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*ISJ Special Issue Call for Papers: Making the Developing World a Better
Place with High Impact IS Research*
*Special Issue Editors:*
Antonio Díaz Andrade, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand,
antonio.diaz@aut.ac.nz
Carol Ou, Tilburg University, The Netherlands, carol.ou@uvt.nl
Angsana Techatassanasoontorn, Auckland University of Technology, New
Zealand, angsana@aut.ac.nz
*Coordinating Editor:*
Robert Davison, City University, Hong Kong, isrobert@cityu.edu.hk
*Background*
The practical impact that IS research can bring to real organisational and
societal problem situations and their stakeholders should be of prime
concern to all researchers who desire to make the world a better place.
Governments and funding agencies increasingly seek evidence that the
research they support does bring about valuable impacts. The United Nations
has also taken a strong stance with its Millennium Development Goals (
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals), which have now transitioned into
the new set of Sustainable Development Goals (
http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org). Indeed, the critical need for
positive impact is nowhere greater than in the less developed parts of the
world.
The focus of this special issue is on high impact research in the specific
context of developing countries, also known as emerging economies and the
global south. These countries, many of which are located in Africa, Asia,
South and Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific, tend to have an
underdeveloped industrial base and a low human development index relative
to other, more developed countries (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country). By high impact we are
referring to research that demonstrates how IS has actually made a
contribution for the better in a specific problem or problem area. The
impact must be tangibly measured or corroborated in terms of change or
improvement in a developing country context. Further, the impact must be
tightly linked to the IS part of the study. This will require the
documentation of strong relationships between the IS, any stakeholders, the
problem situation and the outcomes. Potential or speculative impacts, or
other forms of subjunctive analysis, are not appropriate for this special
issue. Further, we are not looking for purely descriptive studies that
embody no theory: consistent with normative expectations for the ISJ, we
expect that all papers must be methodologically sound, theoretically sound
as well as demonstrating high impact in the specific context of developing
countries.
*Focus of this Special Issue *
In order to further the good work already undertaken and to encourage the
undertaking of more high impact research in developing countries, in this
special issue we are looking for papers that deliberately set out to
demonstrate how IS makes a difference to the lives of people (whether as
individuals or in groups) in developing countries and thereby makes the
developing world a better place. This kind of research must thus be
strongly relevant to the practical concerns of people in developing
contexts. The impact should be situated in a practical context or situation
that is experienced directly by the people who live there. The problem
situation needs to be defined carefully and, as a result of the research,
ameliorated in some tangible way. Notwithstanding this practical focus, we
expect that published papers will still adhere to the ISJ’s high standards
of research rigour (with respect to method) and theoretical contribution.
The range of topic areas which could be described as suitable for this
special issue is far too large to list completely. However, broad areas
include (but are not limited to): agriculture; medicine and health; SMEs
and micro-enterprises; mobile and electronic commerce applications;
microfinance; crowd-sourcing; sustainability. What is critical is that the
research should be indigenously situated in a developing country context.
Moreover, the context should inform the research design (including theory
to be tested or developed): the context is not merely a place to gather
data.
In order to encourage more authors from the developing countries themselves
to participate in this special issue, we will be offering a mentoring
programme that pairs author teams with volunteer mentors. We expect that
while the mentor will be a co-author of the paper, s/he should not be the
first author of the paper.
*Special Issue Associate Editors:*
Ahmed Imran, University of New South Wales, Australia
Alexandre Graeml, UTFPR, Brazil
Christoph Schneider, City University, Hong Kong
David Xu, Wichita State University, USA
Devinder Thapa, Agder University, Norway
Julian Bass, Salford University, UK
Kevin Kuan, University of Sydney, Australia
M. N. Ravishankar, Loughborough University, UK
Øystein Sæbø, Agder University, Norway
Petter Nielsen, University of Oslo, Norway
Shan Pan, University of New South Wales, Australia
Wallace Chigona, University of Cape Town, South Africa
*Deadlines:*
Initial interest to act as a mentor: April 30th 2016. Please indicate any
preferences you have for the topics, methods, etc. that you would be
comfortable mentoring. Please communicate your willingness to be a mentor
directly with the Special Issue Co-Senior Editors.
Initial interest to be mentored: April 30th 2016. Please provide as much
information about your proposed submission so that we can locate a more
suitable mentor. For example, please send us an extended abstract that
includes research motivation/purpose/questions, outline of the background,
methodology and research design, and as much of the findings as you have
available. This initial submission should be formatted according to ISJ
norms and submitted through the manuscript central website – see below.
Initial submission of complete papers – December 31st 2016
Completion of 1st round of reviews – March 2017
Revisions due: June 2017
Completion of 2nd round of reviews – Sept 2017
(Final) revisions due December 2017
Final decisions – January 2018
*Submissions:*
All papers must be submitted at the ISJ’s online paper submission website,
viz.: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/isj
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