-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: [AISWorld] Information Systems Journal (ISJ): Special Issue on Making the Developing World a Better Place with High Impact IS Research Datum: Mon, 20 Jun 2016 21:34:04 +0000 Von: Carol Ou carol.ou@uvt.nl An: AISWorld List aisworld@lists.aisnet.org Kopie (CC): Prof. Robert M DAVISON isrobert@cityu.edu.hk, Angsana Techatassanasoontorn angsana@aut.ac.nz, Antonio Diaz Andrade antonio.diaz@aut.ac.nz
*ISJ Special Issue Call for Papers: Making the Developing World a Better Place with High Impact IS Research*
*Special Issue Editors of Information Systems Journal:*
Antonio Díaz Andrade, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, antonio.diaz@aut.ac.nzmailto:antonio.diaz@aut.ac.nz
Angsana Techatassanasoontorn, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, angsana@aut.ac.nzmailto:angsana@aut.ac.nz
Carol Ou, Tilburg University, The Netherlands, carol.ou@uvt.nlmailto:carol.ou@uvt.nl
*Coordinating Editor:*
Robert Davison, City University, Hong Kong, isrobert@cityu.edu.hkmailto: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 rigor (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 online paper submission website of Information Systems Journal,
viz.: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/isj
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