Views, change and changing views
- PDF / 58,283 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 595 x 794 pts Page_size
- 43 Downloads / 205 Views
EDITORIAL
Views, change and changing views Ray J. Paul Editor Department of Information Systems & Computing, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
European Journal of Information Systems (2006) 15, 239–240. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000627
In the third issue of the 2005 volume of the European Journal of Information Systems, I introduced a new Editor’s View series to the journal, starting with mine (Paul, 2005). In this issue, I am pleased to present the second and third Editor’s View papers by the Editors of the Information Systems Journal (David Avison, Guy Fitzgerald and Philip Powell) and by the Editor of Syste`mes d’Information et Management (Franz Rowe). They have chosen to give their views on ‘Journal rankings and ratings’ and ‘On dissemination, national language and interacting with practitioners’, respectively, and both papers make forceful pints from the advantage of rare experience and expertise. Two or three more Editor’s View papers are expected to be ready for publication this year, giving readers the combined views of the editors of five or six respected Information Systems Journal – and more to come in 2007. This issue also contains a Special Interest Section on Mobile User Behaviour, guest edited by Hans van der Heijden and Iris Junglas. The seven papers in this section are sufficiently well introduced in the guest editorial and therefore need no further words from me, except to observe that they all deal with views or behaviour of people in a changing world caused by the availability of technological innovation. I have to add my normal observation at this point, that it is not the rate of change that causes problems, but the increased choice on offer. People like choice, but do not know how to exercise it. Increased choice leads to increasing confusion as to how to exercise this choice, and this gives change a bad name. This outcome is reflected in the ‘Mobile User Behaviour’ papers as well as in the three other papers in this issue, which I shall now introduce. Wiredu and Sorensen’s paper Control and the politics of technology use in mobile work-integrated learning takes a British National Health Service project to exemplify the contradictions that can arise in the use of mobile technology between the goals of central authority and the personal usage of the technology by trainees. This was a pilot study that was declared unsuccessful even though conceptually it appears attractive. Apart from conceptualising and ensuring technical feasibility, the need for all parts of the system to have the same objectives emerged. This may seem obvious stated as baldy as I have, but it is quite common to assume that a system will bring all users round to the same goals because everyone is using the same system. However, mobile technology enables local decisions. Walsham’s Doing interpretive research is another paper in Walsham’s distinguished line of papers promoting interpretive research; this one addressed to less-experienced I.S. researchers on how to go about this approach. New ideas on how to justify research ou
Data Loading...
