PhD Proposal Feedback Summary

Max Erik Rohde

University of Auckland Business School
Department of Information Systems and Operations
Management

Supervision Committee:
Dr. David Sundaram (Primary Supervisor)
Dr. Ami Peiris, Dr. Brent Gallupe

PACIS Doctoral Consortium, July 2010

14th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, Taipei, Taiwan

Agenda
  Short Summary of Research
  Feedback Discussion 1: Bridging social and technological
world
  Feedback Discussion 2: Dealing with Unpredictability of
‘discover through design’
  Feedback Discussion 3: Dimensions for the emergence of
knowledge
Short Summary of Research
  Technological mechanisms to design information to support
building up sustainable and actionable knowledge without
interfering with every-day processes?
  Improve these mechanisms using design science research
  The aim is to create technological artifacts which are well-
aligned with theories concerning the social issues of
knowledge management. Principles: Traceability and Coherence
  The current second iteration of the prototype is usable and
used by me and a small group of people; theoretical
discussions are published as conference papers.
  In 1 years time, a highly improved version of the prototype is
to be released to the public and usage data is to be analyzed.
Iteration 2: Network Composition
Environment
• Driven by conceptual
artifacts (Rohde and
Sundaram, 2010a; Rohde and
Sundaram, 2010b)
•  Heavily based on standards
to assure sustainable storage
of information (XML, HTML,
URI, RDF, OWL, Java)
• Domain-Independent as
knowledge is without
boundaries
• Iteration 2 is a usable artifact
• Evaluated through constant
use and analysis of user
feedback, usage logs and
networks created by users.
 Iteration 2: Conceptual Artifacts

Technical Requirements
Knowledge Emergence
Knowledge Interaction

Design

Discover Disseminate
Feedback Discussion 1: Social and
Technological World
  The initial research design proposes to design a number of artifacts birding
the entire dimension from social world to technological world.

Social World • Sustained Competitive Advantage, Innovativeness,

Mindfulness
• Value
• Very important for knowledge related phenomena
Technological • Knowledge Composition Environment
World • Proof of concepts

  The feedback is that this might be too big a scope as it would result in an
entire “enterprise architecture”
  I agree completely but I would like to make contributions both in form of a
technological artifact as well as conceptual artifacts. Design requires
prescriptive theories, which are not as widely available as explanatory and
predictive theories (Gregor, 2006).
Research Design
Bridging Social and Technological World by applying the
principles:
  Coherence: close alignment of artifacts on different
semiotic levels (Purao,2002; Sheffield, 2005)
  Traceability: well-reasoned and well-documented design
process (Hevner et al., 2004; D'Souza and Wills, 1998)
Examples Conceptual Artifacts
Artifact Description
Knowledge Emergence: Discusses the dynamics of emergence of knowledge
Theory of Dynamic entangled between the dimensions of individual-
Knowledge Potentials collective, explicit-tacit and static-dynamic into sustained
competitive advantage, innovativeness and mindfulness.
Knowledge Representation: Knowledge conceptualization, which allows to represent
Network language dynamic knowledge using few fundamental network
structures.
Knowledge Interaction: Conceptualizes a number of basic interactions, which
Conceptual Framework individuals and collectives undertake with knowledge
networks.
Feedback Discussion 2: Dealing with
Unpredictability
  ‘discover through design’ (Baskerville, 2008)
   You need to design first in order to discover
  I would like to be ‘surprised’ by the usage of the artifact.
  Open user feedback: In the initial stages do not control
who is using it or how they are using it.

  The feedback is that this approach is very risky.

  Can modularity mitigate the risks of unpredictability?
Validation: Coherence

  Artifacts will be validated with different methods and may

exhibit varying levels of validity
  The contribution is driven by validity of the individual artifacts
but also by the coherence of the whole artifact system.
Feedback Discussion 3: Dimensions for the
emergence of knowledge
  The initial review of knowledge management theories has
yielded in three themes for the emergence for knowledge:
  Explicit to Tacit
  Individual to Organization
  Static to Dynamic

  The feedback is that there might be more themes to consider.

  I totally agree but am concerned that more themes might lead
to too much complexity.
Research Issues
  Explicit - Tacit
  Explicit knowledge is relatively easy to represent and manage (Zack, 1999). Tacit
knowledge is often seen as being far more valuable while also being more difficult to
manage (Grant, 1996).
  Individual - Organization
  Individuals are evidently able to apply knowledge and use it in a creative way (Grant,
1996; Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Davenport and Prusak, 1998). It is far more difficult to
understand how organizations as a whole can coordinate their knowledge resources
in order to react to a complex environment (Weick, 1979; Kogut and Zander, 1992).
  Static – Dynamic
  The level of knowledge appears to differ in different organizational entities (Kogut and
Zander, 1992; Blackler, 1995; Gold, Malhotra and Segars, 2001). However, these
capabilities are only of real value in the contexts in which they are enacted (Feldman
and Pentland,. 2000).
  There is a “leap” from the basic phenomena to the complex phenomena
  Further possible themes: structured-unstructured, time (short term, long term)