Robert M. Davison：Research in Information Systems--Intra-disciplinary and Inter-disciplinary Approaches
Time：Tuesday, January 7, 2020,9：30-11:00 a.m. Beijing Time
Location：Hall 3, Building 1, School of Management
Speaker：Robert M. Davison, City University of Hong Kong
Introduction：
Robert Davison is a Professor of Information Systems at the City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on the use and misuse of information systems, especially with respect to problem solving, guanxi formation and knowledge management, in Chinese organizations. He has published over 90 articles in a variety of journals such as MIS Quarterly, the Information Systems Journal, IT&People, Journal of IT, Journal of the AIS, Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Decision Support Systems, Communications of the AIS, and Communications of the ACM. Robert chairs the IFIP WG 9.4 (Social Implications of Computing in Developing Countries) and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Information Systems Journal and the Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries. Robert travels extensively, seeking to understand how people in different contexts and cultures make sense of their lives with IS. As a researcher and as an editor, he seeks to promote both an inclusive and a local perspective to research.
Abstract：
The deep embeddedness of information systems (IS) in many areas of human activity poses a dual challenge to the IS discipline: advancing an expanding disciplinary boundary that includes an increasing set of IS topics; and engaging with other disciplines in order to understand IS-enabled phenomena. An inability to meet these challenges could lead to conceptually stunted development of the IS discipline, missed opportunities to inform other disciplines and a failure to effectively contribute to solving the pressing problems of our time. We undertook this study to investigate both how IS research has addressed these challenges in the past and how it can continue to do so in the future. We theorize four different types of knowledge contribution that IS researchers can produce. We analyze a wide-ranging sample of research studies published in 176 papers in the AIS basket of eight journals to investigate the nature of their contribution vis-à-vis these types. We find that the predominant types of knowledge contribution are intradisciplinary, with relatively few interdisciplinary contributions. We explain why each type of knowledge contribution is important to the IS discipline and comment on the implications of our study for IS scholars and for the vigor and growth of the IS discipline.
