Emergent Researchers in Organisational Systems » Publications

Shadow systems: not the demons IS and IT folk make them out to be?

davidtjones — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:19:40 +0000

Shadow systems are applications of information technology that are not under the control of central IT and are often seen to duplicate the services offered by central IT. Consequently, central IT organisations, IT/IS researchers and the wikipedia shadow systems page demonise shadow systems as an evil to be expunged.

One of the EROS researchers has just had her first publication in the Communications of the ACM. In “Shadow systems: the good, the bad and the ugly” it is suggested that

.. technology practitioners and senior managers alike to re-examine typical prejudices surrounding shadow systems, and see them for what they are. In some cases, shadow systems may be bad to the core, but in others they can be just what an organization needs – a powerful source of creativity and innovation.

The lessons learned from the study are:

Acknowledge the shadow system.
Learn from the shadow system.
Shadow systems are in the eye of the beholder.
Don’t try to control shadow systems.
Encourage the good shadow systems.

EROS publication awarded one of five best publications for Information Systems in 2007

davidtjones — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 02:31:17 +0000

The Anatomy of a Design Theory paper by Professor Shirley Gregor and myself has been voted as one of the 5 best publications within the Information Systems discipline by a group of senior scholars.

That goes with being the paper of 2007 for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems.

ICIS 2008 Presentation

behrenss — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:30:58 +0000

Well my ICIS presentation is – as of a few hours ago – complete. After starting off extremely nervously it went by in a flash. Strangely enough no public flayings occurred afterward. I’m left wondering whether my talk was o.k or simply that no-body really understood it enough to say anything scathing. However, on a more positive note I’m happy with how it went across and the questions afterward. I can of course now only be hopeful that the people who attended will actually do as I want – whether my argument was actually successful. Whether they will do as I have asked. That is, read the paper. My hope is that in doing so they will find something useful in the paper. Whether they will find the ideas contained within it helpful in viewing their own research as well as the research of others. My biggest desire though – naturally – is that the ideas in the paper are considered critical and significant enough for them to help me develop further.

This is a link to my paper – a PDF version.

Fact or Fiction: The Philosophy of Fictions in IS Research