Call for Papers

 

The 3rd international SIGPrag workshop on
”IT Artefact Design & Workpractice Improvement”
ADWI-2014
www.vits.org/adwi2014/

 

June 2, 2014, Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany

 

Background – pragmatic perspectives

 

There have been many calls in the information systems (IS) community for a stronger pragmatic focus. This can be seen in a growing interest for research approaches and methods in IS that emphasise contribution to practice and collaboration between the practice and academia. Action research, which aims for knowledge development through collaboration and intervention in real settings, is achieving more and more academic credibility (Baskerville & Myers, 2004; Davison et al, 2004). This can also be said about design research that aims for the generation of new and useful artefacts (Hevner et al, 2004; Gregor & Jones, 2007). Research through evaluation has had a long and venerable place in IS research (Ward et, 1996; Serafeimidis & Smithson, 2003). Several approaches and frameworks that combine or integrate elements from the above-mentioned approaches have also emerged, e.g. practice research (Goldkuhl, 2011), collaborative practice research (Mathiassen, 2002), practical science (Gregor, 2008), engaged scholarship (Mathiassen & Nielsen, 2008), action design research (Sein et al, 2011) and technical action research (Wieringa & Morali, 2012). Underlying these different approaches is a quest for practical relevance of the conducted research (Benbasat & Zmud, 1999; Van de Ven, 2007; Wieringa, 2010). It is not enough to only “mirror” the world through descriptions and explanations but a pragmatic orientation recognizes intervention and design as a way of knowing and a means for building knowledge about social and institutional phenomena (Aakhus, 2007). There is a need for knowledge of other epistemic kinds that contributes more clearly to the improvement of IS practices.

 

A pragmatic orientation can also be seen in the increasing interest in the conceptualisation of practices, activities, agency and actions. Practice theorizing has gained an increased attention in IS studies (Orlikowski, 2008; Leonardi, 2011). There has been an interest for agency and action oriented theories in IS for quite some time; e.g. activity theory (Nardi, 1996), structuration theory (Orlikowski, 1992), social action theorizing (Hirschheim et al, 1996), human agency theorizing (Boudreau & Robey, 2005) and language action perspective (Winograd & Flores, 1986). From this follows also an interest for social and pragmatic views of the IT artefact (Aakhus & Jackson, 2005). This includes views of the IT artefact as contextually embedded and carriers of those social contexts (Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001) and such artefacts being tools for action and communication (Ågerfalk, 2003; Markus & Silver, 2008). Design research practice and the contributions to practice through appropriation of knowledge and methods and the contributions to academia through knowledge artefacts has been discussed (Donnellan, Sjöström, Helfert, 2012).

 

This enhanced practice and action orientation follows a growing awareness within IS scholars towards pragmatism as a research foundation (e.g. Goles & Hirschheim, 2000; Ågerfalk, 2010; Goldkuhl, 2012). It is not the case that IS scholars suddenly become pragmatists in their research orientation. It is rather the case that there is move from an implicit pragmatism to an explicit one (Goldkuhl, 2012). For a long time IS scholars have addressed practical problems with an interest for improvement. That interest has led to the extensive development of methods, models and constructive frameworks for not only the design of IT artefacts, but also related to several other IS/IT phenomena like e.g. innovation management, business process management, project management, IT service management just to mention a few. These methods actually reveal an on-going search for knowledge of other epistemic kinds for advancing understanding of information technology, information systems, and practice.

 

Workshop site and purpose

 

After the success of the two ADWI workshops in 2012 and 2013, it is now time for a third workshop on IT Artefact Design & Workpractice Improvement (ADWI-2014). ADWI-2012 (www.vits.org/adwi/) was run in Barcelona in June 2012 and ADWI-2013 (www.vits.org/adwi2013/) was run in Tilburg in June 2013. ADWI-2014 will take place on June 2. ADWI-2014 will take place in Friedrichshafen (Germany) at the Zeppelin University located at the Lake Constance in the three nation triangle consisting of Germany, Switzerland and Austria.  

 

ADWI-2014 intends to bring scholars and practitioners together for a knowledge exchange and development on research foundations and practical contributions concerning the design and improvement of IT artefacts and workpractices. The ADWI workshop is intended to be a developmental arena with thoughtful and constructive feedback from reviews and comments on site. ADWI should be a place where you can present ideas in papers and get fruitful feedback for further development of the papers. A developmental arena means also taking responsibility for pushing contributions further to high-quality journal publications. From the last two workshops (ADWI-2012 and ADWI-2013) several papers have been pushed further into special issues in the open access journal Systems, Signs & Actions. At least one special issue will be arranged in Systems, Signs & Actions inviting promising papers from ADWI-2014. The theme will be decided on later. We will possibly also work with some other outlet for another special issue. This depends on the outcome of the workshop.

 

Topics

 

The workshop can include papers from diverse fields of IS. We do not try to enumerate such fields below; we only present four broad topic areas (as three main pragmatic orientations). We invite papers to ADWI-2014 in the following areas:

·        The design, selection, adaptation and use of research methods and approaches that emphasise improvement of, collaboration with and intervention in IS practices (e.g. approaches like action research, design research, evaluation research, practice research, engaged scholarship).

·        The generation and use of practice, activity, agency, action oriented theories (or other types of knowledge) about IS phenomena.

·        Different kinds of knowledge (e.g. practical theories, frameworks, models, methods) that contribute to the improvement of IS practices. This includes examples of such knowledge from improvement, which can be taken from diverse IS fields.

·        Application of knowledge that can assist to innovate and improve practices in enterprises (case studies, solutions, organizational experiences).

 

An information system is always an embedded part of some practice. It is never an isolated entity without relations to social practices. The notion “IS practice”, which is used in the topics above, stands for diverse IS related practices like e.g. strategizing, development, procurement, deployment, use, evaluation and service management of IS/IT.

 

Dates and submission details

 

Submissions: March 21, 2014

Notification: May 1, 2014

Final manuscripts: May 27, 2014

Workshop: June 2, 2014, Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany

 

The workshop website is www.vits.org/adwi2014/. The workshop will follow an ordinary scientific procedure with submission of papers and selection of papers through peer-review (pursued by an international program committee). Papers are expected to be between 5-16 pages. We welcome full research papers as well as shorter papers (work-in-progress or position papers). For submissions we use the EasyChair system. Submit your paper at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=adwi2014. A format template can be found at the workshop website (www.vits.org/adwi2014/). Workshop proceedings will be electronically published and distributed. There will be a small workshop fee covering catering.

 

Program co-chairs

 

Brian Donnellan, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland (Brian.Donnellan@nuim.ie)

Göran Goldkuhl, Linköping University, Sweden (goran.goldkuhl@liu.se)

Markus Helfert, Dublin City University, Ireland (Markus.Helfert@computing.dcu.ie)

 

Organising co-chairs

 

Markus Helfert, Dublin City University, Ireland (Markus.Helfert@computing.dcu.ie)

Katharina Große, Zeppelin University, Germany (Katharina.Grosse@zu.de)

Organisers

 

AIS Special interest group on Pragmatist IS research (SIG Prag)

Zeppelin University, The Open Government Institute, Germany

Business Informatics Group, Dublin City University, Ireland

 

Programme Committee

 

Pär Ågerfalk, Sweden

Stephan Aier, Switzerland

Michel Avital, Denmark

Joao Carvalho, Portugal

Rodney Clarke, Australia

Gabriel Costello, Ireland

Stefan Cronholm, Sweden

Aldo de Moor, the Netherlands

Owen Eriksson, Sweden

Ulrich Frank, Germany

Matt Germonprez, USA

Rob Gleasure, Ireland

Ola Henfridsson, UK

Jonny Holmström, Sweden

Dirk Hovorka, Australia

John Krogstie, Norway

Jenny Lagsten, Sweden

Susanne Leist, Germany

Matt Levy, USA

Mikael Lind, Sweden

Rikard Lindgren, Sweden

Oliver Müller, Lichtenstein

Angela Nobre, Portugal

Andreas Opdahl, Norway

John Stouby Persson, Denmark

Joan Rodon, Spain

Kurt Sandkuhl, Germany

Mareike Schoop, Germany

Gerhard Schwabe, Switzerland

Mark S. Silver, USA

Jonas Sjöström, Sweden

Rajiv Vashist, Australia

Roel Wieringa, the Netherlands

Fahri Yetim, Finland

 

More members to be announced.

 

References

 

Aakhus M (2007) Communication as Design. Communication Monographs, Vol 74 (1), pp 112–117

Aakhus M, Jackson S (2005) Technology, Interaction and Design. In K. Fitch & B. Sanders (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Social Interaction (pp. 411–433). Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ

Ågerfalk P J (2003) Information Systems Actability: Understanding Information Technology as a Tool for Business Action and Communication, Ph D diss, Department of Computer and Information Science, Linköping University

Ågerfalk P J (2010) Getting Pragmatic, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 19 (3), pp 251–256

Baskerville R, Myers M (2004) Special issue on action research in information systems: making IS research relevant to practice – foreword, MIS Quarterly, Vol 28 (3), p 329-335

Benbasat I, Zmud R W (1999) Empirical research in information system research: The practice of relevance, MIS Quarterly, Vol 23 (1), p 3-16

Boudreau M-C, Robey D (2005) Enacting Integrated Information Technology: A Human Agency Perspective, Organization Science, Vol 16 (1), p 3–18

Davison R M, Martinsons M G, Kock N (2004) Principles of canonical action research, Information Systems Journal, Vol 14, p 65–86

Donnellan B, Sjöström, J, Helfert M (2012) Applying Product Semantics to Design Research, IFIP Working Group 8.2 Conference : Shaping the Future of ICT Research: Methods and Approaches, University of South Florida, Tampa

Goles T, Hirschheim R (2000) The paradigm is dead, the paradigm is dead … long live the paradigm: the legacy of Burell and Morgan, Omega, Vol 28, p 249-268

Goldkuhl G (2011) The research practice of practice research: theorizing and situational inquiry, Systems, Signs & Actions, Vol 5 (1), p 7-29

Goldkuhl G (2012) Pragmatism vs. interpretivism in qualitative information systems research, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 21 (2), p 135-146

Gregor S (2008) Building theory in a practical science, in Hart D, Gregor S (Eds, 2008) Information Systems Foundations: The role of design science, ANU E Press, Canberra

Gregor S, Jones D (2007) The Anatomy of a Design Theory, Journal of AIS, Vol 8 (5), p 312-335

Hevner A R, March S T, Park J, Ram S (2004) Design science in information systems research, MIS Quarterly, Vol 28 (1), p 75-115

Hirschheim R, Klein H, Lyytinen K (1996) Exploring the intellectual structures of information systems development: a social action theoretic analysis, Accounting, Management & Information Technology, Vol 6 (1/2), pp. 1-64

Leonardi P (2011) When flexible routines meet flexible technologies: affordance, constraint, and the imbrication of human and material agencies, MIS Quarterly, Vol 35 (1), pp. 147-167

Markus L, Silver M (2008) A foundation for the study of IT effects: A new look at DeSanctis and Poole’s concepts of structural features and spirit, Journal of the AIS, Vol. 9 (10/11), pp 609-632

Mathiassen L (2002) Collaborative practice research, Information Technology & People, Vol 15 (4), p 321-345

Mathiassen L, Nielsen P A (2008) Engaged Scholarship in IS Research. The Scandinavian Case, Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, Vol 20 (2), p 3–20

Nardi B A (Ed, 1996) Context and consciousness. Activity theory and human-computer interaction, MIT Press, Cambridge

Orlikowski W J (1992) The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in Organizations, Organization Science, Vol 3 (3), p 398-429

Orlikowski W J (2008) Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work, Organization Studies, Vol 28 (9), p 1435–1448

Orlikowski W J, Iacono C S (2001) Desperately seeking the “IT” in IT research – a call to theorizing the IT artifact, Information Systems Research, Vol 12 (2), pp 121-134

Sein M, Henfridsson O, Purao S, Rossi M, Lindgren R (2011) Action design research, MIS Quarterly, Vol 35 (1), p 37-56

Serafeimidis V, Smithson S (2003) Information systems evaluation as an organizational institution – experience from a case study, Information Systems Journal, Vol 13, pp 251–274

Van de Ven A (2007) Engaged scholarship: A guide for organizational and social research, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Ward J, Taylor P, Bond P (1996) Evaluation and realisation of IS/IT benefits: an empirical study of current practice, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 4, pp 214-225

Wieringa R (2010) Relevance and problem choice in design science, in Winter R, Zhao J L, Aier S (Eds. 2010) Proceedings DESRIST 2010, LNCS 6105, Springer, Berlin

Wieringa R, Morali A (2012) Technical action research as a validation method in information systems design science, Proceedings DESRIST 2012, LNCS 7286, Springer, Berlin

Winograd T, Flores F (1986) Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design, Ablex, Norwood