Prof. Michael Myers, University of Auckland, NZ
The State of the Information Systems Discipline: Where have we come from, and where are we going?
Abstract
Digital technologies such as AI are having transformative impacts on organizations and society. Digital technologies are also deeply embedded in our personal and work lives. With more than 40 years’ experience with information systems (first as a practitioner with IBM, second as an IS scholar), Michael will reflect on our past and suggest what our digital future might look like. What is the role of the IS discipline in this digital future? And what is our role as IS scholars? These are the questions he will attempt to answer in this talk. We need to have some idea of where we are going, informed by where we have come from.
Brief biography
Michael is Professor of Information Systems at the University of Auckland Business School, Auckland, New Zealand. His research focuses on digital transformation and the relationship between information technology and people in an organizational context. Michael is one of the most prolific authors in MIS Quarterly and previously won a best paper award at MISQ. He has also published more than 30 articles in journals ranked A* by the ABDC. He is a former President of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), a Fellow of AIS and a LEO award winner. LEO award winners are described by AIS as “outstanding scholars or practitioners who have made a global impact on the field of information systems.” Recently he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Information Systems.
Prof. Dirk Hovorka, University Sydney, NSW, AU
(Re)Thinking the Unthinkable: What happens if IS goes away?
Abstract
One result of the broad acceptance and expectation of ‘all things digital’ in both research and in day-to-day life, is that what was once unusual and extraordinary is now mundane. The “world+digital” is not the same as “a world” and “digital” conceptualized as separate objects in relation. Despite publications in highly ranked research outlets, other academic disciplines and the fast-paced world of practice do not often reflect or acknowledge the theoretical insights regarding what for them is commonplace. But what if IS looked beyond pseudo-causal models of ‘digital transformation’ and asked: ‘what have we all become?’. What path to understanding the future of Information Systems lies in addressing how domains such as communication (not information), natural/social science and politics have become something entirely new?
Rather than becoming even more insular and rigorously patrolling the disciplinary boundary, IS could expand its relevancy by interrogating the new objects which have emerged after digitalization. In addressing some of these inquiries, IS could show other disciplines the mirror to see themselves.
Brief biography
Dirk Hovorka is a Professor in the Business Information Systems discipline at the University of Sydney, Australia. He received his PhD in Information Systems from the University of Colorado and holds an MS in Interdisciplinary Telecommunications and an MS in Geology. His current research explores how scientific and societal practices bring forth possible worlds through theory, design, and imaginaries of futures. His research focuses on speculative approaches to ‘knowing’ regarding technology, society, and biophysical environments in recognition that the future is implacably resistant to empirical knowing, and that unprecedented sociotechnical change renders our knowledge about the past less indicative of future states. His work emphasizes speculation and imagination in thinking with futures.
Dirk is Senior Editor at JAIS (Research Perspectives), Editorial Board Member of ISR, and Co-chair of the HICSS ” Futuring and Future Epistemologies in IS” mini track. He is an honouree of the Beta Gamma Sigma Professor of the Year, the Wayne Lonergan Award for Outstanding Teaching, the Dean’s Award for Teaching and has numerous Teaching Citations.