People who have had the most impact on our lives are those who have seen some special trait or character in us and then nurture that special something. Gary Dickson has had that kind of impact on ...others. Gary also has left us with a discovery framework for survival in academia. Surviving academics must groom themselves for their careers through the use of knowledge that can be turned into action. Knowing yourself and your strengths and weaknesses, your field and its perception by other academics, key players both while in a Ph.D. program and in an academic position, success factors in the job market and on the road to tenure and promotion, your publication outlets, and how you personally react to criticism are all part of your desired "knowledge package." But, knowledge is not enough. You must use your information system and knowledge base along with an action plan to reach your goals. Actions including but not limited to a balance in life, turning unstructured tasks into structured ones, and thinking beyond system boundaries all can guide you to be a survivor in academia. This conversation among Gary Dickson's first Ph.D. student, a newly minted Ph.D. who Ken advised, and a current student of Ken's, provides food for thought on building your knowledge base and some guides to actions that will aid your academic career.
An expanded perspective on information system design paradigms reveals that information systems (IS) have a generative capacity that enables reframing and recasting reality based upon alternative ...values. By synthesizing research in sustainable value, generative capacity, and community-based geographic information systems (GIS), we propose that IS can empower communities to create community sustainable value as they face increasing environmental and growth challenges. This surfaces the opportunity for the design and implementation of GIS to reduce information asymmetry, empower communities, and provide a history of decision-making, thereby enabling monitoring of the components of community sustainable value. Community members may incorporate local data, present alternative development/conservation scenarios, and gain a voice in the planning process. As Web-enabled GIS and low-cost analytic systems become accessible, the system design process itself represents an opportunity for situated social action in the formation of community sustainable values. Synthesizing these perspectives, we put forward the view that GIS development and use at a community level is a potentially constructive social process of value formation that can enable communities to envision their own futures.
This paper presents seven scholarly commentaries on Hirschheim's "Against Theory" essay published in this issue of the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Each commentary is written ...by a renowned IS researcher. Following the individual commentaries is Hirschheim's response to the commentaries. Each commentary provides an insightful exegesis on theory in its own right and, collectively, the commentaries and response provide thought-provoking reflections for researchers in IS and beyond.
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CEKLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Introduction to Theories in IS Research Minitrack Schneberger, Scott L.; Hovorka, Dirk S.; Larsen, Kai R.
2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences,
2014-Jan.
Conference Proceeding
Open access
Introduction to Theories in IS Research Minitrack.
This research presents a meta-theoretic analysis of a nomological net for the purpose of identifying potential pathways for theory integration and multi-level theory development. Success in these two ...areas holds the potential to reduce theory clutter in IS and related social sciences. As a proof-of-concept, we identify theory domains that share ancillary variables or functional/structural components, using a 20-year sample of construct-based quantitative research published in core journals of the IS discipline. Identification of shared variables provides possible extension and integration development that will reduce theory fragmentation and may lead to discovery of fundamental unifying processes that underlie phenomena across disciplines.
Developing Interfield Nomological Nets Larsen, K. R.; Hovorka, D. S.
2012 45th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences,
2012-Jan.
Conference Proceeding
As behavioral research has expanded in Information Systems and other scientific fields, researchers are recognizing that construct proliferation increases the difficulty in identifying the ...nomological networks of constructs pertaining to any given research question. An Inter-Nomological Network uses semantic analysis to systematically identify, categorize, and predict relationships among the constructs that define the combined cognitive interest of behavioral scientific fields. Researchers can thereby identify concentrations in behavioral research around similar phenomena related to human experiences that transcend field boundaries, and that may in fact have common cognitive underpinnings. Interfield theory development is supported by discovery of nomological relationships between scientific fields. Preliminary results demonstrating confirmatory, exploratory, and interfield research applications are presented.
Theory Identity: A Machine-Learning Approach Larsen, Kai R.; Hovorka, Dirk; West, Jevin ...
2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences,
2014-Jan.
Conference Proceeding
Open access
Theory identity is a fundamental problem for researchers seeking to determine theory quality, create theory ontologies and taxonomies, or perform focused theory-specific reviews and meta-analyses. We ...demonstrate a novel machine-learning approach to theory identification based on citation data and article features. The multi-disciplinary ecosystem of articles which cite a theory's originating paper is created and refined into the network of papers predicted to contribute to, and thus identify, a specific theory. We provide a 'proof-of-concept' for a highly-cited theory. Implications for cross-disciplinary theory integration and the identification of theories for a rapidly expanding scientific literature are discussed.
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