Understanding Topic Models in Context: A Mixed-Methods Approach to the Meaningful Analysis of Large Document Collections

In recent years, we have witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of large document collections. This development has spawned the need for appropriate analytical means. In particular, to seize the thematic composition of large document collections, researchers increasingly draw on quantitative topic models. Among their most prominent representatives is the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Yet, these models have significant drawbacks, e.g. the generated topics lack context and thus meaningfulness. Prior research has rarely addressed this limitation through the lens of mixed-methods research. We position our paper towards this gap by proposing a structured mixed-methods approach to the meaningful analysis of large document collections. Particularly, we draw on qualitative coding and quantitative hierarchical clustering to validate and enhance topic models through re-contextualization. To illustrate the proposed approach, we conduct a case study of the thematic composition of the AIS Senior Scholars' Basket of Journals

Connecting Industry: Building and Sustaining a Practice-based Research Community

In this paper, we give a narrative account of the building and sustaining of a multi-organization practice-based research community (IndustryConnect). We begin with an examination of the motivations and theoretical foundations for the initiative, which brings together researchers and practitioners to investigate the design of the digital workplace and the use of enterprise collaboration systems. We discuss the arrangements, structures and research methods used and the challenges and rewards of practice-based research. These include: aligning stakeholder interests, serving both theoretical and practical outcomes and the role of research training and mentoring in the process of community building

IS Sustainability Research: A trans-disciplinary framework for a ‘grand challenge’

To address the “grand challenge” of biosphere sustainability, it is imperative that we examine the assumptions and philosophies underlying Information Systems sustainability research and expand research approaches. Despite calls for trans-disciplinary research and recognition that addressing sustainability will require multiple perspectives, a review of the IS sustainability literature finds that few publications incorporate knowledge or methods from outside traditional business-centric boundaries. Drawing on a diverse range of IS and sustainability literature, we develop a trans-disciplinary framework for IS Sustainability Research (ISSR) based on a view of sustainability that recognizes the environment as a critical stakeholder rather than a collection of resources to be managed and exploited. We identify three broad areas of inquiry and representative research questions which address the connections between human activity, the natural capital of the biosphere, and the societal goals of human-environment interactions through which ISSR can contribute to the grand challenge of biosphere sustainability

Demarginalizing Interdisciplinarity in IS Research: Interdisciplinary Research in Marginalization

This paper reports on the second Workshop of a World University Network (WUN) Research Development Funded project on “The trans-nationalization of Indigenous movements: The role of digital technologies” at the University of Southampton, UK. The workshop explored interdisciplinarity and how interdisciplinary collaboration can help scholars study complex social phenomenon, such as the ways in which marginalized Indigenous communities use and shape digital technologies (such as social media) to enhance their cause. The workshop brought together scholars from diverse disciplines to engage in a critical debate. In addition to scholars from information systems, scholars from history, political science, geography, literature, arts, and anthropology came together to discuss how marginalized Indigenous communities can use digital media. The workshop highlighted the need for more interdisciplinary research and called for more critical approaches to bring such marginalized topics to the forefront of research in information systems. We consider three broad areas of inquiry in this paper: demarginalizing methodology for interdisciplinary research, interdisciplinary perspectives for demarginalization, and interdisciplinary contexts for demarginalization

Assessing the impact of physicians' social capital on decision making quality mediated by knowledge sharing in a virtual community of practice: an empirical quantitative analysis

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.Purpose - Healthcare (HC) is a globally expensive investment, suffering from service quality, due to medical errors caused by physicians’ poor decisions making (DM). Current published literature: (1) encourages clinical DM research to reduce diagnostic errors and (2) stresses on the dearth of means for practitioners’ knowledge shared DM; this research focuses on knowledge sharing for improving medical DM quality through physicians’ social capital (SC) in a virtual community of practice (VCoP). Physicians join a virtual community (VC) to share clinical practice knowledge to aid medical DM. This study aims to assess the effect of physicians’ SC on medical DM and assess the mediating role of knowledge sharing quality, between physicians’ SC and medical DM quality since research lacks to investigate the impact of knowledge management (KM) tools in a HC context. VCoP is a KM tool and medical DM quality is a HC topic of this study. Design/methodology/approach – This positivist, quantitative research utilizes non-experimental survey to empirically assess its conceptual framework. After attaining an ethical approval, from Brunel Business School Research Ethics Committee, online survey was pre-tested and pilot tested for clarity and validity. 10 non-physician Ph.D. academics voluntarily participated during the survey’s pre-test phase. The survey was amendment for its pilot study phase; conducted in “plastic surgery yahoo group” VC. 31 physician VC members voluntarily participated. Again, the survey was amended and distributed for main data collection from 204 voluntary SurveyMonkey’s VC’s physician members. Findings – Data was analysed using SPSS 20 and LISREL 8.80 by means of confirmatory factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling. Empirical findings supported this study’s four main hypotheses as well as supported this study’s initially proposed conceptual framework. Originality/value – This study customized the Honeycomb framework to establish a definition of professional physicians; HC VCs followed by identifying 51 VCs from social networking platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. This study also fulfilled its aim and hence proposed a structurally fit conceptual framework. Keywords –Virtual Community of Practice; Healthcare Knowledge Management; Confirmatory Factor Analysis; Structural Equation Modelin

The development and institutionalisation of an integrated health care waste information system

Includes bibliographical references.Waste management generally in South Africa is poorly defined and practised, and the inadequate management of health care waste (HCW) has been recognised by the South African government as a significant environmental and public health risk. The literature revealed that an integrated health care waste information system (IHCWIS) serves as an important intervention to address the issue of poor health care waste management (HCWM). The overall key research question which this research asked was: "How does an IHCWIS develop and become institutionalised among health care waste generators?" The aim of the research was to gather empirical data to understand how the development and institutionalisation of an IHCWIS contributes to effective HCWM

Repairing routines in enterprise system transformations : a sociomaterial perspective

Today, large implementation projects introducing Enterprise System (ES) technology in organizations are a very common phenomenon, typically driven by the idea that a myriad of benefits can be realized. Yet, after implementation, organizations often face challenging problems due to misalignments between “best practices” embedded in ES technology and existing work practices. For the individual user implementation of new technology thus implies considerable effort in terms of cognitively accomplishing appropriation. This complex process of appropriation was found to result in very strong links between technology and individuals that is described as a sociomaterial entanglement by some scholars. In addition, ES technology implementations do often not ‘simply’ introduce a new technology into an organization, but will likely replace a similarly complex, integrated legacy system. Given the strong link between individuals and technology, established while appropriating the legacy system, replacing old technology will imply the breaking of old associations as much as the building of new ones. Consequently, the point of departure is as much characterized by an achieved sociomaterial entanglement with the old technology as it is by the need to integrate new technology into work practices. It has long been argued that organizational routines are key to understanding changes of work practices in organizations as well as the associated process of organizational learning. While the question how organizational routines emerge and evolve over time is extensively studied, little is known about what happens when routines are disrupted. In addition, the substitution of a legacy system raises the question, how exiting entanglements influence changes in routines triggered by ES technology implementation. Addressing this gap in the literature, this thesis aims to understand how sociomaterial routines are repaired after the implementation of ES technology. To answer this question, a longitudinal interpretive case study of an ES technology implementation project in the retail banking division of a large German bank was conducted. The custom-built legacy system to be replaced by new ES technology due to technical and regulatory requirements had been in place for over thirty years before. Within the retail banking division the study focuses on the credit service unit, which offers back-office services to the bank’s customers and advisors. The case material consists of 57 semi-structured interviews and observation of 38 participants, collected at three different stages during the project (before go-live, immediately after go-live, and 6 month later). Using narrative networks as an analytical device helped capturing the complexity of routine changes related to ES technology implementation and provided the conceptual link between organizational routines and sociomaterial entanglements. Based on a comparison of relevant routines at different points in time during (post-) implementation, five categories of practices individuals (in different positions/at different organizational levels) employed to repair routine performances were identified. Two of the practices aimed directly at adapting routines. But, individuals also developed additional support practices (i.e., work practices, which are performed in addition to, but share common fragments with, the supported routine). Two more repair practices targeted the sociomaterial background based on which routines are established, that is they changed the basis on which those actants are delineated, which are subsequently forming routine fragments. Thus, in line with other studies of post-implementation behavior, the findings show that repairing routines is a collaborative achievement of many, if not all, individuals directly and indirectly affected by the technological change. Yet, the repair practices employed at different levels do not operate independently, but are highly interrelated. Like researchers studying other phenomena using a sociomaterial lens, both physical (e.g., use of printouts) as well as digital (e.g., functionality of new ES technology) materiality were found to be important constituents of problems and repair practice. Furthermore, time was similarly important for repairing routines as both the timing of routine executions as well as the unfolding of repair practices over time had major effects on the final success of recreating routines. The findings also highlight that repair practices are different with respect to their persistence. While those practices employed to handle the situation of change were more likely to disappear again (yet did not necessarily do so), those required for adapting routines and accommodating the new system most likely persist. In conclusion, repairing routines after ES technology implementation does not only involve replacing one routine fragment (related to the old technology) with a new fragment (based on new technology) and appropriately reincorporating this new fragment into an otherwise stable routine. To the contrary, repairing routines implicates far more profound changes to routines, which have to be negotiated both with the social and material environment, and further requires adjusting the sociomaterial background based on which routines are established. In addition, repair practices evolve over time and differ with respect to their persistence. Thus, repairing a routine has a social, material, and temporal dimension, which jointly have to be considered. This doctoral thesis contributes to theory by providing a conceptual account of ES Transformation, which offers an explanation of how a working ES is reestablished by repairing routines after the implementation of ES technology. These findings are also valuable for practitioners as they allow them to better understand and consequently better plan and manage ES Transformations