从业者视角

IF 6.5 2区 管理学 Q1 INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE
Robert M. Davison, Marco Marabelli, Yenni Tim, Cynthia Beath
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In this, they complement non-IS journals and magazines in the broader business and technology spheres that also have practitioners in mind, including: Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Communications of the ACM, McKinsey Quarterly, Academy of Management Perspectives, CIO Magazine, etc. Moreover, some of the existing journals that are predominantly focused on publishing theoretical contributions, for example, the journals that make up the Association of Information Systems' College of Senior Scholars list of eleven premier journals,1 have also demonstrated that they are open to practitioner-oriented submissions.</p><p>The Information Systems Journal (ISJ) has for several years championed the publication of what we call Practitioner Papers (PPs). PPs can contribute to knowledge in a number of different ways, but one of our key objectives in promoting PPs is to further the dialogue between academia and practice. As part of this dialogue, PPs should provide deep insights for researchers into the practitioner's experience with IS in a particular context, as well as, of course, prescriptive and actionable recommendations for practice based on well executed research. Insights for practice may include reframing or reimagining specific practitioner problems, offering a thorough exploration of a phenomenon, documenting lessons learned by practitioners, or illustrating good practices and their outcomes. To render these insights actionable, these articles will include action-oriented prescriptions that suggest what practitioners should do differently in practice.</p><p>While practitioners are the primary intended audience of PPs, academic researchers may also benefit, for instance when PPs engage with new phenomena and propose new insights that challenge and extend the existing discourse. Such outcomes can inspire future academic work to re-examine those prior findings, perhaps as part of the researcher's problematisation of the phenomenon (Chatterjee &amp; Davison, <span>2021</span>).</p><p>Although practitioners are commonly thought of as working in or for organisations, we recognise that practitioners can be found in diverse settings and may not necessarily be serving a corporate entity. We can find practitioners in the political spectrum (i.e., lawmakers), non-governmental organisations, charities, villages, and communities. They may be formally employed, working as activists, or simply citizens with an interest in using IS to make the world a better place (Walsham, <span>2012</span>).</p><p>Submissions in the PP genre at the ISJ have been sporadic and the quality has varied. Examples of published PPs are Tamm et al. (<span>2022</span>) and Tim et al. (<span>2021</span>), while Pan and Pee (<span>2020</span>) offer a framework for demonstrating the impact of research on practice. To further encourage the undertaking of practitioner-oriented research, we have recently both reformulated our PP guidelines2 and announced a special issue3 that focuses exclusively on practice. Our aim is to spur further practitioner-oriented work.</p><p>As with regular research articles, PPs could be written about a wide range of topics within the broad IS domain. Like all premier journals, we seek to publish cutting edge research that advances knowledge in the IS domain. Thus, we do not intend that PPs be used as a vehicle for teaching cases, or low quality (rejected) research articles that have some incremental contribution to practice. We are particularly interested in PPs that investigate contemporary and emerging issues, for example, blockchain, digital futures, generative AI (artificial intelligence), robotics/automation, simulations/digital twins, and sustainable IS. Although many of these topic areas are of concern to practicing managers, we emphasise that managers are not the sole audience and we welcome submissions that target non-managerial readers, including academics, employees and citizens. For instance, some of the societal problems contributed by digital technology are very difficult to solve and thus we would appreciate submission of PPs that articulate these issues and provide illustrative case studies of how some groups in society are trying to address them.</p><p>We note that the fundamental purpose of a PP is not to advance theory! Instead, the purpose is to contribute actionable insights that will be of interest to practitioners in solving the practical problems and addressing challenges that they face. This does not mean that theory is barred from PPs, since we expect that the authors of PPs will be aware of relevant theory and that the PPs themselves will be consonant with that theory. The frameworks that are employed in PPs can thus be theory-informed, even as they incorporate ideas and language that might not be found in the academic literature. We do not want authors to imagine that a theoretical contribution is required in a PP or that a PP will be rejected if it lacks a theoretical contribution.</p><p>We do expect, however, that PPs will both provide novel insights and make recommendations for putting those insights into practice. Some effective ways of providing insights include frameworks, guidelines and the identification of demonstrably effective practices that practitioners can adopt. In addition to providing insights, we expect PPs to conclude with recommendations for practice that are action-oriented. Authors of PPs can help readers see what steps to take to extract value from the insights that have been presented.</p><p>In line with previous ISJ editorials (Davison, <span>2023</span>; Díaz Andrade et al., <span>2019</span>), we are interested in learning what works and what kind of impact can be achieved, at both the local and the global scale. Thus, a study undertaken in South Africa needs to be situated in the South African context, to refer to the unique features of that context and how they inform the study, to surface insights from that context, and to provide actionable recommendations that will be relevant in the South African context. The insights and recommendations may have validity beyond both the study's geographic or cultural context and its specific topic, for example, ERP (enterprise resource planning) implementation, Fintech Impacts, AI applications, etc., but such extended recommendations need to be justified with care (cf. Davison &amp; Martinsons, <span>2016</span>; Seddon &amp; Scheepers, <span>2012</span>).</p><p>We suggest that the credibility of a PP will be enhanced when at least one of the authors, ideally in a leading role, is also a current practitioner. We realise that practitioners are (like everyone else) very busy and may not have significant time and energy to commit to a project, but we do expect that the practitioner-author will make a significant contribution to a PP. This implies that we do not regard PPs as mere ‘translation’ exercises that extrapolate the assumed practical implications from a theoretically-driven research project. Rather, they should be studies that are significantly informed by practitioner perspectives, ideally throughout the entire research lifecycle, from problem formulation to articulation of recommendations. When a PP originates from a theoretically-driven research project, we expect that the PP will place practitioners' interests and viewpoints at its core.</p><p>Thus, authors should take steps to identify which practitioner audience is the primary beneficiary of their findings and present their research in a language that resonates with that audience. Keep in mind that such practitioners need not be limited to executives such as the CIO, CTO or CDO, but could involve any legitimate practitioner who engages with information systems, for example, line managers, frontline or back office employees, consultants, contractors, specialists in NGOs or society more generally. Clarke and Davison (<span>2020</span>) comment on the tendency of IS researchers to identify with the corporate entity (whether CEO or organisation) as the stakeholder whose perspective is championed in their own research. While corporate stakeholders can be valid beneficiaries of PPs, they are not the only possible beneficiaries and we would particularly welcome PPs that aim to benefit non-corporate stakeholders, such as citizens, employees and the environment, and indeed with respect to the creation of non-economic value.</p><p>We require authors of PPs to problematise the phenomenon that they are studying carefully (Chatterjee &amp; Davison, <span>2021</span>). Thus, authors need to provide a motivation for the study that is not related to filling a gap in the research or practitioner literatures, but instead identifies a problem that affects specific practitioner stakeholders and is worth investigating. In order to make the PP more relevant to practitioners, it may be valuable to reference the practitioner-oriented literature when exploring the significance of the problem.</p><p>Practitioner insights into what works, where, when, how and why are particularly valuable and have the potential to be put into action by practitioners. We require a high standard of evidence to convince reviewers of both the veracity of the findings and their contemporaneity, that is, we do not want to see papers that report on well-established norms. This implies that we expect to see careful treatment of methods in a PP. Readers will appreciate knowing how the research was done, how the researchers approached the problem situation, which methods they applied. To keep the heart of the paper short and accessible, the description of methods used in a PP, if applicable, will generally be found in an appendix.</p><p>We recognise that potential authors of PPs may be concerned about how their papers will be reviewed. Firstly, we believe that a practitioner perspective is an essential element in the review, so each PP that passes initial screening and is sent for review will have at least one practitioner reviewer. This will not be a supplementary reviewer, but a primary reviewer to whom we will pay as much attention as we do academic reviewers. In selecting academic reviewers, we will also be mindful of their expertise and will seek to appoint reviewers who have themselves authored practitioner-oriented papers. We would not appoint reviewers who are antagonistic towards the notion of a PP.</p><p>We expect that the format of a PP will differ from both research articles published in academic journals and consulting reports published in the practitioner literature. Reviewers of PPs should not be overly concerned about the format, but instead should examine the message that the authors are attempting to convey. If the language used in the paper is very technical, or full of academic jargon, and is likely not to be understood by either a practitioner or an academic audience, we expect reviewers to raise a flag. For instance, researchers may understand concepts like inter-coder reliability or transactive memory, but practitioners may not, so the language needs to be adjusted to be less technical, less jargon-filled. In a similar way, an academic audience might be confused by some terms commonly used by practitioners, especially if the terms are rooted in specific organisational contexts.</p><p>We expect that by championing the practitioner perspective, we will bring about several longer term impacts in the Information Systems domain. We hope to reinvigorate the debate about the relevance of our research, and to encourage academic researchers to take the world of practice seriously. We also hope to bring our research closer to the practitioner community. We have much to learn from IS practitioners and we look forward to their active contributions to this debate. We hope that they will also learn from each other through this medium.</p><p>Is there a downside? Ivory tower researchers may resent our foray into the world of practice, much as they dislike consultants. PhD students may be confused, especially if their supervisors tell them to steer clear of PPs, whether as authors or readers. Some may regard this venture as an existential threat to the sanctity of IS as an academic discipline. To all these people, we suggest that you assess the utility of your prior work and the impact that it has, not on your career, h-index and curriculum vitae, but on other stakeholders. Indeed, we aver that your reputation (and h-index) will be greatly enhanced by the presence of PPs on your curriculum vitae.</p>","PeriodicalId":48049,"journal":{"name":"Information Systems Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/isj.12461","citationCount":"1","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"The practitioner perspective\",\"authors\":\"Robert M. Davison,&nbsp;Marco Marabelli,&nbsp;Yenni Tim,&nbsp;Cynthia Beath\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/isj.12461\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>The Information Systems (IS) discipline traces its origins to issues that were of interest to practitioners, but in recent years the practitioner perspective has often been neglected. Nevertheless, there is increasing recognition that the practitioner's perspective is still important and that the research we undertake can (or should) have implications for practitioners. Journals like MIS Quarterly Executive target this segment exclusively. In this, they complement non-IS journals and magazines in the broader business and technology spheres that also have practitioners in mind, including: Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Communications of the ACM, McKinsey Quarterly, Academy of Management Perspectives, CIO Magazine, etc. Moreover, some of the existing journals that are predominantly focused on publishing theoretical contributions, for example, the journals that make up the Association of Information Systems' College of Senior Scholars list of eleven premier journals,1 have also demonstrated that they are open to practitioner-oriented submissions.</p><p>The Information Systems Journal (ISJ) has for several years championed the publication of what we call Practitioner Papers (PPs). PPs can contribute to knowledge in a number of different ways, but one of our key objectives in promoting PPs is to further the dialogue between academia and practice. As part of this dialogue, PPs should provide deep insights for researchers into the practitioner's experience with IS in a particular context, as well as, of course, prescriptive and actionable recommendations for practice based on well executed research. Insights for practice may include reframing or reimagining specific practitioner problems, offering a thorough exploration of a phenomenon, documenting lessons learned by practitioners, or illustrating good practices and their outcomes. To render these insights actionable, these articles will include action-oriented prescriptions that suggest what practitioners should do differently in practice.</p><p>While practitioners are the primary intended audience of PPs, academic researchers may also benefit, for instance when PPs engage with new phenomena and propose new insights that challenge and extend the existing discourse. Such outcomes can inspire future academic work to re-examine those prior findings, perhaps as part of the researcher's problematisation of the phenomenon (Chatterjee &amp; Davison, <span>2021</span>).</p><p>Although practitioners are commonly thought of as working in or for organisations, we recognise that practitioners can be found in diverse settings and may not necessarily be serving a corporate entity. We can find practitioners in the political spectrum (i.e., lawmakers), non-governmental organisations, charities, villages, and communities. They may be formally employed, working as activists, or simply citizens with an interest in using IS to make the world a better place (Walsham, <span>2012</span>).</p><p>Submissions in the PP genre at the ISJ have been sporadic and the quality has varied. Examples of published PPs are Tamm et al. (<span>2022</span>) and Tim et al. (<span>2021</span>), while Pan and Pee (<span>2020</span>) offer a framework for demonstrating the impact of research on practice. To further encourage the undertaking of practitioner-oriented research, we have recently both reformulated our PP guidelines2 and announced a special issue3 that focuses exclusively on practice. Our aim is to spur further practitioner-oriented work.</p><p>As with regular research articles, PPs could be written about a wide range of topics within the broad IS domain. Like all premier journals, we seek to publish cutting edge research that advances knowledge in the IS domain. Thus, we do not intend that PPs be used as a vehicle for teaching cases, or low quality (rejected) research articles that have some incremental contribution to practice. We are particularly interested in PPs that investigate contemporary and emerging issues, for example, blockchain, digital futures, generative AI (artificial intelligence), robotics/automation, simulations/digital twins, and sustainable IS. Although many of these topic areas are of concern to practicing managers, we emphasise that managers are not the sole audience and we welcome submissions that target non-managerial readers, including academics, employees and citizens. For instance, some of the societal problems contributed by digital technology are very difficult to solve and thus we would appreciate submission of PPs that articulate these issues and provide illustrative case studies of how some groups in society are trying to address them.</p><p>We note that the fundamental purpose of a PP is not to advance theory! Instead, the purpose is to contribute actionable insights that will be of interest to practitioners in solving the practical problems and addressing challenges that they face. This does not mean that theory is barred from PPs, since we expect that the authors of PPs will be aware of relevant theory and that the PPs themselves will be consonant with that theory. The frameworks that are employed in PPs can thus be theory-informed, even as they incorporate ideas and language that might not be found in the academic literature. We do not want authors to imagine that a theoretical contribution is required in a PP or that a PP will be rejected if it lacks a theoretical contribution.</p><p>We do expect, however, that PPs will both provide novel insights and make recommendations for putting those insights into practice. Some effective ways of providing insights include frameworks, guidelines and the identification of demonstrably effective practices that practitioners can adopt. In addition to providing insights, we expect PPs to conclude with recommendations for practice that are action-oriented. Authors of PPs can help readers see what steps to take to extract value from the insights that have been presented.</p><p>In line with previous ISJ editorials (Davison, <span>2023</span>; Díaz Andrade et al., <span>2019</span>), we are interested in learning what works and what kind of impact can be achieved, at both the local and the global scale. Thus, a study undertaken in South Africa needs to be situated in the South African context, to refer to the unique features of that context and how they inform the study, to surface insights from that context, and to provide actionable recommendations that will be relevant in the South African context. The insights and recommendations may have validity beyond both the study's geographic or cultural context and its specific topic, for example, ERP (enterprise resource planning) implementation, Fintech Impacts, AI applications, etc., but such extended recommendations need to be justified with care (cf. Davison &amp; Martinsons, <span>2016</span>; Seddon &amp; Scheepers, <span>2012</span>).</p><p>We suggest that the credibility of a PP will be enhanced when at least one of the authors, ideally in a leading role, is also a current practitioner. We realise that practitioners are (like everyone else) very busy and may not have significant time and energy to commit to a project, but we do expect that the practitioner-author will make a significant contribution to a PP. This implies that we do not regard PPs as mere ‘translation’ exercises that extrapolate the assumed practical implications from a theoretically-driven research project. Rather, they should be studies that are significantly informed by practitioner perspectives, ideally throughout the entire research lifecycle, from problem formulation to articulation of recommendations. When a PP originates from a theoretically-driven research project, we expect that the PP will place practitioners' interests and viewpoints at its core.</p><p>Thus, authors should take steps to identify which practitioner audience is the primary beneficiary of their findings and present their research in a language that resonates with that audience. Keep in mind that such practitioners need not be limited to executives such as the CIO, CTO or CDO, but could involve any legitimate practitioner who engages with information systems, for example, line managers, frontline or back office employees, consultants, contractors, specialists in NGOs or society more generally. Clarke and Davison (<span>2020</span>) comment on the tendency of IS researchers to identify with the corporate entity (whether CEO or organisation) as the stakeholder whose perspective is championed in their own research. While corporate stakeholders can be valid beneficiaries of PPs, they are not the only possible beneficiaries and we would particularly welcome PPs that aim to benefit non-corporate stakeholders, such as citizens, employees and the environment, and indeed with respect to the creation of non-economic value.</p><p>We require authors of PPs to problematise the phenomenon that they are studying carefully (Chatterjee &amp; Davison, <span>2021</span>). Thus, authors need to provide a motivation for the study that is not related to filling a gap in the research or practitioner literatures, but instead identifies a problem that affects specific practitioner stakeholders and is worth investigating. In order to make the PP more relevant to practitioners, it may be valuable to reference the practitioner-oriented literature when exploring the significance of the problem.</p><p>Practitioner insights into what works, where, when, how and why are particularly valuable and have the potential to be put into action by practitioners. We require a high standard of evidence to convince reviewers of both the veracity of the findings and their contemporaneity, that is, we do not want to see papers that report on well-established norms. This implies that we expect to see careful treatment of methods in a PP. Readers will appreciate knowing how the research was done, how the researchers approached the problem situation, which methods they applied. To keep the heart of the paper short and accessible, the description of methods used in a PP, if applicable, will generally be found in an appendix.</p><p>We recognise that potential authors of PPs may be concerned about how their papers will be reviewed. Firstly, we believe that a practitioner perspective is an essential element in the review, so each PP that passes initial screening and is sent for review will have at least one practitioner reviewer. This will not be a supplementary reviewer, but a primary reviewer to whom we will pay as much attention as we do academic reviewers. In selecting academic reviewers, we will also be mindful of their expertise and will seek to appoint reviewers who have themselves authored practitioner-oriented papers. We would not appoint reviewers who are antagonistic towards the notion of a PP.</p><p>We expect that the format of a PP will differ from both research articles published in academic journals and consulting reports published in the practitioner literature. Reviewers of PPs should not be overly concerned about the format, but instead should examine the message that the authors are attempting to convey. If the language used in the paper is very technical, or full of academic jargon, and is likely not to be understood by either a practitioner or an academic audience, we expect reviewers to raise a flag. For instance, researchers may understand concepts like inter-coder reliability or transactive memory, but practitioners may not, so the language needs to be adjusted to be less technical, less jargon-filled. In a similar way, an academic audience might be confused by some terms commonly used by practitioners, especially if the terms are rooted in specific organisational contexts.</p><p>We expect that by championing the practitioner perspective, we will bring about several longer term impacts in the Information Systems domain. We hope to reinvigorate the debate about the relevance of our research, and to encourage academic researchers to take the world of practice seriously. We also hope to bring our research closer to the practitioner community. We have much to learn from IS practitioners and we look forward to their active contributions to this debate. We hope that they will also learn from each other through this medium.</p><p>Is there a downside? Ivory tower researchers may resent our foray into the world of practice, much as they dislike consultants. PhD students may be confused, especially if their supervisors tell them to steer clear of PPs, whether as authors or readers. Some may regard this venture as an existential threat to the sanctity of IS as an academic discipline. To all these people, we suggest that you assess the utility of your prior work and the impact that it has, not on your career, h-index and curriculum vitae, but on other stakeholders. Indeed, we aver that your reputation (and h-index) will be greatly enhanced by the presence of PPs on your curriculum vitae.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":48049,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Information Systems Journal\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":6.5000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-07-18\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/isj.12461\",\"citationCount\":\"1\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Information Systems Journal\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"91\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/isj.12461\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"管理学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information Systems Journal","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/isj.12461","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1

摘要

信息系统(IS)学科的起源可以追溯到从业者感兴趣的问题,但近年来,从业者的观点经常被忽视。尽管如此,人们越来越认识到从业者的观点仍然很重要,我们所进行的研究可以(或应该)对从业者产生影响。像《管理信息系统季刊》这样的期刊专门针对这一领域。在这方面,它们补充了更广泛的商业和技术领域的非IS期刊和杂志,这些期刊和杂志也考虑到了从业者,包括:《哈佛商业评论》、《斯隆管理评论》、,一些主要专注于发表理论贡献的现有期刊,例如,构成信息系统协会高级学者学院11种主要期刊名单的期刊,1也表明它们对面向从业者的投稿持开放态度。《信息系统杂志》(ISJ)几年来一直倡导出版我们所称的从业者论文(PP)。PPs可以以多种不同的方式为知识做出贡献,但我们推广PPs的关键目标之一是促进学术界和实践界之间的对话。作为对话的一部分,PP应为研究人员提供深入的见解,让他们了解从业者在特定背景下使用IS的经验,当然,还应根据执行良好的研究为实践提供规范性和可操作的建议。实践的见解可能包括重新定义或重新构想特定的从业者问题,对一种现象进行彻底的探索,记录从业者吸取的经验教训,或说明良好实践及其结果。为了使这些见解具有可操作性,这些文章将包括以行动为导向的处方,建议从业者在实践中应该采取不同的做法。虽然从业者是PP的主要受众,但学术研究人员也可能受益,例如,当PP参与新现象并提出挑战和扩展现有话语的新见解时。这些结果可以激励未来的学术工作重新审视这些先前的发现,也许是研究人员对这一现象进行问题化的一部分(Chatterjee&amp;Davison,2021)。尽管从业者通常被认为是在组织中或为组织工作,但我们认识到,从业者可以在不同的环境中找到,不一定是为企业实体服务。我们可以在政治光谱中找到从业者(即立法者)、非政府组织、慈善机构、村庄和社区。他们可能被正式雇佣,作为活动家工作,也可能只是有兴趣利用IS让世界变得更美好的公民(Walsham,2012)。在ISJ上,PP类型的投稿是零星的,质量参差不齐。Tamm等人(2022)和Tim等人(2021)是已发表的PP的例子,而Pan和Pee(2020)为证明研究对实践的影响提供了一个框架。为了进一步鼓励以从业者为导向的研究,我们最近重新制定了PP指南2,并宣布了一期专门关注实践的特刊3。我们的目标是进一步推动以从业者为导向的工作。与常规的研究文章一样,PP可以写在广泛的IS领域内的广泛主题上。像所有顶级期刊一样,我们寻求发表前沿研究,以推进信息系统领域的知识。因此,我们不打算将PP用作教学案例的载体,也不打算将其用作对实践有一定增量贡献的低质量(被拒绝)研究文章的载体。我们对研究当代和新兴问题的PP特别感兴趣,例如区块链、数字期货、生成人工智能、机器人/自动化、模拟/数字双胞胎和可持续信息系统。尽管这些主题领域中的许多都是执业管理者关注的,我们强调,管理者不是唯一的受众,我们欢迎针对非管理层读者的投稿,包括学者、员工和公民。例如,数字技术带来的一些社会问题很难解决,因此我们希望提交能够阐明这些问题的PP,并提供社会中一些群体如何努力解决这些问题的说明性案例研究。我们注意到,PP的根本目的不是推进理论!相反,目的是提供可操作的见解,这些见解将对从业者解决实际问题和应对他们面临的挑战感兴趣。 为了使论文的核心内容简短易懂,PP中使用的方法描述(如果适用)通常会在附录中找到。我们认识到,PP的潜在作者可能会担心他们的论文将如何被审查。首先,我们认为从业者的观点是审查中的一个基本要素,因此每个通过初步筛选并被送去审查的PP都将至少有一名从业者审查员。这将不是一个补充评审员,而是一个我们将像学术评审员一样关注的主要评审员。在选择学术评审员时,我们还将注意他们的专业知识,并将寻求任命自己撰写了以从业者为导向的论文的评审员。我们不会任命反对PP概念的评审员。我们预计PP的格式将与学术期刊上发表的研究文章和从业者文献中发表的咨询报告不同。PP的审查者不应该过分关注格式,而是应该检查作者试图传达的信息。如果论文中使用的语言非常技术性,或者充满了学术术语,从业者或学术受众都可能无法理解,我们希望审稿人发出警告。例如,研究人员可能理解编码器间可靠性或事务记忆等概念,但从业者可能不理解,因此需要调整语言,使其不那么技术化,不那么充满行话。同样,学术受众可能会被从业者常用的一些术语所混淆,尤其是如果这些术语植根于特定的组织环境。我们预计,通过支持从业者的观点,我们将在信息系统领域带来一些长期影响。我们希望重新引发关于我们研究相关性的辩论,并鼓励学术研究人员认真对待实践世界。我们还希望将我们的研究更贴近从业者群体。我们可以从信息系统从业者那里学到很多东西,我们期待他们为这场辩论做出积极贡献。我们希望他们也能通过这种媒介相互学习。是否存在不利因素?象牙塔研究人员可能会对我们进军实践世界感到不满,就像他们不喜欢顾问一样。博士生可能会感到困惑,尤其是如果他们的导师告诉他们,无论是作为作者还是读者,都要避开PP。有些人可能会将这一冒险视为对IS作为一门学术学科神圣性的生存威胁。对于所有这些人,我们建议你评估你之前工作的效用及其影响,而不是对你的职业、h指数和简历,而是对其他利益相关者。事实上,我们保证,你的简历上有个人简历,你的声誉(和h-index)会大大提高。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
The practitioner perspective

The Information Systems (IS) discipline traces its origins to issues that were of interest to practitioners, but in recent years the practitioner perspective has often been neglected. Nevertheless, there is increasing recognition that the practitioner's perspective is still important and that the research we undertake can (or should) have implications for practitioners. Journals like MIS Quarterly Executive target this segment exclusively. In this, they complement non-IS journals and magazines in the broader business and technology spheres that also have practitioners in mind, including: Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, Communications of the ACM, McKinsey Quarterly, Academy of Management Perspectives, CIO Magazine, etc. Moreover, some of the existing journals that are predominantly focused on publishing theoretical contributions, for example, the journals that make up the Association of Information Systems' College of Senior Scholars list of eleven premier journals,1 have also demonstrated that they are open to practitioner-oriented submissions.

The Information Systems Journal (ISJ) has for several years championed the publication of what we call Practitioner Papers (PPs). PPs can contribute to knowledge in a number of different ways, but one of our key objectives in promoting PPs is to further the dialogue between academia and practice. As part of this dialogue, PPs should provide deep insights for researchers into the practitioner's experience with IS in a particular context, as well as, of course, prescriptive and actionable recommendations for practice based on well executed research. Insights for practice may include reframing or reimagining specific practitioner problems, offering a thorough exploration of a phenomenon, documenting lessons learned by practitioners, or illustrating good practices and their outcomes. To render these insights actionable, these articles will include action-oriented prescriptions that suggest what practitioners should do differently in practice.

While practitioners are the primary intended audience of PPs, academic researchers may also benefit, for instance when PPs engage with new phenomena and propose new insights that challenge and extend the existing discourse. Such outcomes can inspire future academic work to re-examine those prior findings, perhaps as part of the researcher's problematisation of the phenomenon (Chatterjee & Davison, 2021).

Although practitioners are commonly thought of as working in or for organisations, we recognise that practitioners can be found in diverse settings and may not necessarily be serving a corporate entity. We can find practitioners in the political spectrum (i.e., lawmakers), non-governmental organisations, charities, villages, and communities. They may be formally employed, working as activists, or simply citizens with an interest in using IS to make the world a better place (Walsham, 2012).

Submissions in the PP genre at the ISJ have been sporadic and the quality has varied. Examples of published PPs are Tamm et al. (2022) and Tim et al. (2021), while Pan and Pee (2020) offer a framework for demonstrating the impact of research on practice. To further encourage the undertaking of practitioner-oriented research, we have recently both reformulated our PP guidelines2 and announced a special issue3 that focuses exclusively on practice. Our aim is to spur further practitioner-oriented work.

As with regular research articles, PPs could be written about a wide range of topics within the broad IS domain. Like all premier journals, we seek to publish cutting edge research that advances knowledge in the IS domain. Thus, we do not intend that PPs be used as a vehicle for teaching cases, or low quality (rejected) research articles that have some incremental contribution to practice. We are particularly interested in PPs that investigate contemporary and emerging issues, for example, blockchain, digital futures, generative AI (artificial intelligence), robotics/automation, simulations/digital twins, and sustainable IS. Although many of these topic areas are of concern to practicing managers, we emphasise that managers are not the sole audience and we welcome submissions that target non-managerial readers, including academics, employees and citizens. For instance, some of the societal problems contributed by digital technology are very difficult to solve and thus we would appreciate submission of PPs that articulate these issues and provide illustrative case studies of how some groups in society are trying to address them.

We note that the fundamental purpose of a PP is not to advance theory! Instead, the purpose is to contribute actionable insights that will be of interest to practitioners in solving the practical problems and addressing challenges that they face. This does not mean that theory is barred from PPs, since we expect that the authors of PPs will be aware of relevant theory and that the PPs themselves will be consonant with that theory. The frameworks that are employed in PPs can thus be theory-informed, even as they incorporate ideas and language that might not be found in the academic literature. We do not want authors to imagine that a theoretical contribution is required in a PP or that a PP will be rejected if it lacks a theoretical contribution.

We do expect, however, that PPs will both provide novel insights and make recommendations for putting those insights into practice. Some effective ways of providing insights include frameworks, guidelines and the identification of demonstrably effective practices that practitioners can adopt. In addition to providing insights, we expect PPs to conclude with recommendations for practice that are action-oriented. Authors of PPs can help readers see what steps to take to extract value from the insights that have been presented.

In line with previous ISJ editorials (Davison, 2023; Díaz Andrade et al., 2019), we are interested in learning what works and what kind of impact can be achieved, at both the local and the global scale. Thus, a study undertaken in South Africa needs to be situated in the South African context, to refer to the unique features of that context and how they inform the study, to surface insights from that context, and to provide actionable recommendations that will be relevant in the South African context. The insights and recommendations may have validity beyond both the study's geographic or cultural context and its specific topic, for example, ERP (enterprise resource planning) implementation, Fintech Impacts, AI applications, etc., but such extended recommendations need to be justified with care (cf. Davison & Martinsons, 2016; Seddon & Scheepers, 2012).

We suggest that the credibility of a PP will be enhanced when at least one of the authors, ideally in a leading role, is also a current practitioner. We realise that practitioners are (like everyone else) very busy and may not have significant time and energy to commit to a project, but we do expect that the practitioner-author will make a significant contribution to a PP. This implies that we do not regard PPs as mere ‘translation’ exercises that extrapolate the assumed practical implications from a theoretically-driven research project. Rather, they should be studies that are significantly informed by practitioner perspectives, ideally throughout the entire research lifecycle, from problem formulation to articulation of recommendations. When a PP originates from a theoretically-driven research project, we expect that the PP will place practitioners' interests and viewpoints at its core.

Thus, authors should take steps to identify which practitioner audience is the primary beneficiary of their findings and present their research in a language that resonates with that audience. Keep in mind that such practitioners need not be limited to executives such as the CIO, CTO or CDO, but could involve any legitimate practitioner who engages with information systems, for example, line managers, frontline or back office employees, consultants, contractors, specialists in NGOs or society more generally. Clarke and Davison (2020) comment on the tendency of IS researchers to identify with the corporate entity (whether CEO or organisation) as the stakeholder whose perspective is championed in their own research. While corporate stakeholders can be valid beneficiaries of PPs, they are not the only possible beneficiaries and we would particularly welcome PPs that aim to benefit non-corporate stakeholders, such as citizens, employees and the environment, and indeed with respect to the creation of non-economic value.

We require authors of PPs to problematise the phenomenon that they are studying carefully (Chatterjee & Davison, 2021). Thus, authors need to provide a motivation for the study that is not related to filling a gap in the research or practitioner literatures, but instead identifies a problem that affects specific practitioner stakeholders and is worth investigating. In order to make the PP more relevant to practitioners, it may be valuable to reference the practitioner-oriented literature when exploring the significance of the problem.

Practitioner insights into what works, where, when, how and why are particularly valuable and have the potential to be put into action by practitioners. We require a high standard of evidence to convince reviewers of both the veracity of the findings and their contemporaneity, that is, we do not want to see papers that report on well-established norms. This implies that we expect to see careful treatment of methods in a PP. Readers will appreciate knowing how the research was done, how the researchers approached the problem situation, which methods they applied. To keep the heart of the paper short and accessible, the description of methods used in a PP, if applicable, will generally be found in an appendix.

We recognise that potential authors of PPs may be concerned about how their papers will be reviewed. Firstly, we believe that a practitioner perspective is an essential element in the review, so each PP that passes initial screening and is sent for review will have at least one practitioner reviewer. This will not be a supplementary reviewer, but a primary reviewer to whom we will pay as much attention as we do academic reviewers. In selecting academic reviewers, we will also be mindful of their expertise and will seek to appoint reviewers who have themselves authored practitioner-oriented papers. We would not appoint reviewers who are antagonistic towards the notion of a PP.

We expect that the format of a PP will differ from both research articles published in academic journals and consulting reports published in the practitioner literature. Reviewers of PPs should not be overly concerned about the format, but instead should examine the message that the authors are attempting to convey. If the language used in the paper is very technical, or full of academic jargon, and is likely not to be understood by either a practitioner or an academic audience, we expect reviewers to raise a flag. For instance, researchers may understand concepts like inter-coder reliability or transactive memory, but practitioners may not, so the language needs to be adjusted to be less technical, less jargon-filled. In a similar way, an academic audience might be confused by some terms commonly used by practitioners, especially if the terms are rooted in specific organisational contexts.

We expect that by championing the practitioner perspective, we will bring about several longer term impacts in the Information Systems domain. We hope to reinvigorate the debate about the relevance of our research, and to encourage academic researchers to take the world of practice seriously. We also hope to bring our research closer to the practitioner community. We have much to learn from IS practitioners and we look forward to their active contributions to this debate. We hope that they will also learn from each other through this medium.

Is there a downside? Ivory tower researchers may resent our foray into the world of practice, much as they dislike consultants. PhD students may be confused, especially if their supervisors tell them to steer clear of PPs, whether as authors or readers. Some may regard this venture as an existential threat to the sanctity of IS as an academic discipline. To all these people, we suggest that you assess the utility of your prior work and the impact that it has, not on your career, h-index and curriculum vitae, but on other stakeholders. Indeed, we aver that your reputation (and h-index) will be greatly enhanced by the presence of PPs on your curriculum vitae.

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来源期刊
Information Systems Journal
Information Systems Journal INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE-
CiteScore
14.60
自引率
7.80%
发文量
44
期刊介绍: The Information Systems Journal (ISJ) is an international journal promoting the study of, and interest in, information systems. Articles are welcome on research, practice, experience, current issues and debates. The ISJ encourages submissions that reflect the wide and interdisciplinary nature of the subject and articles that integrate technological disciplines with social, contextual and management issues, based on research using appropriate research methods.The ISJ has particularly built its reputation by publishing qualitative research and it continues to welcome such papers. Quantitative research papers are also welcome but they need to emphasise the context of the research and the theoretical and practical implications of their findings.The ISJ does not publish purely technical papers.
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