Scholarly Journal Cultural Values and Stakeholder Implications
Scholarly journals like ISJ and EJISDC embody cultural values that shape behaviors and interactions among stakeholders. This keynote delves into the significance of diversity in editorial boards, care for stakeholders, trust, integrity, community, and the types of research published. An emphasis is placed on the impact of these values on authors, editors, and the scholarly community at large.
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The Cultural Values of Scholarly Journals and Their Implications for Various Stakeholders Robert M Davison Dept of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong Editor in Chief: ISJ & EJISDC 1
Cultural Values Culture is normally associated with societies or countries or professional groups I suggest that a journal can also develop a set of cultural values that influence the behaviours of people who are associated with it These cultural values relate to a variety of phenomena inter alia: Diversity of the editorial board Care for different stakeholders Trust in people and institutions Integrity of people and processes The sense of community The nature of research that we hope to publish 2
Scope of this keynote Although the title suggests the cultural values of scholarly journals in general, I will limit myself to the values of two journals in particular ISJ the Information Systems Journal EJISDC the Electronic Journal of IS in Developing Countries I suspect that there is a fair degree of overlap with other journals ISJ a premier journal for IS research https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13652575 EJISDC a niche journal that focuses on a very specific market https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/16814835 3
Diversity At the ISJ and EJISDC, we consciously try to ensure that our editorial boards (senior and associate editors) represent a broad spectrum of scholars in terms of gender, ethnicity, country of origin, country of current work, research areas, topics, methods, etc. We believe that a more diverse editorial board will be more attractive to authors who work in different places and with different methods We know that it will be easier to find experts qualified to handle a variety of topics if we have that diversity of people We benchmark to other journals and the AIS, but set our own standards 4
Diversity At each journal, we share information about our diversity on our websites, most recently in editorials Gender: 1-2 female to male ratio, similar to AIS ratio ISJ, senior and associate editors are associated with (born in, PhD in, working in) 36 countries including EJISDC: SEs and AEs associated with 24 countries ISJ (2011-2020), submitting authors came from 95 countries, accepted paper authors from 28 EJISDC (2017-2020): submitting authors from 72 countries, accepted from 22 5
Diversity Challenges We d like to see more people involved as authors, reviewers, editors from all regions, but especially developing countries which are historically under-represented We d also like to see more qualitative work and more indigenous theory, i.e. authors who theorise the concepts that are important in their own local culture and work them into a research design so as to assess why an IS is successful or a failure in terms of what matters locally For both ISJ and EJISDC, we strive to be inclusive and appreciative of diversity but it only works if the authors (and reviewers) agree! 6
Care We care for many different stakeholders: human and non-human Authors Readers Senior Editors Reviewers The institution of information systems The entities that are affected by the research: human, organisational, social, the environment, ecosystems, species, habitats, 7
Care - Authors We want to provide constructive, actionable, insightful feedback in a timely way so as to help authors publish their work We aim to be polite, friendly, respectful even when we regretfully reject their work Fairness and transparency are important. This means that we need to exercise some oversight in the review process since reviewers may not share these values We want to help authors improve their work as far as possible 8
Care - Readers We want to publish papers that are both of interest to readers, yet that also extend the interests of readers. The issue of supply-demand is difficult. We do believe that we need to publish a diversity of papers that may raise controversial ideas or challenge established orthodoxies New ideas, provocative opinions, and iconoclastic ways of thinking may be even objectionable to some readers We hope that our readers will be better-informed scholars and practitioners as a result of reading these papers We hope that readers will read and cite the papers we publish 9
Care Review Team Senior Editor (SE), Associate Editor (AE) and Reviewers We provide guidance on the standards we expect They need enough time to do a good job and yet not too much time as we don t want authors to wait indefinitely They should be rewarded as appropriate: excellent reviewers may be invited to become AEs, and AEs promoted to SEs. They should not be overloaded with too much work We always send all reviews/decisions to the whole review team 10
Care The IS Discipline We want to publish papers that are (primarily) IS papers, that make a contribution to IS scholarship Contributions may be to (some of) Method Theory Practice We believe that good research should be both rigorous (correct application of method) and relevant (useful for some stakeholders) We may reject papers that we think are out of scope, even though other IS journals might disagree 11
Care Affected Entities There are many potentially affected entities in IS research Research subjects and organisations; citizens Indirectly associated parties The environment, ecosystems, individual species, habitats We expect that researchers will take reasonable care to protect the interests of all entities who may be affected by their research and to adopt a principle of nonmaleficence (no deliberate harm to others) 12
Trust We hope that authors will entrust us with their papers, knowing that we are fair and transparent, that we will deliver quality reviews in a timely way, that we will provide actionable and helpful advice We also trust that reviewers will act professionally, offering a critical but polite commentary If reviewers (or SEs/AEs) submit a report that is inadequate, I may ask for it to be improved, but as far as possible we try not to micromanage the process: I trust SEs and AEs to be professional Things can go wrong, in which case we need to intervene 13
Integrity As editors, we must exercise a lot of care when handling a paper The IS community is small, and probably even smaller in Brazil or sub- communities on specific topics/methods Editors personally know some of the authors who submit their papers Conflicts of interest are common, yet we accept or reject the papers submitted by people we know: friends, colleagues, head or dean, Our decisions must always be based 100% on the merits of the research, nothing else My students often ask me to be the first author, for them it makes a difference, but my papers are rejected as well! 14
Timeliness Time is a commodity that is cherished by many people Authors always like to get quick feedback, though they may revise slowly! Reviewers, alas, are not always so quick and often ask for more time We try very hard to keep the process moving and do not allow authors or reviewers to have excessive extensions to deadlines Editors (SE/AE) who are persistently late will not keep their positions 15
Community It takes a community of many people to do research, to write up research, to review research, to publish research We all need to work together on this We hope that all parties will engage in intellectually inspiring, professionally disciplined, kind, respectful interactions We are all members of a community of fellow-travellers engaged in similar pursuits and with a common goal, of advancing knowledge Together, we can accomplish more than any one of us could alone 16
Focus All journals find that they tend to publish more of some types of papers and less of others This may be self-selected: the journal recruits editors with specific skills or markets itself to authors in a particular niche It might reflect the editor s views, since editors screen papers and decide what is in scope or not For instance, at the ISJ, we don t accept technical papers that are primarily composed of mathematical expressions or formulae We do insist on theory in empirical work although some journals don t 17
Flavours of Research We have a strong belief in inclusiveness We want to publish papers that cover a wide range of topics, methods, epistemologies We also want to ensure that these papers balance rigor and relevance We strongly believe in problematisation We encourage researchers to motivate their study by challenging prior knowledge and making a new contribution, not simply filling a literature gap A rigorous treatment of an artificial problem that is of little interest to any stakeholders is unlikely to be accepted We publish many special issues on specific topics (yet reject most special issue proposals) 18
Special Issues We have detailed guidelines for special issues which most proposers of special issues don t read (!) Recent/in progress special issues include: Advances in Digital Transformation Research Responsible Research Digital Platforms and Ecosystems IS and Sustainable Development Smart Visitor Economy Transcending the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide Social Media Induced Polarization Decoloniality in IS Research 19
Recent Initiatives The impact of IS research in practice We are seeking to expand our coverage of practice research We have a new special issue on this topic We also have special Associate and Senior Editors in this area And its not only the practice that might be relevant to managers ! What about non-managerial stakeholders? What about employees, who often have very different interests to their managers For instance, what happens when employees reject the managerial mandate to determine which IS they can use (or how) and they make their own decisions about systems? 20
Non-organisational stakeholders It is perfectly legitimate for IS scholars to contribute to knowledge that is primarily of relevance to farmers (Vaidya & Myers, 2021), customers (Geebren et al., 2021), citizens (Avgerou, 2013), refugees (D az Andrade & Doolin, 2016, 2019), society at large (D az Andrade & Techatassanasoontorn, 2021), and the denizens of non-human ecosystems (Hedman & Henningsson, 2016). We can study communities (of people or other entities), charities, non-profit and informal sector organisations or arrangements, and yes, the ISJ is open to publish this research 21
Future Challenges I d like to see more attention to environmental issues Currently very few researchers work on this in IS Climate change for instance, or the sustainability of resource exploitation A lot of green IS research is primarily a form of green-washing , creating a good public image for the organisation But green IS research seldom benefits the environment itself We have special issues on IS for sustainability and alternative (non- economic) value engendered by digital platforms in progress We are not saying no to economically-oriented research, but we do want to see research on other-than-economic perspectives 22
Thank You! 23
