Diffusion and Innovation Theory: Past, Present, and Future Contributions to Academia and Practice

Part 4: PanelInternational audienceThe field of information systems (IS) has throughout its history experienced extensive changes in technology, research, and education. These renewals will continue into the foreseeable future [10]. It is recognized that IS is a key force in the ongoing societal and organizational renewal and change [2, 8, 14]. For example, in the US business sector, IS continues yearly to consume about 30% of total investments made [5]. Recent research document that IS supports the creation of business value, with particular emphasis on an organization’s innovation and change capabilities [1, 3]. Traditionally, research in IS has been interdisciplinary in nature - since it draws on innovation theory, models of value creation, actors’ roles and behaviors, the creation and running of task oriented groups, and how these relate to organizational structures and mechanisms [24]. Throughout its history the question of benefits from investing in IS has been lively discussed

Information systems as an academic discipline : Looking back, looking forward, and ensuring the future

In an organization of any size, there is an organization function responsible for the technology, activities and personnel to support its technology-enabled work systems and the information and communication needs of the organization. There is an academic discipline that teaches those who build, acquire, operate and maintain the systems and those who use the systems. Both the organization function and the academic discipline have developed over a period of 55 years (but primarily in the last 40 years). There have been two fundamental forces driving the formation of a new organization function and the new technology-enabled systems in organizations. One is the availability of powerful computer and communications technology; the other is the desire of organizations to use the capabilities in organization work. The result has been revolutionary as new capabilities and new affordances have been applied to the activities of organizations. A new academic discipline has emerged. This period of rapid innovation in organizations has resulted in successes, challenges, failures, and surprises. I have been a participant and an observer of this period of change. The paper will survey key developments (from my perspective) that have brought us to the present conditions in use of information and communications technology in organizations and the current status of the academic discipline. I will note the role of IFIP TC8 (Information Systems). It has been important in several key developments, but not in all of them. I will identify some of my observations about the value added by TC8.The past and the future of information systems: 1976-2006 and beyondRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

A Longitudinal Scientometric Analysis of Research Published in IFIP 9.4 (2002-2013)

The use of scientometric techniques for analyzing trends and patterns in IS research is becoming increasingly common. We describe how such techniques have been used to answer questions for the IS field as a whole and for specific research communities, journals, and topics. While scient-ometric analyses of ICT for development journals and conferences are starting to emerge, such studies have not employed longitudinal methods to analyze trends over time. We pose several questions that longitudinal scientometric methods can answer and then apply such methods to papers published in the oldest, largest conference in the area of ICT for development: IFIP 9.4. For the years 2002-2013, we identify the most frequent authors contributing to IFIP 9.4, as well as changes over time in terms of most frequent contributors and the institutions and countries represented. We also identify the frequently-cited sources in IFIP 9.4 papers, showing how they have changed over time. Finally, we use co-citation analysis to identify the topics analyzed in IFIP 9.4 papers, based on citations shared among papers. We conclude with directions that future research may address – such as comparing our results with other ICT4D conferences or journals

Designing an information system for updating land records in Bangladesh: action design ethnographic research (ADER)

Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Information Systems (IS) has developed through adapting, generating and applying diverse methodologies, methods, and techniques from reference disciplines. Further, Action Design Research (ADR) has recently developed as a broad research method that focuses on designing and redesigning IT and IS in organizational contexts. This paper reflects on applying ADR in a complex organizational context in a developing country. It shows that ADR requires additional lens for designing IS in such a complex organizational context. Through conducting ADR, it is seen that an ethnographic framework has potential complementarities for understanding complex contexts thereby enhancing the ADR processes. This paper argues that conducting ADR with an ethnographic approach enhances design of IS and organizational contexts. Finally, this paper aims presents a broader methodological framework, Action Design Ethnographic Research (ADER), for designing artefacts as well as IS. This is illustrated through the case of a land records updating service in Bangladesh

Information systems as an academic discipline : Looking back, looking forward, and ensuring the future

In an organization of any size, there is an organization function responsible for the technology, activities and personnel to support its technology-enabled work systems and the information and communication needs of the organization. There is an academic discipline that teaches those who build, acquire, operate and maintain the systems and those who use the systems. Both the organization function and the academic discipline have developed over a period of 55 years (but primarily in the last 40 years). There have been two fundamental forces driving the formation of a new organization function and the new technology-enabled systems in organizations. One is the availability of powerful computer and communications technology; the other is the desire of organizations to use the capabilities in organization work. The result has been revolutionary as new capabilities and new affordances have been applied to the activities of organizations. A new academic discipline has emerged. This period of rapid innovation in organizations has resulted in successes, challenges, failures, and surprises. I have been a participant and an observer of this period of change. The paper will survey key developments (from my perspective) that have brought us to the present conditions in use of information and communications technology in organizations and the current status of the academic discipline. I will note the role of IFIP TC8 (Information Systems). It has been important in several key developments, but not in all of them. I will identify some of my observations about the value added by TC8.The past and the future of information systems: 1976-2006 and beyondRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

OntoEng: A design method for ontology engineering in information systems

This paper addresses the design problem relating to ontology engineering in the discipline of information systems. Ontology engineering is a realm that covers issues related to ontology development and use throughout its life span. Nowadays, ontology as a new innovation promises to improve the design, semantic integration, and utilization of information systems. Ontologies are the backbone of knowledge-based systems. In addition, they establish sharable and reusable common understanding of specific domains amongst people, information systems, and software agents. Notwithstanding, the ontology engineering literature does not provide adequate guidance on how to build, evaluate, and maintain ontologies. On the basis of the gathered experience during the development of V4 Telecoms Business Model Ontology as well as the conducted integration of the related literature from the design science paradigm, this paper introduces OntoEng and its application as a novel systematic design method for ontology engineering

Applying the Social of Translation to a System Project in a Lagging Enterprise

Although actor-network theory (ANT) is enjoying increasing interest in information systems research, we are still in the early stages of understanding and appreciating ANT’s potential for drawing lessons and developing guidance for industry practitioners. This paper focuses on extending that practical understanding. Here, ANT is applied in creating an account of a human-services firm’s experience in building its first major information system. Several practical implications are drawn that point the way toward further adapting ANT thinking for applied use in system-project contexts. Central among the insights are: the potential value in viewing project leadership in terms of actor-network management; the need to treat network management more as a matter of facilitation than control; the importance of recognizing that the effective management of interests may have to begin with the very constitution of those interests; the need to understand how indirect representations of key interests during software construction may break down when the interests themselves are directly engaged during implementation; the need to manage the particulars of critical issues on which network stability depends; and the importance of grasping the interdependence between network stability and adaptability in design

Disregarding History: Contemporary IS Contexts and Participatory Design

User participation has long been seen as a core topic of study within the IS field, yet its relevance to contemporary development environments and contexts has recently been brought into question. The aim of this article is to investigate the extent to which this rich history and experience is used to inform contemporary practices. We provide a survey that evaluates the degree to which PD (participatory design) is currently represented in the IS literature, the results of which reveal a low representation. Based on these findings, a number of propositions are offered

Architecture of Sysperanto: A Model-Based Ontology of the IS Field

The challenge of defining the domain and core concepts of the IS field is a perennial topic at major IS conferences. This paper describes the architecture of Sysperanto, a model-based ontology of the IS field. Sysperanto is being developed as part of an ongoing effort to create methods that typical business professionals can use to analyze systems and system-related projects for themselves at whatever level of depth is appropriate. The name Sysperanto is meant as a metaphor combining generality (covering the IS field), vocabulary (identification of terms), and structure (internally consistent organization) to create an ontology more powerful and useful than a list of keywords or propositions. Sysperanto\u27s architecture provides an organizing framework for codifying the disparate and inconsistent propositions, methods, and findings that constitute the current state of IS knowledge and, in combination, form a major obstacle to knowledge accumulation and use in the IS field. Instead of yet another discussion of whether the IS field lacks a conceptual core and what might be the consequences of such a shortcoming, this paper proposes an architecture and preliminary details of a plausible set of core concepts for the IS field. It starts by summarizing Sysperanto\u27s goals and explaining why work system concepts, rather than information system concepts, are the core of Sysperanto. It presents Sysperanto as a terminological ontology and explains the underlying meta-model. The meta-model is designed to support tools for analyzing systems from a business viewpoint and to help in codifying and organizing knowledge in the IS field. It uses a conceptual map based on extensiveness and guidance in application to compare Sysperanto with other efforts to organize ideas in the IS field. It may be several years before a complete version of Sysperanto is tested through its use in a formal method for analyzing systems or through comparison with other attempts to codify knowledge in the IS field. Nonetheless, its architecture is well enough defined to be compared to the architecture (or lack of architecture) in previous and future approaches for understanding and organizing the basic concepts about information systems

Emergence and Constraints of Enterprise Platform Silos for Online Interactions: A Case Study from Ghana Before and During Covid-19

The purpose of this study is to understand the emergence and constraints of enterprise platform silos for online interactions at the organizational level. Information systems (IS) research has focused more on external platforms without silos. As a result, not much is known about internal platforms and silos at the organizational level and how they constrain online interactions, especially in the developing economic context of Africa. This study follows an interpretive, qualitative case study methodology and the encounter-episode process model to investigate the case of using enterprise platform silos in an organization in Ghana, before and during Covid-19. The findings show how failure to modernize the installed-based platforms, integrate platform portfolios, use enterprise architecture, and build internal competence for platform integration leads to silos. Identified constraints include challenges with information sharing and transfer between platforms, manual intervention with delays and errors, and multiple sign-ins with different password formats per user