Gabriel J. Costello

The diffusion of WOZ: expanding the topology of IS innovations

The growth and diffusion of self-service technology (SST) over the last decade has resulted in an increasing number of business and government transactions being completed without human assistance. One innovation in this area, the speech-enabled business system, is characterised by complex implementations that bring together language-processing technologies, applications development, and end-user psychology. A resulting secondary innovation, the Wizard-of-OZ (WOZ) experiment is a valuable technique for simulating and building human–machine prototypes to ensure successful deployment of the completed service. The objective of the paper is to examine these innovations in relation to the changing business landscape; the technology and innovation literature, and the population of likely adopters. The review is carried out by placing the authors’ former experience as practitioners within current theoretical research frameworks. The result is a number of suggestions relating to both IT technology research and IT innovation research. Firstly, it proposes the simplification and diffusion of the WOZ methodology to support the growth in demand for automated e-business transactions that is mindful of human and ethical challenges. Secondly, the paper argues that because SST and business extends the traditional boundaries of the customer service function, it now needs to be incorporated into Swansons tri-core innovation typology. The paper concludes by presenting the suggested reorientation of information systems research that incorporates an outward facing perceptive as a conceptual model.

Seeking the face of innovation with the ethical compass of Emmanuel Levinas.

A recent biographer has described the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas as being permeated by one simple but profound theme: Western philosophy has at best ignored and at worst suppressed the “Other.” The approach of this study involved a concept-centric examination of innovation terminology assembled from key papers in the area. The analysis presents evidence of the lack of regard in the literature for the human dimension, with the notable exception of the work of Andrew Van de Ven and his collaborators. Consequently, an ethical definition of innovation is proposed inspired by the theoretical lens of Levinas. We argue that the work makes a practical and philosophical contribution to the emerging debate on ethics by the Information Systems community. Furthermore, we suggest that our analysis has implications for diffusion of innovations research increasingly being carried out in an open-innovation paradigm.

Teaching Product Design Through Industry Collaboration

There has been increased interest in using problem-based pedagogies to enable design engineering undergraduates obtain a more relevant learning experience. Furthermore organizations, such as Engineers Ireland, are calling for graduate engineers to have more rounded skills in the areas of presentation, communication and team-work. However some scholars argue that design “is hard to learn and harder still to teach”. This paper provides an example of using student-industry collaboration in the teaching of product design to Mechanical Engineering final year students at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) based in Ireland. The work proposes to make an original contribution by directly interfacing with industry in order to simulate a real-life client-designer interaction for students. Finally we argue that this work contributes new insights to the debate on “pedagogies of engagement”.Copyright

Development of a prototype knowledge discovery portal for energy informatics

This chapter describes the development of a prototype knowledge discovery portal (KDP) for energy informatics. The research domain is Ireland which is increasingly challenged to achieve energy efficiency targets and to implement renewable energy systems (RES). The reason for undertaking this research is to provide a mechanism to disseminate information on energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to a number of sectors: community, educational, industrial and research. The prototype KDP was developed using design-science methodology. This chapter integrates information both in the horizontal and vertical axes. In the horizontal plane, it provides information to community users, educational bodies and industrial companies. In the vertical plane, it allows deeper access depending on the requirements of the user: from technological overviews to detailed data from the energy system (solar collectors, heat pump and wind turbine). Future work will involve further development of the portal and extending the KDP for energy to other technologies and sectors.

Building a Dolmen: An ISD Approach to the Management of Innovation

This chapter addresses a “challenge in practice” by describing the initial stage of an information systems development (ISD) project to support the management of innovation within a subsidiary of APC-MGE. To begin with, a review is presented of relevant literature on the management of innovation and on ISD. The background of the case study is outlined and the advantages of a dialogical action research approach to ISD are discussed. Then the development of a conceptual model using the organizational analysis approach of Multiview2 is described. The work proposes to make a contribution in a number of areas. Firstly, it provides empirical evidence of the role of innovation in an organizational transformation and the challenge of designing an information system to support this objective. Secondly, it presents an example of using dialogical action research, recently introduced to the MIS discipline by Martensson and Lee, to develop an information system. Future work will involve tracking the implementation of the concept in order to evaluate its impact on the organization.

The triple helix, open innovation and the DOI research agenda.

This paper examines the implications for research on the diffusion of innovations (DOI) arising from a growing body of literature in two related fields. The first area concerns the debate on the role of regional and national systems of innovation in the innovation process. The second area deals with the argument that enterprises must move from a “closed innovation” to an “open innovation” paradigm. The review is presented in the context of a case study being undertaken in a subsidiary of American Power Conversion (APC) located in the West of Ireland. Based on the preliminary stages of our work, we present a conceptual 3-D model of Rogers’ innovation-decision process and suggest a series of propositions to stimulate future research efforts.

Open Innovation in Practice: The Development of the IT Capability Maturity Framework

This chapter describes the IT Capability Maturity Model (IT-CMF), a high-level process capability maturity framework for managing the IT function within an organisation. The framework identifies a number of critical IT processes and describes an approach to improving maturity for each process. The design environment of the IT-CMF is challenging as the processes are based on “open innovation” principles. An example of the application of the IT-CMF to the Intel Corporation Information Technology organisation is outlined. The practical usefulness of the framework lies in its potential to organise and structure a complex portfolio of IT innovation activities in a manner that enabled continuous improvement.

Examining the Antecedents to Innovation in Electronic Networks of Practice

The way in which firms innovate ideas and bring them to market is undergoing a fundamental change. Useful knowledge is increasingly dispersed outside the firm’s boundaries and the exceptionally fast time to market for many products and services suggest that some very different organising principles for innovation are needed. These developments have led to an increased interest in the electronic network of practice concept to facilitate innovation. This paper argues that innovative behaviour in electronic networks of practice is determined by three interacting systems — individual motivations, network communication structure, and the social context of the network. The theoretical position of the interactive process theoiy of innovation is used to support this claim.

Innovation management in a multi-national corporation's subsidiary of ireland's evolving knowledge economy

Innovation management is now seen as an important competitive advantage for Multi-national Corporation (MNC) subsidiaries located in Irelands changing economy. This paper reports on the initial stages of a case study in the Operations division of American Power Conversion (APC) Ireland. The results of an innovation audit are presented that provide a reference point to begin the transformation to an innovative supply chain organization. The paper proposes the development of Networks of Practice to enable the diffusion of resulting innovations across the corporation.

More than Just a Game: The Role of Simulation in The Teaching of Product Design and Entrepreneurship to Mechanical Engineering Students.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this work is to contribute to the debate on the best pedagogical approach to developing undergraduate mechanical engineering skills to meet the requirements of contemporary complex working environments. The paper provides an example of using student–entrepreneur collaboration in the teaching of modules to Mechanical Engineering final-year students. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one of the most significant recent innovations in the area of education for the professions. This work proposes to make an original contribution by simulating a real-life entrepreneur interaction for the students. The current literature largely confines simulation-based learning to computer applications such as games. However, this paper argues that role playing by students interfacing with technology start-ups can also be regarded as ‘simulation’ in a wider sense. Consequently, the paper proposes the concept of simulation-action learning as an enhancement of PBL and to distinguish it from computer simulation.