Dr Mary Tate is an Associate Professor at Victoria University of Wellington and a former ARC DECRA scholar at Queensland University of Technology, Otto Monstead fellow at Copenhagen Business School, and Erskin Fellow at Canterbury University. Mary’s research focusses on digital service innovation, management and delivery in the public and private sectors, and information systems theory, foundations and research methods. Prior to joining academia Mary had extensive experience in service and channel management in the banking and education sectors. Mary has more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. Her work has appeared in leading journals including the European Journal of Information Systems,Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information and Management, Communications of the AIS, and Behaviour and Information Technology; as well as at major information systems conferences. Mary is currently has recently finished a term as co-editor-in-chief of the Communications of the AIS journal.
Abstract
Information systems (IS) theories are typically “mid-range” and anchored in specific contexts. Additionally, the IS discipline is characterized by the use of a large number of different theories. These theories can have many origins – they may originate as “blue ocean” original theories from within the IS discipline, or they may be adapted, or simply borrowed with little change from other disciplines. Regardless of their origin, theories need to be able to evolve. The elaboration and refinement of theories is often carried out in an undisciplined way, which does not contribute to a cumulative tradition, and results in theories “piling up” rather than building up. In this presentation, I will look at how to carry out the process of theory elaboration in a disciplined way. I will also report on interesting feedback I received when I presented this work at University of Sydney last year.
