Michael J. Cuellar

Using Realist Social Theory to Explain Project Outcomes

In researching IS phenomena, many different theoretical lenses have been advanced. This paper proposes the use of Margaret Archers Morphogenetic Approach to Analytical Dualism MAAD as a social theoretic approach to explain why social phenomena may occur in a case study. This paper provides a brief overview to MAAD, providing a description of its tenets and methodology for use in an empirical study. As an example, the author applies MAAD to the implementation of Lotus Notes in the Alpha consulting organization as reported by Orlikowski 2000. This approach shows that the differential success of the implementation efforts in the different organizations was due to the diverse cultures and possible experiences with technology found in those organizations. This example shows that the use of this social theory can provide explanatory purchase where social phenomena are involved. For practitioners, it suggests that structural analysis at the beginning of a project may provide direction as to how to make the project more successful.

Scholarly Influence Research (SIR): Augmenting Ideational Influence with Social Influence

Following previous research findings, this paper argues that the currently predominant method of evaluating scholar performance - publication counts in “quality” journals - is flawed due to the subjectivity inherent in the generation of the list of approved journals and absence of a definition of quality. Truex, Cuellar, and Takeda (2009) improved on this method by substituting a measurement of “influence” using the Hirsch statistics to measure ideational influence. Since the h-family statistics are a measure of productivity and the uptake of a scholar’s ideas expressed in publications, this methodology privileges the uptake of a scholar’s ideas over the venue of publication. Influence is built through other means than by having one’s papers read and cited. The interaction between scholars resulting in co-authored papers is another way to build scholarly influence. This aspect of scholarly influence, which the authors term social influence, can be assessed by Social Network Analysis (SNA) metrics that examine the nature and strength of coauthoring networks among IS Scholars. The paper demonstrates the method of assessing social influence by analysis of the social network of AMCIS scholars and compares the results of this analysis with other co-authorship networks from the ECIS and ICIS communities.