The Last Research Mile: Achieving Both Rigor and Relevance in Information Systems Research
COM2 Level 4
Executive Classroom, COM2-04-02
ABSTRACT:
This talk presents and extends research together with Bob Briggs and Jay Nunamaker (scheduled to be published in JMIS this winter). Going the last research mile means using scientific knowledge and methods to address important unsolved classes of problems for real people with real stakes in the outcomes. The last research mile proceeds in three stages: Proof-of-concept research to demonstrate the functional feasibility of a solution; proof-of-value research to investigate whether a solution can create value across a variety of conditions; and proof-of-use research to address complex issues of operational feasibility. The last research mile ends only when practitioners routinely use a solution in the field. I will present goals and typical research products of each phase and use examples to illustrate research challenges and opportunities of each stage. I will also use the stages to discuss practical challenges and opportunities in writing grant applications, establishing fruitful collaboration with companies, integrating students on all levels, and using prototypes.
BIODATA:
Gerhard Schwabe has been a full professor at the University of Zurich since 2002. He has received his doctoral and postdoctoral education at the University of Hohenheim in the research group of Helmut Krcmar and held his first tenured professorship at the University of Koblenz - Landau in 1998. In Zurich he leads the information management research group with two senior researchers (Postdocs), six doctoral students and two research assistants. His research interests focus on the intersection of collaborative technologies and information management. Gerhard has published both in computer science conferences (like the ACM conference on CSCW & Social Computing) as well as in information systems conferences (ICIS, ECIS, PACIS, HICSS...) and journals (JMIS, BISE, Electronic Markets...). He also likes to step beyond traditional boundaries and has, for example, published two of the most widely cited papers on Mobile Learning in JCAL.
Prof. Schwabe likes to engage in research in close collaboration with companies. Currently he is involved in a major EU project on 'Smarter Factories', which aims to design smart workers' workplaces of the future. A second research area covers the digitalization of the financial sector. There he has collaborated with banks such as UBS and Raiffeisen to design a 'smart advisor's' work place. In similar projects, work places for smart government advisors and for mobile police advisors have been developed for cities like Mannheim and Zurich. He has intensively studied IT outsourcing collaboration and has created a methodology for an improved set-up of outsourcing projects in collaboration with the Leipzig software company E-Werk. Furthermore, he collaborates with the largest independent Swiss software company Avaloq on improving their innovation practices. In all these project Gerhard applies behavioural methods to study the working practices at the companies and design science research methods to prototype and implement new collaborative solutions. Those solutions can be IT-systems, methods or a blend of both.
Besides his normal teaching load, Gerhard Schwabe has been involved in executive education for more than a decade. Furthermore, he is partner of the global SUGAR University network on Design thinking. Under the leadership of the University of St. Gallen and the auspices of Standford University (Prof. Larry Leiffer) international student groups learn and practice real life radical innovation for organizations such as UBS, Audi, Merck and FIFA.