Hevner’s descriptive article on design research seems very thorough, with both a historical and transdisciplinary perspective. I appreciated the discussion on the seven guidelines, particularly #6 – Design as a Search Process. I am starting to feel like I am getting more and more pieces of the puzzle. Design research that utilizes empirical methods with behavioral theories seems to be the most interesting to me at the moment. Now for the subject of that thesis!

The material on style was also thought provoking for me (bottom of page 86 to the top of page 87). Style to me, especially when writing, evokes thoughts of individuality and using your creativity. Thought leadership is the popular buzzword in the business world. How can we as IT researchers provide thought leadership within the constraints of our scientific community, and then prove it? Or, could it be the other way around?

Albert and his colleagues have now given the class an example of both the case study and design science technique in one east reference. I appreciated ths article following onto the Hevner article, as it seems that the previous articles did not link into one and other.

I appreciated the structure and explanation of their process. One of the issues I think we have as researchers is developing the structure around our research topic. This is a real opportunity to degrade the findings of our research as well as our credibility. I find myself reading article such as this thinking, "these authors have spent a good deal of time and energy making sure they have covered every base."

I remembered that I had a couple documents that may be helpful to all of you. Some of you may have seen them before. The first is an article by Lee on reviewing manuscipts and the other is a summary document with many different sources listed in it.

I have posted both documents in WFS account so that you can download them: http://wfs.cgu.edu/xythoswfs/webui/babineat

 I hope they are useful to you.

Wow, I got so caught up in my paper this week I forgot about my normal journal entries. Oops.

I have had an interesting experience with research databases over the last couple weeks. I have noticed that some of the databases that claim to have IT articles in them rarley return material that is truly IT related. Now I temper this opinion with the possibility that the items I am looking for may have low relevence to the material in these particular DBs. Perhaps when searching for other items these same references could be more useful. We shall see.

I wonder also if anyone has insight into using wildcards in these databases? I tried to use some of the wildcards I have used in other DBs, but I was not very successful.

This is another example of information that I would categorize as "a given". One of the things that is useful for the marketing researcher from this study is understanding the magnitude of how much factors like mindshare, market share, and trailability affect sales and user preference. I don't think it is a surprise to anyone that popular software platforms can demand a higher price than up and comers. Though the study says this is helpful to practitioners, I would disagree. The question for marketing professionals are things such as: 1.) How much of a premium can be tolerated before they begin to lose market share to their more aggressive, lower cost competitor start eating away at their market share; 2.) What strategies can the new entrants into this market use to unseat the market leaders from their position. This type of research doesn't give them a lot of direction in these regards.

What was particularly interesting to me was the late delivery of this research. Why would MISQ accept a study based on data that was so old? In addition, there is the perspective of the timeframes. 1996 and 1997 were relatively early in the development of web servers. The World Wide Web was the impetus that put server software on the map, and that really only began to gain public recognition in 1993. This study was published after the Y2K and Dot-com Bubble burst, yet there is no reference to extreme surge in the server market that occurred between 1996-December 2002 when this study was published; very peculiar.

This action research article by Kohli & Kettinger has been a welcome relief for me. In contrast to some of our other articles, this piece of research interested me on a couple different levels. First, there was a purpose that could provide valuable information to both the practice and educational realms of IT. Second, there is the affect of change on a organization that allows this type of research to make an immediate impact, as apposed to just being an outside observer. Lastly, this topic has a topic staying power that people will want to revisit and develop further. I can't say the same about some of the other research we have read.

Their analysis of how a DSS can play a role in the very difficult environment of clinical physicians was excellent. The authors gave an honest assessment of their results, including the first, failed attempt to implement their action research model. They also pointed out the fact that the DSS system was not going to completely solve their questions on controlling expenses (no silver bullet). I am going to sound like Karen here, but I would have liked to have seen more of their data and the models used to develop their conclusions. I would have also appreciated more graphical representations of their data and findings. Overall, this was a very good article though.

Robson writes of how action research takes effort from the subjects being observed and this was certainly the case in this study. I believe this research was very helpful for the physicians in a couple of ways: 1.) it gave them an opportunity to understand how their peers treated similar cases to theirs (best practices). 2.) it empowered them to have a affect on the expenses of the healthcare group they were partnering with (to some extent corporate citizenry). These two influences play an interesting role together when you think about peer pressure and partner evaluation. This DSS gave SJHS a lever to hold their physician partners accountable for their decisions. It also provided valuable information to the clan that they might not have surmised on their own.

I have saved comment on Robson to this point, so I thought I would send along a nugget. I really enjoy the structure and flow of this book. Robson has done a great job of detailing each of the issues, models, and philosophies covered to this point. I have found myself varying from three different states of understanding: 1.) That seems obvoius enough; 2.) I have seen this before, but now it is clearer to me; 3.) Wow, I have a lot to learn.

This is certainly a text that I will refer back to again, like  Booth, Colomb, & Williams. There is also a lot to this book that I hope I will rememer when doing future research. It is no wonder that there are often multiple authors and editors. Who can keep track of all of this material?

This book also will require multiple reads for me. It is not that the material is too technical, it just seems to me that many of the items he speaks about will make more sense when you actually apply them. His tables and boxes of information are absolutely invaluable. I will probably have them at hand whenever I am writing research in the future.