The Philosophical Universe And The Information Systems Research Journey: A Hitchhiker’S Guide To A Virtual Galaxy

There is concern among information systems (IS) scholars that the lack of philosophical engagement and conviction among the research community threatens the future integrity and creativity of the research process. The paper seeks to respond to Weber’s call for IS researchers to clearly present their “ontological and epistemological assumptions” and to accept Myers’ invitation for “further reflection and debate on the important subject of grounding interpretive research methodology”. The approach of the paper is to present a self-reflective case study, following Schön, of the author’s doctoral research journey. The paper aims to make a contribution by: presenting the work of two philosophers new to the IS discipline and proposing a dynamic model that opens IS research to engagement with the complex philosophical universe. The argument is developed using analogy and by describing the author’s journey towards a philosophical system that reflects his worldview

Incubating engineers: entrepreneur-student collaboration in the teaching of entrepreneurship to mechanical engineers

This paper will provide an example of using student-entrepreneur collaboration in the teaching of a module on entrepreneurship to Mechanical Engineering final year students at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) based in Ireland. Problem-based learning is one of the most significant recent innovations in the area of education for the professions. The focus in this type of learning is to provide the students with problem scenarios so that they can learn through a process of action and reflection. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the best pedagogical approach to developing engineering undergraduate skills to meet the requirements of contemporary complex\ud working environments. The work proposes to make an original contribution by directly interfacing with\ud industry in order to simulate a real-life entrepreneur interaction for the students. Finally I argue that this work contributes new insights to the debate on “pedagogies of engagement”

Edith Stein and the problem of empathy: insights for responsible innovation

This paper argues that the concept of empathy can provide a rich philosophical source for the nascent area of Responsible Innovation (RI). The lens through which this study looks at RI is that of phenomenology. The research question addressed is: What are the implications of Edith Stein’s phenomenology of empathy for Responsible Innovation? The paper makes two contributions. It adds a new voice, that of the philosopher Edith Stein, to the debate on innovation and in particular the emerging area of RI. Second it proposes a synthesis of the innovation and empathy literature to facilitate dialogue between philosophers and both management academics and practitioners. One of the main arguments of the paper is that the concept of empathy can inform the quest to understand and explain what is meant by von Schomberg’s definition of RI as a process of mutual responsivity of actors

Symbolic interactionism and the cell information board: challenging the wisdom of systems

Claudio Ciborra in “The Labyrinths of Information: Challenging the Wisdom of Systems” argues that the position of information and communications technology (ICT) in organizations requires a shift from the present focus on the “scientific paradigm” to an “alternative centre of gravity: human existence in everyday life”. This paper takes up Ciborra’s challenge by examining the focal point of social interaction during a longitudinal study of engaged scholarship in an Irish multinational subsidiary. During this study there was a gradual realization that the main locus of interaction was the cell information board. It was here that people gathered to assimilate digital information sources and transform these into “acts” including workpractice improvements. The paper seeks to answer the following question: how does symbolic interactionism enable the conceptualization of an information system as a sign-action system? The work makes a contribution by examining a supply chain information system as a form of symbolic action. The study challenges us to view information systems as not primarily being the IT artifact but pertaining first and foremost to human activity as its very core

Dialogical Action Research: A Case Study

Action Research (AR) originated from the work of Kurt Lewin during the 1940s and has been summarised as an approach that “combines theory and practice (and researchers and practitioners) through change and reflection in an immediate problematic situation within a mutually acceptable ethical framework” (Avison et al., 1999 p 94). The application of AR has not been without controversy particularly in debates with positivist science on the justification and generation of knowledge. These arguments were addressed by Susman & Evered (1978) in their influential description of AR as consisting of a cyclical process involving five phases: diagnosing, action planning, action taking, evaluating, and specifying learning. The focus of AR is to address real-life problems through intervention together with the research objective of making a contribution to knowledge. Coghlan and Brannick (2005 p 125) emphasise the importance of the social and academic context in which action research is carried out

Short interval management and the quest for process innovation: something new or déjà vu

Ireland still punches way above its weight internationally attracting 2% of total global foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2008 which amounted to circa €2 billion (IDA, 2009). The focus of the IDA (Industrial Development Authority which is responsible for foreign direct investment in Ireland) is on three strategic pillars: Global Services, High Technology Manufacturing and RD&I (Research Development and Innovation). Consequently innovation in manufacturing processes is a vital ingredient to providing sustainable MNC (Multinational Corporation) subsidiaries in the country. The work is presented in the context of a case study of innovation in APC Ireland, a subsidiary of the critical power and cooling services division of the Schneider Electric Corporation. Furthermore the paper will describe the utilization of a novel form of action research recently proposed to the IS community by Mårtensson & Lee (2004) which they call dialogical AR.. The central aim of this paper is to answer the following research question: can short interval management (SIM) support process innovation? The proposed structure of the paper is as follows. Firstly the background review will argue that SIM is not dealt with in the current literature and as a result has the potential to contribute to the conference theme. Then the longitudinal case study of a multi-national corporation together with the research approach will be outlined. An overview of the SIM process will be then presented followed by a discussion of the implications

The phenomenology of time: reflections from the Lebenswelt

The aim of this study is to reflect on how time was perceived by different actors during a longitudinal study of innovation in the lebenswelt –in this case a multi-national subsidiary (Costello, 2010). It aims to address the call by Markus (2000) that information systems (IS) research must incorporate the concepts of both history and time in their management and organization studies

Proposing a Meta-Theoretical Framework for Innovation Research

The importance of theory in the management discipline is the subject of ongoing debate and there have been recent calls for novel conceptualizations to stimulate research. In the area of innovation, one of the main conclusions of the influential Minnesota studies was the need to develop a metatheory. This paper examines the role of theory in the development of the research agenda for the area of innovation. Our approach is to build on the seminal work of the Minnesota studies and on the innovation perspectives of Carl Slappendel. The result of the study is a proposition that Ecological Systems Theory (EST) addresses many of the gaps that emerged from the analysis of the literature. Consequently the paper makes a contribution by developing a meta-theoretical framework for the study of innovation derived from the EST schemata

The phenomenology of time: reflections from the Lebenswelt

The aim of this study is to reflect on how time was perceived by different actors during a longitudinal study of innovation in the lebenswelt –in this case a multi-national subsidiary (Costello, 2010). It aims to address the call by Markus (2000) that information systems (IS) research must incorporate the concepts of both history and time in their management and organization studies

Beyond RBV and KBV to an innovation-based view of the firm

The quest to understand sources of sustained competitive advantage is still a major area of interest to both researchers and practitioners. The central thesis of this paper is that the resource-based view of the firm and the knowledge-based view of the firm require updating to an innovation-based view. This novel hypothesis of the firm is informed by a review of relevant literature and an empirical study of innovation management. The ICT revolution has a major impact on business and society resulting in an opening of the firm’s boundaries and increasing the digitalization of organizations. We utilize a grounded theory approach to the case study based in the Irish subsidiary of a multi-national corporation where innovation emerged as a key differentiator. Five empirical indicators of a firm’s propensity to harness innovation in order to generate sustained competitive advantage are proposed: management of paradox, degree of openness, the dilemma of initiation and implementation, nontechnological nature and technological nature. The paper contributes to advancing theory by advocating and developing an innovation-based view of the firm. Such a view is needed as innovation is now regarded by scholars and practitioners as being the driver of competitive advantage for the modern organization