Working Group 8.2 of the
International Federation for
Information Processing

Working Conference in Philadelphia

Theme:
Information Systems and Qualitative Research

Papers presented at the conference (see the program, below) are now available in the book, Information Systems and Qualitative Research, edited by Allen S. Lee, Jonathan Liebenau, and Janice I. DeGross (published by Chapman & Hall, 1997, ISBN 0-412-82360-8). Copies may be ordered through Kluwer / Chapman & Hall or most bookstores.

Abstracts of the conference papers are available in a pdf file. The same file also includes the full text of Lee's and Liebenau's introduction to the book.

One of the conference papers, "Crisis in the Case Study Crisis: Marginal Diminishing Returns to Scale in the Quantitative-Qualitative Research Debate" (by John King and Lynda Applegate), takes the form of hypertext. It is not in the book, but appears on the web at http://www.hbs.edu/applegate/cases/research/.

The discussion that unfolded in the "Panel on Critical Social Theory" has been summarized by Marie-Claude Boudreau and is available at http://saturn.vcu.edu/~aslee/Philadelphia-CST.htm.

The conference took place from
May 31 to June 3, 1997.

General Chairs
Kenneth E. Kendall, Rutgers University, Camden (USA)
Hans-Erik Nissen, Lund University (Sweden)

Program Chairs
Allen S. Lee, McGill University (Canada)
Jonathan Liebenau, London School of Economics (UK)

Organizing Chair
Ken Peffers, Rutgers University, Camden (USA)

Saturday, May 31, 1997

Special Event - a visit to the Barnes Art Collection

Sunday, June 1, 1997
Session 1

8:30-10:00 

Plenary Opening remarks: Jonathan Liebenau & Allen Lee

Keynote address by M. Lynne Markus: "The Qualitative Difference in Information Systems Research and Practice" 

Session 2

10:30-12:00

Overviewing and Assessing Qualitative IS Research (1 of 5 sessions): Hypertext Paper on Case Studies John L. King and Lynda M. Applegate: "Crisis in the Case Study Crisis: Marginal Diminishing Returns to Scale in the Quantitative-Qualitative Research Debate"

Chair: Burt Swanson

Discussant: David Avison

Session 3

10:30-12:00

Panel: "Qualitative Research Opportunities in Health Care" Panel Chair: Bonnie Kaplan

Panelists: Francis Lau, Jos Aarts & Diana E. Forsythe

Session 4

1:30-3:30

Developments in Qualitative IS Research Approaches (1 of 3 sessions): Informing Future Research Practice with Current Research Practice Michael Gallivan: "Value in Triangulation: An Examination of IS Research Employing Mixed Methods"

Lucia Garcia & Freddie Quek: "Qualitative Research in Information Systems: Time to Be Subjective?"

Geoff Walsham: "Actor-Network Theory and IS Research: Current Status and Future Prospects"

Chair: Raymond Hackney

Discussant: Hans J. Oppelland

Session 5

1:30-3:30

The Social and Political Context of IS Steve Sawyer & Richard Southwick: "Transitioning to Client/Server: Using a Temporal Framework to Study Organizational Change"

Celia T. Romm & Nava Pliskin: "Playing Politics with E-mail: A Longitudinal Conflict Based Analysis"

Leiser Silva & James Backhouse: "Becoming Part of the Furniture: The Institutionalisation of Information Systems"

Chair: Gurpreet Dhillon

Discussant: Connie Knapp

Session 6

4:00-5:30

Overviewing and Assessing Qualitative IS Research (2 of 5 sessions): Paper and Panel on Action Research Francis Lau: "A Review on the Use of Action Research in Information Systems Studies"

Session and Panel Chair: Richard Baskerville

Panelists: Michael Myers, Peter Axel Nielsen, Trevor Wood-Harper

Session 7

4:00-5:30

Illustrating, Experiencing, and Being Critical in Ethnography (1 of 2 sessions) Lynda Harvey: "A Discourse on Ethnography"

Eileen M. Trauth: "Achieving the Research Goal with Qualitative Methods: Lessons Learned along the Way"

Chair: Eleanor H. Wynn

Discussant: Suprateek Sarker

Monday, June 2, 1997
Session 8

8:30-10:00

Overviewing and Assessing Qualitative IS Research (3 of 5 sessions): Paper on Process and Variance Theories Thomas Shaw & Sirkka Jarvenpaa: "Process Models in Information Systems"

Chair: M. Lynne Markus

Discussant: Dan Robey

Session 9

8:30-10:00

Illustrating, Experiencing, and Being Critical in Ethnography (2 of 2 sessions) Karen Ruhleder & Brigitte Jordan: "Capturing Complex, Distributed Activities: Video-Based Interaction Analysis as a Component of Workplace Ethnography"

Michael Myers: "Critical Ethnography in Information Systems"

Chair: Lucas Introna

Discussant: Linda Jo Calloway

Session 10

10:30-12:00

Overviewing and Assessing Qualitative IS Research (4 of 5 sessions): Paper on Ethnography Pushkala Prasad: "Systems of Meaning: Ethnography as a Methodology for the Study of Information Technologies"

Chair: Wanda Orlikowski

Discussant: Michelle Brown

Session 11

10:30-12:00

Interviewing and the Interviewer Marius Janson, Tor Guimaraes, Ann Brown & Tharsi Taillieu: "Exploring a Chairman of the Board's Construction of Organizational Reality: The Colruyt Case"

Paul Mantelaers: "Acquiring Expert Knowledge on IS-Function Design"

Chair: Jonathan Liebenau

Discussant: Helena Karsten

Session 12

1:30-3:30

Interpretation and IS Requirements Definition Elizabeth J. Davidson: "Examining Project History Narratives: An Analytic Approach"

Cathy Urquhart: "Exploring Analyst-Client Communication: Using Grounded Theory Techniques to Investigate Interaction in Informal Requirements Gathering"

Christopher Westrup: "Constituting Users in Requirements Techniques"

Chair: Ann Brown

Discussant: Gordon B. Davis

Session 13

1:30-3:30

Developments in Qualitative IS Research Approaches (2 of 3 sessions): Inaugurating New Approaches Lucas Introna & Edgar Whitley: "Imagine: Thought Experiments in Information Systems Research?"

Soon Ang & Assafa Endeshaw: "Legal Case Analysis in I/S Research: Failures in Employing and Outsourcing for IT Professionals"

Richard Vidgen & Kristin Braa: "Applying an Information Systems Research Framework: Identifying the Need for an ‘Action Case’ Method"

Chair: Joyce J. Elam

Discussant: Ronald Stamper

Session 14

4:00-5:30

Overviewing and Assessing Qualitative IS Research (5 of 5 sessions): Panel on Critical Social Theory Chair: Ojelanki Ngwenyama

Panel Members: Gordon Davis, Duane Truex & Paul Cule

Session 15

4:00-5:30

Developments in Qualitative IS Research Approaches (3 of 3 sessions): Positivist Case Research Guy Paré & Joyce J. Elam: "Using Case Study Research to Build Theories of IT Implementation"

Chair: Allen Lee

Discussant: Eileen Trauth

Tuesday, June 3, 1997
Session 16

8:30-9:15

Plenary Session Jonathan Liebenau & Allen Lee
Session 17

9:30-10:45

Panel: "The Future of Qualitative Research in Information Systems" Panel Participants: Enid Mumford, Jaana Porra & Joe Nandakumar
Session 18

11:00-12:00

Conference Retrospective and Closing Remarks Ken Kendall & Hans-Erik Nissen
1:45-3:15 8.2 business meeting