Schedule and location

Monday October 2nd – Wednesday October 4th 

University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Agora building (visiting address: Mattilanniemi 2)

Registration 

Registration is open June 20th- September 19th.

Speakers

Professor Michael D. Myers, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand

Organizer

Professor Tuure Tuunanen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Overview

In this three-day workshop Professor Myers will discuss the design, conduct and evaluation of qualitative research. He will review various qualitative research methods and ways of
analyzing qualitative data. He will also spend some time discussing the challenges of writing up qualitative research work for academic conferences and journals.

The general goals of this workshop are as follows:

1) Philosophy and Research Design: Participants will know the underlying research philosophies and possible qualitative research designs in business and management.

2) Research Methods: Participants will understand how a variety of qualitative research methods can be used in business and management

3) Data Analysis: Participants will be introduced to various approaches to qualitative data analysis including the analysis of large social media data sets

4) Critical Thinking Skills: Participants will analyze and critically evaluate a few published examples of qualitative research in information systems

Detailed Program

  Monday 2nd October

Tuesday 3rd October

Wednesday 4th October

Pre-Workshop Assignment

Students should read Myers, M.D. "Qualitative Research in Information Systems," AISWorld Section on Qualitative Research, www.qual.auckland.ac.nz to become acquainted with the basic concepts of qualitative research in Information Systems.

The following two articles need to be read before the workshop as they will be discussed during the first day.

Larsen, M.A. & Myers, Michael. (1999). When success turns into failure: A package-driven business process re-engineering project in the financial services industry. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems. 8. 395-417.

Ravishankar, M.N., Pan, S.L., and Myers, M.D. 'Information technology offshoring in India: a postcolonial perspective'. European Journal of Information Systems, 22, 4, 387-402, 2013.

Deliverables:

Read the following articles :

Markus, M.L. "Power, Politics, and MIS Implementation," Communications of the ACM (26) 1983, pp 430-444.

Ravishankar, M.N., Pan, S.L., and Myers, M.D. 'Information technology offshoring in India: a postcolonial perspective'. European Journal of Information Systems, 22, 4, 387-402, 2013.

• Students will prepare a one-page summary of expectations and goals they hope to achieve by taking this course.
• Each student will write a brief one paragraph summary of each article.
• Each student should answer the following questions about each article:
• Is the article positivist, interpretive or critical? How can you tell?
• What research method was used?
• What was the main research topic?
• How were the data analysed?
• Was the article a contribution to knowledge? If so, how?
• Given that the two articles were published some 30 years apart, what do these articles tell us about progress in IS research over this time?

• Send these deliverables to the teaching assistant Juuli Lintula (juuli.lintula@jyu.fi) via email at least one week before the start of the course.

Post-Workshop Assignment

The post course assignment involves writing a comprehensive review of a published piece of research that uses one or more qualitative research methods. The article should be what you consider as an exemplar of the use of qualitative research in IS.

The focus of your review should be on the overall contribution of the article to the field of information systems. The purpose of this assignment is to give you practice in assessing the quality of a qualitative research article and some understanding of the peer review process. Allen S. Lee has provided an excellent set of suggestions about how to review an academic paper at http://www.people.vcu.edu/~aslee/referee.htm

The details of assignment 1 are as follows:

• You should review just one research article. You may select the article you wish to review from any recognised journal in information systems such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems etc.
• The article should use one or more of the research methods discussed in class i.e. action research, case study research, ethnographic research or grounded theory.
• Your review should not exceed 3,000 words (approximately 12 double-spaced A4 pages including references).
• Your review should have the following structure:
• A cover sheet with your name, title, and student ID
• An abstract of about 150 words that summarises your review
• An introduction section
• One or more main sections
• A conclusion
• A list of references in an appropriate format
• All pages must be numbered
• Your review should address issues such as:
• The philosophical perspective, the theoretical framework, the research method used etc.
• The topic and the research question(s) being addressed
• How the data were analyzed
• The appropriateness of the research method
• The quality of research method used
• The validity or plausibility of the results obtained and their usefulness

• Send the assignment to the teaching assistant Juuli Lintula (juuli.lintula@jyu.fi) within two weeks after the completion of the course.

Readings

Required text:
Myers, M.D. 2013. Qualitative Research in Business & Management. 2nd edition. London, Sage Publications.

Recommended reading:

Baskerville, R. "Investigating Information Systems with Action Research," Communications of the AIS (2:19) 1999, AIS Library.
Baskerville, R., and Myers, M.D. “Special Issue on Action Research in Information Systems: Making IS Research Relevant to Practice”. MIS Quarterly, 28, 3, 329-335, 2004.
Benbasat, I., Goldstein, D.K. and Mead, M. "The Case Research Strategy in Studies of Information Systems," MIS Quarterly (11:3) 1987, pp. 369-386.
Bouty, I. "Interpersonal and interaction influences on informal resource exchanges between R&D researchers across organizational boundaries," Academy of Management Journal (43:1) 2000, pp 50-65.
Dubé, L., and Paré, G. "Rigor in Information Systems Positivist Case Research: Current Practices, Trends, and Recommendations," MIS Quarterly (27:4), 2003, pp 597-636.
Klein, H.K., and Myers, M.D. "A Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Field Studies in Information Systems," MIS Quarterly (23:1) 1999, pp. 67-93.
Kohli, R., and Kettinger, W.J. "Informating the Clan: Controlling Physicians' Costs and Outcomes," MIS Quarterly (28:3), 2004, pp. 363-394.
Larsen, M., and Myers, M.D. "When success turns into failure: a package-driven business process re-engineering project in the financial services industry," Journal of Strategic Information Systems (8:4), 1999, pp. 395-417.
Lee, A.S. "Electronic Mail as a Medium for Rich Communication: An Empirical Investigation Using Hermeneutic Interpretation," MIS Quarterly (18:2), 1994, pp 143-157.
Lin, C.I., Kuo, F.-Y., and Myers, M.D. “Extending ICT4D Studies: The Value of Critical Research,” MIS Quarterly, 39, 3, 697-712, 2015.
Markus, M.L. "Power, Politics, and MIS Implementation," Communications of the ACM (26) 1983, pp 430-444.
McKenna, B., Myers, M.D., and Newman, M. “Social media in qualitative research: Challenges and recommendations”. Information and Organization, 27, 2, 87-99, 2017.
Myers, M.D. "Qualitative Research in Information Systems," AISWorld Section on Qualitative Research, www.qual.auckland.ac.nz
Myers, M.D. "Investigating Information Systems with Ethnographic Research," Communication of the AIS (2) 1999, pp 1-20.
Myers, M.D., and Klein, H.K. "A Set of Principles for Conducting Critical Research in Information Systems," MIS Quarterly (35:1), 2011, pp. 17-36.
Myers, M.D., and Newman, M. "The qualitative interview in IS research: Examining the craft," Information and Organization (17:1) 2007, pp 2-26.
Myers, M.D., and Young, L.W. "Hidden Agendas, Power, and Managerial Assumptions in Information Systems Development: An Ethnographic Study," Information Technology & People (10:3) 1997, pp 224-240.
Orlikowski, W.J. "CASE Tools as Organizational Change: Investigating Incremental and Radical Changes in Systems Development," MIS Quarterly (17:3) 1993, pp. 309-340.
Schultze, U. "A Confessional Account of an Ethnography About Knowledge Work," MIS Quarterly (24:1), 2000, pp 3-41.
Sein, M., Henfridsson, O., Purao, S., Rossi, M., and Lindgren, R. "Action Design Research," MIS Quarterly (35:2), 2011, pp. 37-56.
Urquhart, C., Lehmann, H, and Myers, M.D. “Putting the Theory back into Grounded Theory: Guidelines for Grounded Theory Studies in Information Systems”. Information Systems Journal, 20, 4, 357-381, 2010.
Walsham, G., and Sahay, S. "GIS for District-Level Administration in India: Problems and Opportunities," MIS Quarterly (23:1) 1999, pp 39-65.
Ravishankar, M.N., Pan, S.L., and Myers, M.D. “Information technology offshoring in India: a postcolonial perspective”. European Journal of Information Systems, 22, 4, 387-402, 2013.

Credit points

Doctoral students participating in the seminar can obtain 3 credit points. This requires participating on all of the days and completing the assignment.

Registration fee

This seminar is free-of-charge for Inforte.fi member organization's staff and their PhD students. For others the participation fee is 400 €. The participation fee includes access to the event and the event materials. Lunch and dinner are not included.