| 1. |
- Aakhus, Mark, et al.
(author)
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Symbolic Action Research in Information Systems : Introduction to the Special Issue
- 2014
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In: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 38:4, s. 1187-1200
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This special issue introduction explores the need to study information systems as symbolic action systems, defines broadly the research domain and related assumptions, notes the origins of this perspective, articulates its key lines of study, and discusses the state of the field in light of published research. The essay also positions the three papers of the special issue in the broader Information Systems (IS) discourse and notes their specific contribution in bridging so far unconnected streams of research and expanding research methods amenable to symbolic action research. This introductory essay furthermore observes some unique challenges in pulling together the special issue that invited the editors to combat against the tendency to approach communicative processes associated with information systems as primarily psychological processes. In closing we note several lines of inquiry that can strengthen future studies of symbolic action including better design theories, more flexible and open use of methods, and attentive use of rich traditions that inform symbolic action research in IS.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Ellinger, Eleunthia, Wong, et al.
(author)
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Skin in the Game : The Transformational Potential of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
- 2024
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In: MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems. - : Management Information Systems Research Center. - 2162-9730 .- 0276-7783. ; 48:1, s. 245-272
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)—collectively owned human-machine systems deployed on a blockchain that self-govern through smart contracts and the voluntary contributions of autonomous community members—exhibit the potential to facilitate collective action in managing digital commons. Yet the promise of decentralization and collective action is difficult to sustain. To this end, this paper critically examines the transformational potential of DAOs in the case of decentralized finance. Using a polycentric governance lens, we contribute to the literature on technology-enabled forms of organizing with a model explaining the transformational potential of DAOs to facilitate collective action in digital commons. Our study highlights that (1) DAOs are a new form of organizing enabled by blockchain technology in which individuals are free to pursue their objectives within a general system of rules enforced by smart contracts, (2) collective action for managing digital commons can be sustained through a set of three mechanisms—sustained participation, collective direction, and scaled organizing, and (3) DAOs tend to strike a balance between centralized and fully decentralized or community-based governance by implementing a polycentric governance system involving a combination of human and machine agency that creates skin in the game.
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| 4. |
- Kohler, Thomas, et al.
(author)
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Co-Creation In Virtual Worlds : The Design Of The User Experience
- 2011
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In: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 35:3, s. 773-788
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Emerging virtual worlds, such as the prominent Second Life, offer unprecedented opportunities for companies to collaborate with co-creating users. However, pioneering corporate co-creation systems fail to attract a satisfying level of participation and engagement. The experience users have with the co-creation system is the key to making virtual places a vibrant source of great connections, creativity, and co-creation. While prior research on co-creation serves as a foundation for this work, it does not provide adequate guidance on how to design co-creation systems in virtual worlds. To address this shortcoming, a 20-month action research project was conducted to study the user's experience and to identify design principles for virtual co-creation systems. In two action research cycles, a virtual co-creation system called Ideation Quest was created, deployed, evaluated, and improved. The study reveals how to design co-creation systems and enriches research on co-creation to fit the virtual world context. Practitioners receive a helpful framework to leverage virtual worlds for co-creation.
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| 5. |
- Leidner, D. E., et al.
(author)
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THE CARE THEORY OF DIGNITY AMID PERSONAL DATA DIGITALIZATION
- 2021
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In: Mis Quarterly. - : MIS Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 45:1, s. 343-370
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- With the rapidly evolving permeation of digital technologies into everyday human life, we are witnessing an era of personal data digitalization. Personal data digitalization refers to the sociotechnical encounters associated with the digitization of personal data for use in digital technologies. Personal data digitalization is being applied to central attributes of human life-health, cognition, and emotion-with the purported aim of helping individuals live longer, healthier lives endowed with the requisite cognition and emotion for responding to life situations and other people in a manner that enables human flourishing. A concern taking hold in manifold fields ranging from IT, bioethics, and law, to philosophy and religion is that as personal data digitalization permeates ever more areas of human existence, humans risk becoming artifacts of technology production. This concern brings to center stage the very notion of what it means to be human, a notion encapsulated in the term human dignity, which broadly refers to the recognition that human beings possess intrinsic value and, as such, are endowed with certain rights and should be treated with respect. In this paper, we identify, describe, and transform what we know about personal data digitalization into a higher order theoretical structure around the concept of human dignity. The result of our analysis is the CARE (claims, affronts, response, equilibrium) theory of dignity amid personal data digitalization, a theory that explains the relationship of personal data digitalization to human dignity. Building upon the CARE theory as a foundation, researchers in a variety of IS research streams could develop mid-range theories for empirical testing or could use the CARE theory as an overarching lens for interpreting emerging IS phenomena. Practitioners and government agencies can also use the CARE theory to understand the opportunities and risks of personal data digitalization and to develop policies and systems that respect the dignity of employees and citizens.
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| 6. |
- Lindgren, Rikard, et al.
(author)
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Design principles for competence management systems : A synthesis of an action research study
- 2004
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In: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - : University of Minnesota, MIS Research Center. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 28:3, s. 435-472
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Even though the literature on competence in organizations recognizes the need to align organization level core competence with individual level job competence, it does not consider the role of information technology in managing competence across the macro and micro levels. To address this shortcoming, we embarked on an action research study that develops and tests design principles for competence management systems. This research develops an integrative model of competence that not only outlines the interaction between organizational and individual level competence and the role of technology in this process, but also incorporates a typology of competence (competence-in-stock, competence-in-use, and competence-in-the-making). Six Swedish organizations participated in our research project, which took 30 months and consisted of two action research cycles involving numerous data collection strategies and interventions such as prototypes. In addition to developing a set of design principles and considering their implications for both research and practice, this article includes a self-assessment of the study by evaluating it according to the criteria for canonical action research.
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| 7. |
- Lindgren, Rikard, et al.
(author)
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The Dialectics Of Technology Standardization
- 2021
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In: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 45:3, s. 1187-1212
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Technology standardization unfolds as a dialectic process marked by paradoxical tensions. However, standardization research has yet to provide a dialectic analysis of how tensions and management responses interact recursively over time, and with what effect. In this paper, we apply dialectics to analyze an action research study of a Swedish initiative that developed and diffused a technology standard to facilitate the integration of disparate IT systems in road haulage firms. Drawing on the technology standardization literature and our empirical analysis, we engage in midrange theorizing to capture the recursive dynamics through which standard-setters construct and respond to manifestations of three latent tensions: development versus diffusion activities, private versus public interests, and local versus global solutions. Our resulting dialectic theorizing explicates how standard-setters bring these latent tensions into being; how they construct salient tensions through the oppositional logics of polarization, complementarity, and mutuality; how they manage these tensions through splitting, integrating, and suspension responses; and how consequential functional, architectural, and organizational standardization outcomes produce a new social order in which new tensions emerge. These theoretical insights contribute to both the technology standardization and dialectics literatures.
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| 8. |
- Lindgren, Rikard, 1973, et al.
(author)
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THE DIALECTICS OF TECHNOLOGY STANDARDIZATION
- 2021
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In: Mis Quarterly. - : MIS Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 45:3, s. 1187-1212
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Technology standardization unfolds as a dialectic process marked by paradoxical tensions. However, standardization research has yet to provide a dialectic analysis of how tensions and management responses interact recursively over time, and with what effect. In this paper, we apply dialectics to analyze an action research study of a Swedish initiative that developed and diffused a technology standard to facilitate the integration of disparate IT systems in road haulage firms. Drawing on the technology standardization literature and our empirical analysis, we engage in midrange theorizing to capture the recursive dynamics through which standard-setters construct and respond to manifestations of three latent tensions: development versus diffusion activities, private versus public interests, and local versus global solutions. Our resulting dialectic theorizing explicates how standard-setters bring these latent tensions into being; how they construct salient tensions through the oppositional logics of polarization, complementarity, and mutuality; how they manage these tensions through splitting, integrating, and suspension responses; and how consequential functional, architectural, and organizational standardization outcomes produce a new social order in which new tensions emerge. These theoretical insights contribute to both the technology standardization and dialectics literatures.
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| 9. |
- Mårtensson, Pär, et al.
(author)
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Dialogical Action Research at Omega Corporation
- 2004
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In: MIS quarterly : management information systems. - : JSTOR. - 2162-9730 .- 0276-7783. ; 28:3, s. 507-536
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In dialogical action research, the scientific researcher does not "speak science" or otherwise attempt to teach scientific theory to the real-world practitioner, but instead attempts to speak the language of the practitioner and accepts him as the expert on his organization and its problems. Recognizing the difficulty that a practitioner and a scientific researcher can have in communicating across the world of science and the world of practice, dialogical action research offers, as its centerpiece, reflective one-on-one dialogues between the practitioner and the scientific researcher, taking place periodically in a setting removed from the practitioner's organization. The dialogue itself serves as the interface between the world of science, marked by theoria and the scientific attitude, and the world of the practitioner, marked by praxis and the natural attitude of everyday life. The dialogue attempts to address knowledge heterogeneity, which refers to the different forms that knowledge takes in the world of science and the world of practice, and knowledge contextuality, which refers to the dependence of the meaning of knowledge, such as a scientific theory or professional expertise, on its context. In successive dialogues, the scientific researcher and the practitioner build a mutual understanding, including an understanding of the organization and its problems. The scientific researcher, based on one or more of the scientific theories in her discipline, formulates and suggests one or more actions for the practitioner to take in order to solve or remedy a problem in his organization. Dialogical action research recognizes that the practitioner's experience, expertise, and tacit knowledge, or praxis, largely shapes how he understands the suggested actions and appropriates them as his own. Upon returning to his organization, he takes one or more of the suggested actions, depending on his reading of the situation at hand. The reactions or responses of the problem to the actions or stimuli of the practitioner would embody, in the practitioner's eyes, success or failure in solving or remedying the problem and, in the scientific researcher's eyes, evidence confirming or disconfirming the theory on which the action was based. The scientific researcher may then suggest, based on her theories, additional actions, hence initiating another cycle of action and learning. To illustrate dialogical action research, this paper reconstructs some dialogues between an information systems researcher and a managing director at a European company called Omega Corporation.
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| 10. |
- Olsson Holmström, Helena, 1975, et al.
(author)
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Two-Stage Offshoring : An Investigation of the Irish Bridge
- 2008
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In: Management Information Systems Quarterly. - 0276-7783 .- 2162-9730. ; 32:2, s. 257-279
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper investigates two-stage offshoring as experienced by the Irish sites of two large global companies, headquartered in the United States, with significant software development operations. As part of these companies, the Irish sites act as a bridge in their offshoring arrangements: While the United States sites offshore work to Ireland, the Irish sites offshore work further to India and, hence, have experience of being both customer and vendor in two-stage offshore sourcing relationships. Using a framework derived from relational exchange theory (RET), we conducted multiple case study research to investigate and develop an initial theoretical model of the implementation of this two-stage offshoring bridge model. Our study shows that while both companies act as bridges in two-stage offshoring arrangements, their approaches differ in relation to (1) team integration, (2) organizational level implementation, and (3) site hierarchy. Although, there are opportunities afforded by the bridge model at present, the extent to which these opportunities will be viable into the future is open to question. As revealed in our study, temporal location seems to favor a bridge location such as Ireland, certainly with United States–Asian partners. However, location alone will not be enough to maintain position in future two-stage offshoring arrangements. Furthermore, our research supports the view that offshoring tends to progress through a staged sequence of progressively lower cost destinations. Such a development suggests that two-stage offshoring, as described in this paper, will eventually become what we would term multi-stage offshoring.
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