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Highlights • The Covid-19 pandemic is a rare opportunity to examine some fundamental aspects of IM and IS research and practice. • There are at least three areas where the pandemic has impacted practice: information management, work practices and design of technologies. • The IS discipline has appropriate methods and theories to study the design of technologies and social interactions. • Concepts such as “social distancing” that has emerged in the pandemic need to be studied through philosophical premises. • The IM practices that emerge after the pandemic is over, will be shaped by how well we seize the opportunity to learn from the pandemic., In this opinion paper, I argue that the Covid-19 pandemic, as tragic and disastrous as it undoubtedly is, has also given us a rare opportunity to deeply examine the research and practice of information management in particular and information systems in general. To cope with the pandemic, we have retreated to the digital world and drastically changed the way we work. Yet these very practices can well shape the way we work in the post-pandemic world. Moreover, the pandemic is also a sharp lens through which we can study deep-rooted theoretical issues that otherwise would not have surfaced, or at least remained in the background. My call to the research community is to seize this rare opportunity.

In their insightful critique of Action Design Research, Hevner and Mullarkey (this issue) proposed an enhancement of ADR by juxtaposing concepts from a well cited framework of Design Science Resear...

Although Affordance Theory has become increasingly influential in the Information Systems (IS) literature, the exact process through which the affordances of IT are actualised is less studied. In t ...

The ideal of self-paced learning, which was introduced nearly 50 years ago by Keller in his Personalized System of Instruction (PSI), has not yet been widely adopted. In spite of its perceived promise of helping students to learn at the speed aligned to their individual backgrounds, motivation, and skills, PSI has been challenging to implement. University teaching practice with weekly plans means that instructors expect students to learn at the same pace. Against this backdrop, this paper reports experiences from deploying PSI in multiple offerings of an introductory programming course at a Scandinavian university over five years. These include variations, such as a buddy system, rightsizing modules, encouraging pacing, alternative targets, intermediate milestones, active coaching, and time management, all primarily aimed at overcoming a key concern associated with PSI, namely, procrastination. The lessons associated with each are described with a view to providing fellow instructors with strategies and options that they can consider for implementing PSI into introductory programming courses.

While many theories have guided research Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), we are yet to construct a clear and coherent narrative that would help us answer the question of how ICT fosters development in underdeveloped communities. In this paper, we argue that one of the main reasons for this is that our holistic understanding of ICT4D is seldom grounded in theories to understand the core areas that define the field, namely, ICT, Development, and, ‘4’ which are the transformative processes that link the two. Through a brief literature review, we list theories that have informed ICT4D research in each of these areas. We present examples of theories, namely, Capability Approach, Affordances, and Actor-Network Theory together with Social Capital and illustrate how we have used them in our research. Building on this holistic perspective on theoretical foundation, we propose five agendas for ICT4D research. Validerad;2019;Nivå 2;2019-03-26 (johcin)

We examine the relationship between information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) and local historically embedded institutions. We argue that, to understand the process of implementing IT artifacts, one needs to consider not only technical feasibility and economic viability but also institutional permissibility. We present a novel theoretical framework based on dialectics and institutional theory and apply it to a case study that contributes adialectics-centered framework illustrated with empirical data from the informal sector in Latin America. The analysis demonstrates the institutionalization of IT artifacts as a conflicted and contested process and that historical institutionsmay enable some forms of institutionalization while resisting others contrary to social norms. We examine the emergence of contradictions, active praxis, and the resulting outcomes before concluding that, for IT artifacts to contribute todevelopment, one must emphasize the embedded institutional arrangements and contestation that historically embedded institutions present. We conclude the paper by discussing the theoretical and practical implications.

Research and practice in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development (ICT4D) is a continuous quest to understand how ICT leads to Development. Research and practice ...

Techno-centric initiatives to bridge the digital divide, such as One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been criticized for not taking a holistic approach. This has led to limited success in areas such as providing quality education in developing countries. In this paper, we offer a premise for a holistic understanding by borrowing from the field of information ecology. To illustrate our premise, we applied the theoretical lens of information ecology to analyze a case study of Open Learning Exchange (OLE) which has been described as one of the few successes in implementing OLPC. Based on our analysis, we posit that information ecology is a suitable and appropriate lens to interpret and understand how IT interventions can be successfully deployed in developing countries.

The Kolb Learning Style Inventory was administered to 80 novice computer users. Using one of two training methods based on different conceptual models, subjects were trained to use an electronic mail filing system. Performance accuracy was assessed on three experimental tasks. As hypothesized, those with the Converger learning style had highest over-all performance, however a significant interaction between training approach and learning style was also hypothesized and supported, indicating that the efficacy of training models depends on a fit with learning style.

Tabletop exercises (TTXs) are used to train managers and other actors to deal with emergencies. These exercises that focus on the organisational coordination are planned and controlled by exercise managers through scenarios with predetermined events that participants discuss and act upon. Such exercises may lead to actors being ill prepared to deal with dynamic and emergent situations and problems. To address this knowledge gap, we apply an action design research approach to develop a TTX structured around non-sequential themes instead of predetermined events, thus allowing the participants to identify their own problems during the exercise. Our research contributes to existing knowledge by developing a set of design principles.

When acquiring information systems, public entities face a dilemma. On the one hand, they want to procure the system that best suits their needs, which often requires lengthy dialogues with vendors. At the same time, they are restricted by government regulations that mandate limited dialogue in the interests of transparency and equal opportunities for all vendors. To examine how public entities deal with this, we followed three procurement projects in Norway. We show that this dilemma manifests itself as a dialectic between the thesis of getting the system requirements right and the antithesis of strictly adhering to regulations. Public entities search for a resolution of this dialectic through two syntheses: selecting an appropriate tendering procedure, and learning how to specify requirements through networks of peer public entities. Our findings reveal that the syntheses are possible because the dialectic is actually complimentary, both the thesis and the antithesis are needed to create the joint outcome that satisfies both. The resolution of the dialectic unfolds differently over time. Our study contributes to the relatively neglected stream of IS research on dialectics that explicitly searches for a synthesis while revealing the complementarity of the dialectic. We show how time plays a nuanced role in the resolution of the dialectic situation. Paid Open Access