Operationalizing the Essential Role of the Information Technology Artifact in Information Systems Research: Gray Area, Pitfalls, and the Importance of Strategic Ambiguity

MIS Quarterly ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Whinston ◽  
Geng
Author(s):  
Michele Zappavigna-Lee ◽  
Jon Patrick

The emphasis in information systems research is typically on converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge (Hershel, Nemati, & Steiger, 2001). Attention is also given to setting up a dichotomy of tacit and explicit knowledge in terms of articulation (can it be carried in language?), codification (can it be turned into an artifact?) or judgment (is it objective or subjective?). This article is structured to critique the dominant position in information systems research that tacit knowledge is ineffable. The background section provides an introduction to the extensive interdisciplinary literature on tacit knowledge, providing context for the subsequent section that deconstructs the assumptions that this literature makes about what it means to, in Polanyi’s (1966, p. 4) terms, “know more than we can tell.” To conclude, the role of linguistic and semiotic analysis in realising the growing trend toward theorising “community knowing,” rather than knowledge as an artifact, is suggested in the final sections.


Author(s):  
Shirish C. Srivastava ◽  
Thompson S.H. Teo

Though there have been extended deliberations for making information systems (IS) research more relevant1 and useful for IS executives, to our knowledge, there has been no empirical study which examines the extent of relevance in the current IS research. In this chapter, we analyze the topical relevance of 388 published academic articles in the three top IS journals: MIS Quarterly (MISQ), Information Systems Research (ISR), and Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), for a 5 year period from 2000-2004. We do this by examining their fit with the key issues for information technology (IT) executives identified by the latest Society for Information Management (SIM) survey. Based on our results, we make recommendations for making IS research more meaningful for practitioners.


Author(s):  
Pratyush Nidhi Sharma ◽  
◽  
Marko Sarstedt ◽  
Galit Shmueli ◽  
Kevin H. Kim ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Michael D. Myers ◽  
Felix B. Tan

Many IS scholars argue that global organizations need to understand cultural differences if they are to successfully deploy information technology. We agree that an understanding of cultural differences is important, but suggest that the concept of “national culture” that has tended to dominate the IS research literature is too simplistic. In this article, we challenge information systems researchers to go beyond models of national culture. We propose that IS researchers should adopt a more dynamic view of culture – one that sees culture as contested, temporal and emergent.


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