institutes. Despite the proliferation of schemes and mechanisms supporting would-be entrepreneurs and their nascent enterprises, we are still some way from identifying the factors making for success. Understanding any scheme aimed at generating new technology based firms (ntbfs) requires a holistic approach which considers the nature of the parent research organisation, the local economic context, the specific objectives of the scheme and the changing needs of new enterprises. The nature of the parent is particularly important in setting what may be seen as 'pre-conception' conditions: namely inspiration, motivation, willingness to take risk and identification of potential idea. This paper describes differences found in these pre-conception conditions in a number of research organisations in the UK.entrepreneurship, new technology based firms, business incubation, research organisations, organisation culture

Goal-oriented models for teaching and understanding data structures

Most computer science curricula include a compulsory course on data structures. Students are prone to memorise facts about data structures instead of understanding the essence of underlying concepts. This can be explained by the fact that learning the basics of each data structure, the difference with each other, and the adequacy of each of them to the most appropriate context of use, is far from trivial. This paper explores the idea of providing adequate levels of abstractions to describe data structures from an intentional point of view. Our hypothesis is that adopting a goal-oriented perspective could emphasise the main goals of each data structure, its qualities, and its relationships with the potential context of use. Following this hypothesis, in this paper we present the use of iStar2.0 to teach and understand data structures. We conducted a comparative quasi-experiment with undergraduate students to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach. Significant results show the great potential of goal modeling for teaching technical courses like data structures. We conclude this paper by reflecting on further teaching and conceptual modeling research to be conducted in this field.This work has been partially supported by the by the DOGO4ML Spanish research project (ref. PID2020-117191RB-I00), the Digitalization Initiative of the Canton of Zü-rich (DIZH), and ZHAW Digital.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Challenges of Creativity in Software Organizations

Part 1: Creating ValueInternational audienceManaging creativity has proven to be one of the most important drivers in software development and use. The continuous changing market environment drives companies like Google, SAS Institute and LEGO to focus on creativity as an increasing necessity when competing through sustained innovations. However, creativity in the information systems (IS) environment is a challenge for most organizations that is primarily caused by not knowing how to strategize creative processes in relation to IS strategies, thus, causing companies to act ad hoc in their creative endeavors. In this paper, we address the organizational challenges of creativity in software organizations. Grounded in a previous literature review and a rigorous selection process, we identify and present a model of seven important factors for creativity in software organizations. From these factors, we identify 21 challenges that software organizations experience when embarking on creative endeavors and transfer them into a comprehensive framework. Using an interpretive research study, we further study the framework by analyzing how the challenges are integrated in 27 software organizations. Practitioners can use this study to gain a deeper understanding of creativity in their own business while researchers can use the framework to gain insight while conducting interpretive field studies of managing creativity

EUSTRESS, LEARNING ENGAGEMENT, AND WORKABLE STRATEGIES OF DCBLT IN ENGLISH FOR ENGINEERING

Attention to eustress related to learning engagement among ESP learners utilizing Digital Content-Based Language Teaching (DCBLT) remains notably insufficient. This research aims to identify the levels and relationships between eustress and learning engagement, as well as the identification of workable teaching strategies when implementing DCBLT. Employing a mixed-method approach, this study utilizes quantitative data (questionnaire responses) from 43 students and qualitative data (in-depth interviews) from three English for Engineering language instructors. The analysis procedure for quantitative data employed the Spearman rank correlation test, while qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The results indicate that the levels of eustress and learning engagement among students are highly satisfactory. Moreover, eustress correlates positively and strongly with increased learning engagement. The data also reveals the existence of several workable DCBLT teaching strategies, encompassing the pre-teaching phase (stimulating idea generation, fostering brainstorming, establishing connections, and motivating learners), the whilst-teaching phase (employing a student-centered learning approach, including individual tasks, group work, and quizzes via the DCB platform), and the post-teaching phase (assessing, verifying, and reviewing learners' comprehension). Research recommendations are also presented in the concluding section to fortify and extend the findings of this study

From manufacturing to design : an essay on the work of Kim B. Clark. Harvard Business School Working Paper- 07-057

In this paper, we describe Clark's research and discuss his contributions to management scholarship and economics. We look at three distinct bodies of work. In the first, Clark (in conjunction with Robert Hayes and Steven Wheelwright) argued that the abandonment by U.S. managers of manufacturing as a strategic function exposed U.S. companies to Japanese competition in terms of the cost and quality of goods. In the second, conducted with Wheelwright, Bruce Chew, Takahiro Fujimoto, Kent Bowen and Marco Iansiti, Clark made the case that product development could be managed in new ways that would lead to significant competitive advantage for firms. Finally, in work conducted with Abernathy, Rebecca Henderson and Carliss Baldwin, Clark placed product and process designs at the center of his explanation of how innovation determines the structure and evolution of industries.

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history