Barcelona on June 10-13, 2012ESADE, Barcelona, Spain

Alternative Genres

Track Chairs

Michel Avital Copenhagen Business School michel@avital.net

Lars Mathiassen Georgia State University lmathiassen@ceprin.org

Track Description

The term "Alternative Genres" refers to new or unconventional form of thinking, doing, and communicating scholarship and practice. It relates to innovation with respect to epistemological perspectives [5, 9, 10], research methods [6, 7], semantic framing [1, 2], literary styles [4, 8, 11], and media of expression [3]. Overall, the application of alternative genres is a generative act of reframing that provides one with an opportunity to take a fresh look, to evoke new insights, and to gain deeper understanding of the subject matter. In most instances, alternative genres connote a pragmatic novelty, which refers to a new modality of inquiry that turned out to be a source inspiration and innovation.

Overall, the Alternative Genres Tack is about spanning or reframing the prevailing boundaries of IS scholarship and practice. In this track, we adopt a broad view that maintains alternative genres as any unconventional modality that expands or challenges the prevailing modus operandi of IS scholarship and practice. Accordingly, the application of alternative genres is expected to construct new desirable alternatives that have the potential to reshaping our social, physical, semiotic and technological environments through reconfiguration of technical artifacts and interaction with boundary processes and situated practices.

The conference theme, Information Systems and Global Welfare, calls for a broader and inclusive view of IS scholarship that aspires to foster environmental, economic and social value and to suggest ways of using information technology for providing leverage and fulfilling human needs. Articles can apply any consistent theoretical frame, methodology, or unit of analysis. Both theoretical essays and empirical studies are equally sought. We particularly encourage submissions that challenge or reframe our taken-for-granted assumptions, perceptions and practices. We envision a general track on alternative genres that is opened for a broad range of research and can consolidate all related work into a rich repertoire on modalities of inquiry in the context of information technology. Submission may cover but are not limited to the following:

• The generative capacity of alternative genres
• Alterative genres as a driver of boundary spanning
• Applications of alternative genres and forms of writing to convey IS scholarship
• Illustrations of other media instead or in addition to text to convey research results
• Application of drama and other literary forms to convey IS scholarship
• Visual media based representations of IS scholarship
• Comics representations of IS scholarship
• Anti-genre perspectives
• Unintended consequences of alternative genres—from serendipitous to undesired outcomes

Illustrative References

• [1] Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
• [2] Weick, K.E. (1979). The social psychology of organizing. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
• [3] Tufte, E. R. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT.
• [4] Jermier, J. M. (1985). "When the Sleeper Wakes": A Short Story Extending Themes in Radical Organization Theory. Journal of Management, 11(2), 67-80.
• [5] Cooperrider, D. L., & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life. In R. Woodman & W. Pasmore (Eds.), Research in Organizational Change and Development (Vol. 1, pp. 129-169). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
• [6] Beath, C. M., & Orlikowski, W. J. (1994). The Contradictory Structure of Systems Development Methodologies: Deconstructing the IS-User Relationship in Information Engineering. Information Systems Research, 5(4), 350-377.
• [7] Schultze, U. (2000). A Confessional Account of an Ethnography about Knowledge Work. MIS Quarterly, 24(1), 3-41.
• [8] Avital, M. & Vandenbosch, B. (2000). SAP Implementation at Metalica: An Organizational Drama. Journal of Information Technology, 15(3), 183-194.
• [9] Boland, R.J. & Collopy, F. (2004). Managing as Designing. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• [10] Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2008). Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization. The Academy of Management Annals, 2, 433-474.
• [11] Mathiassen, L., Chaisson, M. & Germonprez, M. (2011). Style Composition in Action Research Publication. MIS Quarterly, forthcoming.

Associate Editors

• Richard Boland, Case Western Reserve University, USA
• Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic, University of New South Wales, Australia
• Rodney Clarke, University of Wollongong, Australia
• Laurence Habib, Oslo University College, Norway
• Jonny Holmström, Umeå University, Sweden
• Jannis Kallinikos, London School of Economics, UK
• Karlheinz Kautz, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
• Jan Marco Leimeister, University of Kassel, Germany
• Ben Light, Univeristy of Salford, UK
• Magnus Mähring, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
• Peter Axel Nielsen, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Helena Holmström Olsson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Frantz Rowe, University of Nantes, France
• Ulrike Schultze, Southern Methodist University, USA
• Carsten Sorensen, London School of Economics, UK