Most popular theories in Information Systems research

Published on January 26, 2010 in Uncategorized. Closed

At the recent ICIS conference in Phoenix. I saw a poster by some Michigan PhD students on the most popular theories used in ISR and MISQ (the field’s top 2 journals).

Here is an interesting excerpt from that paper, which I have linked to below:

“We identified 154 distinct theories by originating discipline employed in the journal articles. Among these, the top 10 widely used theories accounted for 90% of the total usage. 88 theories (57% of total) are used only once, thereby making the distribution of usage of theories exhibit a long tail, as displayed in Figure 1. Theories from Psychology and Sociology account for 32% and 17%, respectively, of the total. Economics and Organizational Science with 11% each also are prominent. ”

http://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2009/91/

Here is the most interesting graph from the paper, which shows a long tail distribution. I must say a tail distribution of this length is quite surprising. However, many of these theories have been edified by the work of IS researchers.

Most popular theories used in Information Systems Research

Nothing like an engaging conference

Published on August 14, 2009 in conferences. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

A week from today I will be headed to Helsinki School of Economics for the Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research workshop. From their website, this is the focus of the conference:

The workshop focuses on LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE INNOVATION. The ongoing profound transformation of the world economy calls for new ways to lead and govern collective action in companies, actor networks and broadly in society. The old governance models and structures do not sufficiently guide and support us in our aims for sustainable life, well-being and long-term wealth creation in the transforming economy.

Prior to this conference, I’ll be attending the NITIM doctoral consortium, giving and receiving feedback from other doctoral students on our dissertation topics. I am excited to meet some great people, and hear some great ideas.

Ordinal Logistic HLM for DIF detection in IRT

Published on June 3, 2009 in methods. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I recently wrote a paper for my Hierarchical Linear Modeling class on using Ordinal Logistic HLM to detect unfavorable biases on test questions (DIF detection in Item Response Theory Language). Since there is not much info about this on the internet (except a couple recent disserations, which are very good) I have made it available. If you are interested reading it, here it is in PDF form.

I wrote another more basic paper introducing how to interpret HLM coefficients using an example. Find it here, in PDF form.

I am interested in any feedback or comments on them.

Open innovation in education, OLEDs, and Nature

Published on March 25, 2009 in commentary and open-innovation. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Mozilla, Creative Commons, and P2P University announced a new open innovation initiative to partner with educators in extending Mozilla’s role in the education space. This post has more about Mozilla’s strategic position to engage in the open innovation process build educational materials.

Innocentive and Nature just announced a partnership of somekind to engage scientists in solving global scientific challenges. It is refreshing to see this large publisher getting involved in such a worthwhile endevor. Perhaps this is in response to MIT’s announcement to make all it’s faculties scientific papers available for free on the internet.

Lastly, Novaled, an OLED maker, and Holst Centre, an open innovation R&D company announced a partnership.

Read Pascal Finette’s blog about the interesting name change for the LinkedIn Open Innovation group.

The best, free online GMAT study resource

Published on March 25, 2009 in commentary. Closed Tags: , , .

When the subject of GMAT comes up in conversation, I always want to share the best online resource that I found when studying for it. It currently can be found in word document form here. It helped me learn the tricks of the GMAT. Hope it helps you.

Tips for Grad School

Published on March 25, 2009 in commentary, discoveries and research. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

A colleague forwarded me a nice blog post by an MIT PhD student on grad school advice.

It is a great list… except exercise is missing from it, as well as timeboxing.

Chad Anderson: Materiality and Affordances

Published on March 20, 2009 in commentary, conferences and research. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Today Chad Anderson reported on the ground work for his dissertation. He cited several Organizational scholars who have called for more theorizing in how materiality relates to the IT artifact.

He then related the theory of affordances which originated from Gibson’s 1979 work in Ecological Psychology. Gibson died shortly after proposing the theory, and many others have gone on to explicate it. Chad relates affordances to IT research as the relationship between “features of an information system and the abilities of an individual within the context of an environment.” It will be interesting to see where this goes… and I am sure Chad can correct me if I mis-discribing something!

This colloquium session was a bit more theoretical than most, but very interesting.

Ordinal Logistic HLM

Published on February 25, 2009 in commentary and methods. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

I recently wrote a paper on “Ordinal Logistic HLM” for my methods class. There are only 3 google results if you search for that.

I thought I would post my assignment, for good or for bad, to help bump up that statistic.

Ordinal Logistic HLM Description – DOC

Ordinal Logistic HLM Description – PDF

If you find mistakes or errors in the paper, leave a comment.

zotero 1.5beta released today

Published on February 23, 2009 in discoveries and software. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .

zotero_logo1Managing citations well can save you loads of time. I do this with Zotero. It is free for everyone, open source, and always getting better. It has a great community of users including one who created a very useful python script to rename PDF files.

A new version came out today, which allows you to backup your precious database to their servers for free, and follow other researchers (akin to twitter). If you want to see my library, request to follow me. In the mean time, check out the main developers library.

One of my favorite things about zotero is that is standards compliant. It makes use of the COinS standard. More on this later. Good descriptions on what else is new, here and here.

What citation manager do you use? Use Zotero? Give a shout out…

Alan Lee, Formative & Summative Validity

Published on February 14, 2009 in commentary, conferences and research. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

alan_leeIn a very provocative research seminar at GSU yesterday, Alan Lee explained how information systems researchers typically test how well the data fits their model (establish formative validity, modus ponens), but rarely test how well the theory works, or predicts (establish summative validity, modus tollens).

Here is a few other items I noted:

  • He asked: Instead of doing a grounded theory investigation of the literature, why not do a hermeneutic interpretation? He cited scholars who have said that the logic of the hermeneutic circle is hypothetical deductive reasoning, which is the logic of modus tollens (summative).
  • He sees a truce between the different research camps (qualitative, quantitative, etc.) not an open armed embracing, all-on-the-same-team feeling. I can see that.
  • In his paper, there are useful tables which outline how each research method area uses formative and summative validity… formative validity is found in the hermeneutic circle, replication across cases and the principle of dialogical reasoning.
  • There was a discussion about how methodological papers can become a check-list for researchers, which stifles creativity in methods.

His paper should be published in MISQ.

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