Interfaces' Interview Series Presents
V. Sambamurthy
V. Sambamurthy, Editor of ISR was interviewed by Ray Patterson, Director of Web Strategy for INFORMS ISS in Summer 2006.
What are your views about the connections between Information Systems Research and the Information Systems Society?
Every academic community needs a synergistic relationship between its professional associations and journals in order to grow in influence, respectability, and visibility. Within INFORMS, we have one such significant opportunity. As a long-standing member of the Information Systems Society, current Editor-in-Chief of Information Systems Research, and a member of the advisory board for the Society, I believe that we must particularly work toward building a symbiotic relationship between Information Systems Research and the Information Systems Society. Information Systems Society provides a forum for IS academics to mobilize their research and collegial activities within INFORMS. The society runs an annual conference, Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST). Over the years, this conference has emerged into an important place for doctoral students to preset their research and for IS faculty to network and showcase their emerging research. The conference is increasingly becoming an important event on the calendar of information systems academics.
Information Systems Research is not only one of the top journals, but also the journal of the Information Systems Society. Most other INFORMS societies have similar relationships with their disciplinary journals (for example, Marketing Science and the Society for Marketing Science). As Editor-in-Chief, I am a strong advocate of strengthening the journal's relationship with the Society for the greater good of the IS community. A stronger and vibrant society would create a stronger voice of advocacy within INFORMS and allow the journal to attract even greater visibility, resources, and institutional support. For instance, during my editorial term, I am committed to expanding the number of pages for the journal. Stronger connections with ISS could provide the financial support and institutional leverage in finding resources for the extra pages. Secondly, ISR has committed to annual special issues on novel topics of significance to the information systems community. Each special issue will involve a conference for presentation of papers that have been screened during an initial round of review. It is my expectation that ISS could be a partner and sponsor of the conferences associated with the special issues. Finally, Information Systems Research will soon initiate best paper and best reviewer awards. These awards will be jointly sponsored with the Information Systems Society.
As a member of the advisory board of the Society, I am also excited about the different new initiatives being launched under the leadership of Ramayya Krishnan, current President, and other members of the leadership. In particular, during the past few years, most information systems programs have witnessed declining enrolments and challenges about how to teach courses within MBA programs. At the same time, there are broader trends in the economy, primarily in the form of continuing digitization of enterprises and their business activities, which make it clear that there is a need for educating business school students about the strategic management and use of information technologies from an executive perspective.
How will the information systems academic community shape its educational programs to be relevant? There are pockets of initiatives underway. For example, a group of academics recently met at the Harvard Business School to share their current approaches toward teaching of the MBA core course and electives in information technology management. Similarly, another group has begun to work with the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and IT Governance Institute to develop teaching materials related to the governance, control, and audit of IT management activities.
The Information Systems Society is poised to provide coordination to the various teaching-related initiatives and efforts of the community. Thus, there is a real chance for the Information Systems Society to pull together the research and teaching interests of the information systems academic community. I have been encouraging everyone to consider joining the society and actively participate in its activities.
As an editor, what advice would you give to doctoral students and people who want to publish in the top information systems journals?
Information systems journals have historically not grown the number of pages annually devoted to publishing information systems research. Even though the community has grown significantly, particularly since the late 1990's, one of the significant challenges has been the limited number of publication opportunities in the top journals. However, such constraints are beginning to ease and the top journals are beginning to establish pipelines as well as growing the number of articles that they are publishing. Therefore, journal pages will less likely be a constraint.
In order to publish in the top journals, I would first emphasize care and attention to the choice of research topics and how they are executed. The key criteria for getting research published in a top journal include the significance of the research topic (i.e., why is the topic relevant and important), completeness of the literature review and theoretical development, rigor of the methodology and analysis, and the novelty of the findings. Getting the research right on these criteria requires a significant investment of time in thinking about the phenomenon, paying attention to the details of the research method, and writing the paper in way that is clear, compelling, and interesting. To be successful, it is important to test out the ideas in as many forums as possible before sending the paper out to a journal for review. Therefore, leveraging conferences such as ICIS, AMCIS, CIST, Academy, or Decision Sciences and invited research workshops at peer schools should be a part of a conscious strategy to revise and improve a paper before sending it out for review.
Second, I would emphasize the role and value of networking. Good collaborations not only help in maintaining a higher level of productivity, but they also help in pooling of complementary skills. Not all of us are good at theorizing and in empirical analysis. Further, with the growing sophistication of data sources and analytical methodologies, collaboration helps in producing higher quality papers. Therefore, I would strongly advocate networking and building productive collaborations.
Finally, my advice to all would be to be persistent and not get discouraged with the journals, if your paper gets rejected at one journal, or the revision requirements seem unusually demanding. All the top IS journals are working hard on accelerating the cycle times for review as well for accepting deserving articles. Editors are serious about constructive reviews and making sure that manuscripts get a fair shake when they are submitted for review. There are multiple outlets available for most work. Therefore, do not take a rejection as an "end-of-the-road." Figure out how to improve your work and submit it to another journal. If the revisions seem difficult or challenging, develop a strategy document to share with the editors and get feedback on whether your approach seems tenable. Above all, persist with your papers, especially if you believe that it is good work and that you might not have done a good job of presenting it in your initial submission.
What should be the publication strategy for people early-on in their career and how should they think about being successful in publishing in the top journals? What are some of the things that they should think about?
Publishing your dissertation is one of the best ways to get started in your academic career. For all, the dissertation represents the most significant piece of research on which a doctoral student might have spent two or three years. Therefore, having the drive to publish at least one dissertation-related paper in a top journal should be a key goal early in an academic career. However, the proportion of dissertations that do get published in top journals is not very high. Assuming that you have devoted the appropriate amount of attention toward working on a good dissertation (i.e., interesting topic, complete theoretical development, rigorous analysis, novel findings and significant implications), make sure that you are crafting a good paper. Sometimes, it takes as much as an year to produce a good manuscript. Sometimes, the dissertation might support multiple manuscripts. In such cases, however, it is important to make sure that the papers are indeed different and that the journals are aware of the other manuscripts.
Beyond the dissertation-related publishing efforts, it is important to focus on the next significant project. Such a project might either be an extension of the dissertation or a new topic. Sometimes, these projects might emerge out of interactions with new collaboration partners. Regardless, within the first three to four years, the goal should be to develop a portfolio of research projects and publications, built around new projects, manuscripts ready for journal submission, and manuscripts under advanced stages of review. Managing a portfolio of projects and collaborations is a key pathway to success.
Finally, it is important to develop an identity and focus in your research. A few good papers that coherently define your contribution or intellectual leadership in an important domain are preferable to many papers scattered across different domains. One effective way to retain focus is to write a research statement that describes the focus of your research (key phenomena, theories, and methodologies, and significant contributions) and to continually revise it to reflect your evolving research interests. Any time that the research statement begins to read like a litany of individual projects, it is a symptom of lack of focus in your research.
How should IS academics think about their involvement or engagement with the IS academic community?
The information systems academic community is a thin community. In other words, compared to other disciplines, the IS academic community has fewer members. Yet, its journals, conferences, and associations can only grow and prosper through the active participation and involvement of IS academics. The IS community cannot afford to have only a small subset invest their time in community building efforts, such as serving on editorial boards, organizing conferences, providing leadership in the associations, and pioneering important initiatives for the common good. We need more members of the IS community to be active in giving their time and effort in reviewing, editorial activities, and leadership in conferences and association activities.
There are several ways of being proactive, instead of waiting to be asked. First, editors are always looking for good reviewers, who graduate to positions of associate editors, senior editors, and editors of the journals. So, volunteering to do reviews and providing dedicated and constructive reviews is important. Second, volunteering to support conference activities is another important way. Beyond submitting panels and papers to conferences, consider organizing workshops, bidding for future conferences (ICIS, AMCIS, PACIS, ECIS), or volunteering to lead initiatives for the associations.
About the Interviewer
Ray Patterson is Associate Professor in the Accounting and Management Information Systems faculty at the University of Alberta and Director of Web Strategy for the INFORMS IS Society.