Combining Rigor and RelevanceThe open electronic archive.ppt

Groupware: Old wine in new bottles Dr Brian Whitworth Combining Rigor and Relevance: The open electronic archive option See: /papers.html IS Journal Performance IS Journals: JAIS, CAIS, MISQ, ISR How do they perform as knowledge exchange systems? What criteria? What outcomes? How should they change? Knowledge exchange system roles Knowledge creation: Support innovation by publishing new research Knowledge selection: Support research quality by review and selection Knowledge growth: Support research growth by disseminating and educating The garden analogy Without new planting: Gardens fill with old trees past their fruiting prime Without pruning/weeding: Gardens with disease weeds give less fruit Without water/fertilizer: Stunted gardens give little fruit The practice-theory gap In the last decade, practice innovated while IS theory looked away: Google, with its simple white screen, not multi-media Yahoo, scooped the pool Plain text products like chat rooms, blogs, text-messaging, wikis and reputation systems became “killer apps” The friendly multi-media and smart Mr Clippy was a flop Social connectivity not rich media rules, e.g. MMORPG Like the paperless office and the leisure society before, IS theory bleeds while IS practice leads A fruitful garden? IS practice abounds with innovative applications Wikis Blogs Social networks IS theory seems to change little: It “prunes” a lot but “plants” little Are IS academics gatekeepers or gardeners? Why is IS theory not innovating? Dominant IS theories are old Major IS theories, like TAM and MRT Are 15+ years old showing their age None of TAM’s many “tweaks” have stuck, because they contradict each other UTAUT, upgrades TAM by “unifying” it with equally old theories from other disciplines! No real restructuring or challenge The lack of genuine IS theory innovation over the last decade is surprising Is new work hard to publish? In my experience, IS journals strongly resist new views on theories like TAM, e. g: