GIRI2.0 public lecture:

Overcoming IS Implementation Barriers With Organizational Influence Processes: Lessons from a Longitudinal Case Study of SPI Implementation

Professor Ojelanki Ngwenyama, Ryerson University, Canada, organized by Associate Professor Pernille Bjørn, Technologies in Practice

Wednesday May 2nd 12:00-13:00 in room 4A05

Abstract: In this paper we present an analysis of how an implementation team designed and enacted a coordinated organizational influence strategy to overcome implementation barriers and achieve success. A fundamental tenet of the IS discipline holds that: (a) a lack of formal power and influence over the organization targeted for change, (b) weak support from top management, and (c) organizational memories of prior failures, are barriers to implementation success. The findings of this research compellingly illustrates that such conditions do not necessarily doom a project to failure. A second important finding of our empirical analysis is that technology implementation and change is largely an organizational influence process, and that technical-rational approaches are inadequate for achieving success. Our findings offer managers important insights into how organizational influence processes can be designed and enacted for effective IS implementation management. Further, this research illustrates how the theory of organizational influence could assist in understanding the dynamics of IS implementation and to advance the development of a theory of effective IS change agentry.

Bio: Ojelanki Ngwenyama is Director of the Institute for Innovation and Technology Management, and Professor in the Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University. He is presently a VELUX Visiting Professor in Information Technology Management, Copenhagen Business School and Guest Professor in the M-Lab, Halmstad University, Sweden. In 2011 he was Andrew Mellon Foundation Visiting Mentorship Professor in the Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Ojelanki has also been visiting Professor University of Jyvaskyla, Finland; University of Pretoria, South Africa and the Universities of Aalborg and Aarhus in Denmark. Ojelanki is chair-elect of the Association of Information Systems, Special Interest Group on IT and Global Development. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Information Technology For Development, Information Systems Journal and Scandinavian Journal of Information System. Ojelanki has also served on the editorial boards of MISQ and Information Technology and People. Ojelanki research has focused on critically interrogating the social implications of information technologies. He has been a member of IFIP Working Group 8.2 (Organization and Societal Implications of Information Systems) since 1986.

 

GIRI2.0 Public Lecture:

Towards Local Appropriation of Design and Evaluation
-A Namibian design journey-

Guest lecture by Prof. H. Winschiers
at the IT University of Copenhagen
April 30th 2012, 10:30-12:00 in 3A08

Abstract:
Previous work has demonstrated that well defined concepts, methods and frameworks in the field of Human Computer Interaction are not universally applicable. Further, recent research in cultural psychology has revealed cultural differences in, what was formerly regarded to be, core human functioning. We need to reconsider many assumptions that guide design and evaluation decisions, within local contexts and pursue a more critical research agenda within an indigenous epistemology. This leads us to question the validity of techniques and interpretations of interactions originating from a Western scientific paradigm and pursue the creation of an indigenous HCI paradigm to frame design methods. In this presentation I will share our experiences of community driven design in Namibia and especially the insights and challenges in the design and development of an indigenous knowledge management system in a rural pilot site.


Bio:
Heike Winschiers-Theophilus is a Director (Professor) in the School of Information Technology at the Polytechnic of Namibia. She has lived in Namibia and lectured in the field of Software Engineering at the University and Polytechnic since 1994. Her PhD (2001) explored cross-cultural design issues and suggests a framework for culture centered dialogical design. Since then her research has included cross-cultural issues in in human-computer-interaction (HCI), cultural appropriation of design and evaluation concepts and methods, representation and retrieval of indigenous knowledge, community-centred design of information systems supporting local content creation, storage, organisation and retrieval. In 2008 Heike established a niche area research cluster at the Polytechnic of Namibia in Community-Centred Design, with the aim to implement an Indigenous Knowledge Management System. She leads this research group consisting of Polytechnic of Namibia staff members, Master and Honours students, several external international research collaborators (South Africa, Denmark, Germany), and local indigenous knowledge holders. In 2011 she chaired the first ever Indigenous Knowledge Technology Conference in Windhoek, Namibia to initiate a worldwide dialogue on the tensions in digital representation of Indigenous Knowledge.


Organized by Yvonne Dittrich, assoc. prof www.itu.dk/people/ydi Software Development Group

 

 

GIRI2.0 Public Lecture:

by Dave Randall on the theme of Ethnographic studies for Design

At the IT University of Copenhagen we have a Ph.D. course this coming week on CSCW, where we are in the lucky situation to have Dave Randall and Kjeld Schmidt visiting. Dave Randall - one of the authors of the famous book Fieldwork for Design will be making a public lecture and the focus of the talk will be ethnography in CSCW.

Both ITU faculty and students are most welcome

 When and where: Tuesday April 24th, 10-12 in room 3A12

Organized by Pernille Bjørn, pbra@itu.dk

 

 

GIRI2.0 Public Lecture:

"Tangible user interfaces for distributed collaboration" by Morten Fjeld,

Manager of the Tabletop Interaction Lab at Chalmers University, Sweden ( http://www.t2i.se/ ).

IT University of Copenhagen Fri 30/3 in Aud 3, 13.15-15.00   

Abstract:

This talk will review some technologies that can give distributed collaboration a higher degree of physical embodiment. This can be based partly on the support of gestures and full-body tracking and overlay, partly on the use of haptic and tangible user interfaces. A driving force for the need for distributed collaboration is an ongoing globalization of company activities and the increasing product complexity. The collaboration itself can be within a company, for instance between a system integrator and a supplier, or between companies. In distributed collaboration, audio, video, and data conferencing are used to communicate between the different sites. In remote collaboration sessions, geographically separated partners create and review digital data (shared artifacts) using shared whiteboard software, but can also use haptic and tangible tools. Traditionally, the video received from the remote partner and the shared content are displayed separately. However, this type of presentation separates what belongs together, and the remote partner’s deictic gestures (pointing gestures to utterances like “this here”) referring to certain shared artifacts are no longer meaningful. Some of the projects shown here deals with this issue. Most of the projects showcased will be from Chalmers, but examples of collaboration with Singapore, Tokyo, and Zurich will also be featured.

Bio:

Morten Fjeld has an educational background from NTNU Norway, ENSIMAG France, and ETH Zurich. After graduating in applied mathematics and gathering six years of international industrial experience in real-time and embedded system design, he decided to pursue a research career. He holds a Ph.D. in HCI from ETH (2001) and was granted the ETH Medal (2002) for his work on "Designing for Tangible Interaction". Since 2004 he is an Associate Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. At Chalmers he is dean for the master program in interaction design and teaches courses on HCI, Tangible UIs, and Physical Computing. He has also founded the t2i Lab of Chalmers where he heads a group of researchers focusing on tabletop and tangible computing. Morten runs ongoing collaboration with the NUS HCI Lab in Singapore, with the Interaction Technology of the University of Tokyo, and with the Virtual Reality group at ETH Zurich.

 

 

Both ITU faculty and students are most welcome.

 

 

Arranged by: Thomas Pederson, tped@itu.dk  

 

GIRI2.0 recommends: 

 The Center for Network Cultures presents a public talk by
Annette Markham
Department of Communication, University of Arizona

Network Analysis as Bricoleur’s Tool:
Reconsidering interpretive qualitative methods for social media research.

The art of fieldwork in technologically-saturated contexts is challenging, to say the least, when the objects of analysis are both ephemeral and innumerable. These contexts of flow force ethnographers to consider the way we have historically conceptualized the object and phenomenon and challenge us to focus on methods for making sense of constantly shifting globalized terrains of meaning.

As a tool for identifying elements of a system, network analysis works well. As a method for understanding meaning in context, it remains an inadequate tool. From an interpretive sociology standpoint, network analysis oversimplifies the complexity of social life. However, when divorced from positivist research goals, the visualizations emerging from network analysis techniques prompt a range of sensemaking not available through the analysis of text.  When the tools are separated from the disciplinary parameters for which they were developed, they offer a beguiling method of extending certain approaches, such as grounded theory or ethnography, and specifying other approaches, such as actor network theory or practice theory.

This talk is not about network analysis per se, but uses network sensibilities to think about how to broaden our conceptualization about what counts as qualitative method in the study of contemporary, that is, heavily networked, social life. Attention is drawn to selected concepts associated with network analysis approaches to describe a practice of qualitative inquiry that focuses on movement, connection, liminal performance, and reflexivity.


Bio: Annette N. Markham is an independent researcher and visiting scholar at University of Arizona.  Her primary research focuses on methodologies for internet-mediated social contexts, ethical practices in qualitative internet research, and sensemaking in technologically-mediated spaces. Her book Life online: Researching real experience in virtual space (1998, Alta Mira) has been regarded as a foundational sociological study of Internet experience.  Her most recent book Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method (Sage, 2009, with Nancy Baym) explores qualitative methodologies for internet research.  Annette received her Ph. D. from Purdue University.

Arranged by: Irina Shklovski irsh@itu.dk 

 

GIRI2.0 Public Talk: 

 GIRI Research Seminar Series Presents

What Are You Working On?

a talk by Jennifer Thom-Santelli, PhD (IBM Research)

When: Friday the 30th September at 3 pm - check the noticeboard for location or contact Irina 

For large global enterprises, providing adequate resources for organizational acculturation, the process in which employees learn about an organization’s culture, remains a challenge. We present results from a survey of 802 users from an enterprise social networking site that identifies two groups of employees (new to the company and geographically distant from headquarters) that perceive higher benefit from using a SNS to learn about the organization’s values and beliefs.  In addition, we observe regional differences in viewing behaviours between two groups of new employees. These results suggest that a SNS can also potentially contribute to the information-seeking and sense-making activities that underlie organization acculturation

Arranged by: Irina Shklovski irsh@itu.dk