Grover, Varun

Linder, Jane

Lyytinen, Kalle

Mendelson, Haim

Senn, James

Sviokla, John

English

AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)

Association for Information SystemsAIS Electronic Library (AISeL)ICIS 1999 Proceedings International Conference on Information Systems(ICIS)December 1999Panel 6 Making Information Systems ResearchMore Relevant: Academic and IndustryPerspectivesKalle LyytinenUniversity of JyväskyläVarun GroverUniversity of South CarolinaJane LinderAndersen ConsultingHaim MendelsonStanford UniversityJames SennGeorgia State UniversitySee next page for additional authorsFollow this and additional works at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1999This material is brought to you by the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been acceptedfor inclusion in ICIS 1999 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contactelibrary@aisnet.org.Recommended CitationLyytinen, Kalle; Grover, Varun; Linder, Jane; Mendelson, Haim; Senn, James; and Sviokla, John, "Panel 6 Making Information SystemsResearch More Relevant: Academic and Industry Perspectives" (1999). ICIS 1999 Proceedings. 70.http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1999/70AuthorsKalle Lyytinen, Varun Grover, Jane Linder, Haim Mendelson, James Senn, and John SvioklaThis article is available at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL): http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis1999/70574PANEL 6MAKING INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCHMORE RELEVANT:  ACADEMIC ANDINDUSTRY PERSPECTIVESChair: Kalle Lyytinen, University of Jyväskylä, FinlandPanelists: Varun Grover, University of South Carolina, U.S.A.Jane Linder, Andersen Consulting, U.S.A.Haim Mendelson,  Stanford University, U.S.A.James Senn, Georgia State University, U.S.A.John Sviokla, Diamond Technology Partners, U.S.A.1. INTRODUCTIONResearch relevance is becoming an increasingly important issue in the IS field. As an indicator of the level of concern, the March1999 issue of MIS Quarterly had an article (Benbasat and Zmud 1999) on the topic by two leading IS researchers. It also includedfour responses and commentaries on this article from other well-known figures including the moderator of this panel (Lyytinen1999). The following considerations provide the rationale for the panel:1. Much IS research is not valued by practitioners.  Senn (1998, p. 23) quotes an IS executive who described IS researchas “not relevant, readable, or reachable.”  Robey and Markus (1998, p. 8) indicate that, “From a practitioner’s perspective,academic writings are literally unreadable.”  Benbasat and Zmud (1999) report that non-academic subscriptions to MISQuarterly declined by more than 60% after the subscription was unbundled from membership in the Society of InformationManagement.2. This lack of relevance represents a significant problem, which IS academia can not safely ignore.  Robey and Markus(1998, pp. 7-8) warn about “the implications for the academic community, such as the reduction of its credibility andwithdrawal of financial support for our educational and research activities.”3. Relevant research complements the teaching mission of the university. The more relevant research is to organizationalconcerns, the more likely the findings will be of interest to students and of value to their careers.To discuss the relevancy issue from the perspective of key stakeholders, this panel includes IS academics and industryrepresentatives. The IS academics will offer presentations on aspects of relevance, and propose approaches to making IS researchmore relevant. The industry representatives (who also possess earned doctorates and university level teaching experience) willintroduce concerns about relevance from an industry perspective and provide feedback on the proposals by the academics.Making IS Research More Relevant5752. ACADEMIC REPRESENTATIVESThe following three academics will present their views in the first 35 minutes of the panel. Based on their previous research relatedto relevance, they will offer valuable contributions through presentations on the topics identified below.  Note that each panelist'sresearch is based on a different methodological perspective and thus their presentations will be complementary and will generatesynergies in illuminating the issues.Haim Mendelson:  How different are the information technology industries from industries that are not central to the IS field andwhat are the implications for producing relevant IS research?Mendelson coauthored a paper (Mendelson and Pillai 1998) that established a metric (“clockspeed”) of the rate of change in thebusiness environments of various industries. Their economic research analyses provide objective quantification of the much morerapid clockspeed in the IT industries. Mendelson will discuss the implications of this rapid rate of change for types and methodsof research that will be most relevant to practitioners.Mendelson is the James Irvin Miller Professor of Information Systems at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.He has published over 70 articles in journals in the fields of IS, economics, finance, and operations research. He is coauthor ofSurvival of the Smartest: A Management Roadmap to the New Economy (Wiley, 1999).Varun Grover:  How important is relevance in IS research? How does this compare to other disciplines? How can we improveour focus on topics that are relevant to practitioners?Grover coauthored a paper (Grover and Sabherwal 1989) that included statistical analyses of the topics on which IS researcherswere publishing. The analyses demonstrated that IS research did not match up well with practitioners’ interests. The analyses alsoshowed that the research did not adjust very well to shifts in practitioners’ interests over time. In the context of the clockspeedissues raised by Mendelson, Grover will discuss the importance of relevance and specific ways of identifying topics that will bemore relevant to practitioners.Grover is a Professor of Information Systems and the Business Partnership Foundation Fellow in the Darla Moore School ofBusiness at the University of South Carolina. He was recognized as one of the two most productive IS researcher from 1991 to1997 based on pages published in the top six IS journals (see http://dsi.gsu.edu/newsletter/vol29/29_5/res29_5.pdf). He is coauthorof Process Think: Winning Perspectives for Business Change in the Information Age (Idea Group, 1999).James Senn:  In what situations is relevance more important than rigor and vice versa?  Is rigor a non-negotiable absolute, or isit a dimension that should be manipulated when necessary to deal with rapidly developing issues?Senn has conducted qualitative research including structured interviews with CIOs and other IS professionals.  He found somevery negative practitioner attitudes about the irrelevance of IS research (Senn 1998).  In the context of the preceding presentationsby Mendelson and Grover, Senn will discuss the tradeoffs between relevance and rigor in relation to issues that are important toIS professionals.Senn is a Professor in the Department of Computer Information Systems at Georgia State University. He speaks and consultsextensively on business strategies, innovation, and the management of information technology. Senn interacts with businesseslocally and internationally and writes a continuing column about business strategy. He is the author of several books onmanagement and information systems.3. INDUSTRY DISCUSSANTSTwo practitioners will introduce their concerns, raise questions, and comment on the viability of the proposals by the academics.This discussion will occupy approximately 20 minutes following the academic presentations. These industry discussants have ISPanels576research experience in consulting firms. They also have doctorates, university level teaching experience, and publications inacademic journals, so their comments will reflect a realistic understanding of the characteristics of the academic system. The following practitioners will provide feedback on the presentations by academic representatives, and offer their thoughts onthe issue of relevance:Jane C. Linder is Associate Director of the Institute for Strategic Change at Andersen Consulting. She conducts research andadvises clients on leadership issues related to turning ideas into business results. Linder was director of demand/supply planningin the worldwide logistics organization at Polaroid. She has an MBA and DBA from Harvard Business School and taught therebefore going into industry. Linder won the Best Dissertation award at the ICIS conference in 1989. John J. Sviokla is a partner at Diamond Technology Partners, which counsels senior executives in the strategic use of IT toexploit opportunities in electronic commerce and other business situations. Prior to joining Diamond, he was an AssociateProfessor and the Baxter Fellow in Information Technology at Harvard Business School. Sviokla has authored several books andalso has papers in leading academic publications. He was a founding member of the editorial board of International Journal ofElectronic Commerce and has also served as an associate editor of Organization Science.4. MODERATORKalle Lyytinen will moderate this panel. He is a Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science andInformation Systems at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. He is a Senior Editor of MIS Quarterly and on the Editorial Boardof Information Systems Research and other IS journals. He has published over 70 articles, including a commentary on relevance(Lyytinen 1999), and edited or written six books.Lyytinen will introduce the panelists and each presentation. After the academic presentations, he will introduce the discussionportion of the panel. The industry representatives will bring additional aspects of relevance into a dialogue with the academics.Lyytinen will ask questions where appropriate to enhance the interaction and encourage the panelists to expand on key points.Following discussion of the issues by the academic and industry representatives, he will solicit questions and comments from theaudience to further expand on the issues and suggestions from the panelists. This audience participation will occupy the last 30to 35 minutes of the session.The discussion portion of the panel could include issues such as:• speeding up the journal publishing process and increasing accessibility to materials prior to publication in hard copy;• increasing the relative importance of publishing in practitioner-oriented outlets, including books, for IS faculty evaluations;• increasing the relative importance of technical skills and involvement with industry for IS faculty evaluations;• weaknesses of academic IS programs, as seen by industry representatives;• increasing industry involvement with IS academic programs, including providing inputs that will meaningfully influence thedirection of these programs;• increasing the focus of IS research on topics and research models where we are most likely, in the context of the strengthsand weaknesses of the academic environment, to make relevant contributions to practice.5. REFERENCESBenbasat, I., and Zmud, R.  “Empirical Research in Information Systems:  The Practice of Relevance,” MIS Quarterly (32:1),March 1999, pp. 3-16.Grover, V., and Sabherwal, R.  “An Analysis of Research in Information Systems from the IS Executive’s Perspective,”Information and Management (16:5), May 1989, pp. 233-46.Lyytinen, K.  “Empirical Research on Information Systems:  On the Relevance of Practice in Thinking of IS Research,” MISQuarterly (32:1), March 1999, pp. 25-27.Making IS Research More Relevant577Mendelson, H., and Pillai, R. R.  “Clockspeed and Informational Response:  Evidence from the Information Technology Industry,”Information Systems Research, December 1998, pp. 415-433.Robey, D., and Markus, M. L.  “Beyond Rigor and Relevance:  Producing Consumable Research about Information Systems,”Information Resources Management Journal (11:1), Winter 1998, pp. 7-15.Senn, J.  “The Challenge of Relating IS Research to Practice,” Information Resources Management Journal (11:1), Winter 1998,pp. 23-28.

Panel 6 Making Information Systems Research More Relevant: Academic and Industry Perspectives

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Panel 6 Making Information Systems Research More Relevant: Academic and Industry Perspectives

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