Jeremy Rose, Aalborg University: Mission impossible: Using social theory in action research in IS

In an applied discipline, such as IS, the relationship between the theoretical and the practical becomes acute. The learning-by-doing approach of action research focuses appropriately on this relationship. However there are many problems associated with trying to be practitioner and researcher at the same time. Social theories offer a complementary perspective to the more common technicist and managerial discourses which tend to dominate IS. Working with social theories in the IS area tends to generate a focus and insights which are non-standard. These can lead to new solutions to organizational problems, but can also be easy for organizational actors to dismiss, especially if the solutions are expressed in unfamiliar ways. It also forces the researcher to explore problems with the social theories (often problems with the theorization of technology). This seminar examines one such intervention in depth (an internet development project that involved structuration theory). It goes on to explore some more general principles for this kind of work. The case study is available as: Rose, J. and Lewis, P. (2001) Structuration theory, action research, and information systems development. In Realigning research and practice in information systems development: the social and organizational perspective, ed. L. Russo, B Fitzgerald, and J.I. DeGross. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (http://www.cs.auc.dk/~jeremy/resources%20files/Wg82%202001%20revision.doc)
Jeremy Rose was born in Manchester, won an exhibition to read English at Cambridge and subsequently trained to be a musician at the Royal College of Music in London. After working for some years for the Rambert Dance Company and Music Projects London his career was cut short by injury and he retrained at Lancaster, gaining his MSc in Information Management with distinction and later returning for his PhD. He collaborated with Peter Checkland on research projects, and has recently been working with colleagues at Cambridge and Georgia State University. He is currently associate professor in the department of computer studies at Aalborg University. He has published in management, systems and IS forums, and his doctoral studies focused on intranet development. Other research interests include IS development and evaluation, systems methodology, structuration theory and actor network theory, BPR, knowledge management and the health service.
Further details and some publications available at http://www.cs.auc.dk/~jeremy/

Välkomna!
Mikael Wiberg