-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [AISWorld] Cfp SIGPRAG Pre-ICIS 6th workshop on ”Practice-based Design and Innovation of Digital Artifacts” Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2018 11:51:27 +0000 From: Göran Goldkuhl goran.goldkuhl@liu.se To: AISWorld Listserv aisworld@lists.aisnet.org

Call for Papers

AIS SIGPRAG Pre-ICIS 6th workshop on ”Practice-based Design and Innovation of Digital Artifacts” December 12, 2018, San Francisco

Workshop focus

This AIS SIGPRAG Pre-ICIS workshop has a general orientation towards pragmatic perspectives on IS. The focus is on “Practice-based Design and Innovation of Digital Artifacts”. This means an emphasis on digital artifacts as embedded in social practices and carriers of elements in such practices. It emphasizes also the innovative nature of designing new artifacts and new practices. The workshop acknowledges different sub-themes within this broad workshop theme:

* Ways to research practice-based design and innovation of digital artifacts * Ways to conceptualize and describe practices * Ways to conceptualize and describe digital artifacts * The processes of innovation and design of digital artifacts and practices

Topics within these sub-themes are described below.

Workshop purpose

This workshop is arranged in the same spirit and a continuation of earlier successful SIGPRAG workshops on “Practice-based Design and Innovation of Digital Artifacts”. This SIGPRAG workshop intends to bring scholars and practitioners together for a knowledge exchange and development on research foundations and practical contributions concerning the design and innovation of digital artifacts and practices. The SIGPRAG workshop is intended to be a developmental arena with thoughtful and constructive feedback from reviews and comments on site. The workshop 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 earlier SIGPRAG workshops many papers have been pushed further into special issues in the open access journal Systems, Signs & Actions. At least one issue will be arranged in Systems, Signs & Actions inviting promising papers from this SIGPRAG workshop.

Topics

The workshop can include papers from diverse fields of IS. Topics following the identified workshop sub-themes are listed below.

Ways to research practice-based design and innovation of digital artifacts; empirical research approaches such as:

* Practice research * Action research * Design science research * Action design research * Case study research * Evaluation research * Discourse analysis * Pragmatic inquiries * Practitioner – research collaborations

Ways to research practice-based design and innovation of digital artifacts; knowledge creation approaches such as:

* Design theory development * Method engineering * Grounded theory development * Multi-grounded theory development * Practical theory development

Ways to conceptualize and describe practices; for example:

* Symbolic interaction * Language action * Socio-materiality * Institutionalism * Actor-networks * Infrastructure evolution * Socio-instrumentalism * Distributed cognition * Distributed agency

Ways to conceptualize and describe digital artifacts; for example:

* Ensemble view * Socio-technical view * Contextual view * Functional tool view * Affordance view * Communicative action view

The processes of innovation and design of digital artifacts and practices; for example aspects such as:

* Innovation strategies * Openness in innovation * Design thinking * Collaborative design * Stakeholder interactions (power-playing vs. value balancing and informed consensus building) * Practice understanding and diagnosis * Wicked problems * Problem formulation * Values and goals articulation * Idea generation * Idea capture * Design conversations * Idea visualization (modeling, prototyping) * Strategies for testing and evaluation

Dates and submission details

Submissions: September 28, 2018 Notification: October 31, 2018 Final manuscripts: November 30, 2018 Workshop: December 12, 2018

The workshop website is http://SIGPrag.net/http://sigprag.net/. 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 (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=practdid2018). A format template can be found at the workshop website (http://SIGPrag.net/http://sigprag.net/). Workshop proceedings will be digitally published and distributed. There will be a small workshop fee covering catering.

Workshop co-chairs

Jonas Sjöström, Uppsala University, Sweden (jonas.sjostrom@im.uu.semailto:jonas.sjostrom@im.uu.se) Göran Goldkuhl, Linköping University & Uppsala University, Sweden (goran.goldkuhl@liu.semailto:goran.goldkuhl@liu.se) Markus Helfert, Dublin City University, Ireland (Markus.Helfert@dcu.iemailto:Markus.Helfert@dcu.ie) Amir Haj-Bolouri, University West, Sweden (amir.haj-bolouri@hv.semailto:amir.haj-bolouri@hv.se)

Organisers

AIS Special interest group on Pragmatic IS research (AIS SIGPrag), http://SIGPrag.net/http://sigprag.net/

Programme Committee

Mark Aakhus, USA

Stephan Aier, Switzerland

Steven Alter, USA

Lars Bækgaard, Denmark

Rodney Clarke, Australia

Kieran Conboy, Ireland

Gabriel Costello, Ireland

Stefan Cronholm, Sweden

Brian Donnellan, Ireland

Ulrich Frank, Germany

Matt Germonprez, USA

Rob Gleasure, Ireland

Shirley Gregor, Australia

Anders Hjalmarsson, Sweden

Paul Johannesson, Sweden

Gustaf Juell-Skielse, Sweden

Jenny Lagsten, Sweden

Ulrika Lundh Snis, Sweden

Ulf Melin, Sweden

Matthew Mullarkey, USA

Peter Axel Nielsen, Denmark

Réka Pétercsák, Ireland

Matti Rossi, Finland

Hannes Rothe, Germany

Mareike Schoop, Germany

Hans Weigand, the Netherlands

Mikael Wiberg, Sweden

Robert Winter, Switzerland

More members to be announced.

Pragmatist Information Systems Research

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 emphasize 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 science research that aims for the generation of new and useful artifacts (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 conceptualization 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), language action perspective (Winograd & Flores, 1986) and work systems theory (Alter, 2013). From this follows also an interest for social and pragmatic views of the IT artifact (Aakhus & Jackson, 2005). This includes views of the IT artifact as contextually embedded and carriers of those social contexts (Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001) and such artifacts 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 artifacts has been discussed (Sjöström, Donnellan & 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 artifacts, 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. Pragmatism – and its inherent view of inquiry as a theory of knowledge (Dewey, 1938) – is a philosophical foundation for intervention-based research (Baskerville & Myers, 2004; Sjöström, 2010). Indeed, Constantinides et al (2012, p. 1) propose “practical questions for all IS researchers to consider in making choices about relevant topics, design and execution, and representation of findings in their research.” The pragmatist foundations are also reflected in the evolving design science research discourse (Hevner et al, 2004; Sein et al, 2011; Gregor & Hevner, 2013; Iivari, 2014; Venable et al, 2016).

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 Alter S (2013) Is Work System Theory a Practical Theory of Practice?, Systems, Signs & Actions, Vol. 7 (1), pp. 22–48 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 Constantinides P, Chiasson M, Introna L (2012) The ends of information systems research: a pragmatic framework. MIS Quarterly, Vol 36(1), p 1–10. Davison R M, Martinsons M G, Kock N (2004) Principles of canonical action research, Information Systems Journal, Vol 14, p 65–86 Dewey J (1938) Logic: The theory of inquiry, Henry Holt, New York 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, Hevner A R (2013) Positioning and presenting design science research for maximum impact, MIS quarterly, Vol 37 (2), p 337–355 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 Iivari J (2014) Distinguishing and contrasting two strategies for design science research, European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 24 (1), p 107–115 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 Sjöström J (2010) Designing Information Systems – a pragmatic account. PhD thesis, Uppsala University. Van de Ven A (2007) Engaged scholarship: A guide for organizational and social research, Oxford University Press, Oxford Venable J, Pries-Heje J, Baskerville R (2016) FEDS: a framework for evaluation in design science research. European Journal of Information Systems, Vol 25(1), p 77–89 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, p 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

_______________________________________________ AISWorld mailing list AISWorld@lists.aisnet.org