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    A socio-cognitive perspective of knowledge integration in digital innovation networks
    (Elsevier B.V., 2025) McCarthy, Stephen; O’Raghallaigh, Paidi; Kelleher, Carol; Adam, Frédéric; Science Foundation Ireland
    Digital innovation is a complex process in which actors seek to create new value pathways by combining digital resources in a layered modular architecture. While IS scholarship has a rich tradition of research on developing and implementing digital artefacts within intra-organisational contexts, our understanding of knowledge integration across distributed innovation networks is nascent and under-theorised. This is an important area of research given the rising importance of digital innovation networks and the challenges faced in integrating specialised knowledge, especially given the greater diversity, speed, reach, and scope made possible by digital technologies. Drawing on in-depth case study findings from a health IoT project involving multiple organisations and disciplines, we explore how knowledge is integrated across boundaries during the initiation stage of a digital innovation network. Our findings point to boundaries related to the digital platform’s organising vision, resource allocation, delivery roadmap, technical architecture, and intellectual property, to name but a few challenges. We then reveal five socio-cognitive modes of knowledge integration which actors strategically enact to cross syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries: Signalling, Assembling, Contesting, Discounting, and Finalising. The choice of mode depends on the perceived knowledge status (‘what they know’) and social status (‘who they are’) of network actors, which highlight the salience of both social and cognitive dependencies for knowledge integration. We further discuss the contribution of design objects for overcoming differences and distinctions between specialist actors in a digital innovation network.
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    Teaching tip: Embedding sustainability in information systems design education
    (ISCAP, Information Systems and Computing Academic Professionals,, 2024) Rowan, Wendy; McCarthy, Stephen; Mebrahtu, Selam; Gauche, Christophe; O'Reilly, Kate; Odili, Damilola; University College Cork
    Sustainability refers to the achievement of present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. While prior research has highlighted the potential of Information Systems (IS) to support sustainability objectives - for instance, through supporting eco-efficient work practices and democratising healthcare access - our understanding of how to integrate the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a core aspect of IS teaching and curricula remains nascent. This teaching tip presents a pedagogical design and teaching method for embedding sustainability in systems design education using design thinking and ‘active learning’ techniques. We provide examples of how students translated the SDGs into design concepts that target real-world sustainability problems with feedback from subject matter experts. Recommendations are then provided for supporting students’ experiential journeys when exploring sustainability objectives in the classroom by providing opportunities for variation and experimentation.
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    The dark side of digitalization and social media platform governance: a citizen engagement study
    (Emerald, 2023-01-09) McCarthy, Stephen; Rowan, Wendy; Mahony, Carolanne; Vergne, Antoine
    Purpose: Social media platforms are a pervasive technology that continues to define the modern world. While social media has brought many benefits to society in terms of connection and content sharing, numerous concerns remain for the governance of social media platforms going forward, including (but not limited to) the spread of misinformation, hate speech and online surveillance. However, the voice of citizens and other non-experts is often missing from such conversations in information systems literature, which has led to an alleged gap between research and the everyday life of citizens. Design/methodology/approach: The authors address this gap by presenting findings from 16 h of online dialog with 25 citizens on social media platform governance. The online dialog was undertaken as part of a worldwide consultation project called “We, the internet”, which sought to provide citizens with a voice on a range of topics such as “Digitalization and Me,” “My Data, Your Data, Our Data” and “A Strong Digital Public Sphere.” Five phases of thematic analysis were undertaken by the authors to code the corpus of qualitative data. Findings: Drawing on the Theory of Communicative Action, the authors discuss three dialogical processes critical to citizen discourse: lifeworld reasoning, rationalization and moral action. The findings point toward citizens’ perspectives of current and future issues associated with social media platform governance, including concerns around the multiplicity of digital identities, consent for vulnerable groups and transparency in content moderation. The findings also reveal citizens’ rationalization of the dilemmas faced in addressing these issues going forward, including tensions such as digital accountability vs data privacy, protection vs inclusion and algorithmic censorship vs free speech. Originality/value: Based on outcomes from this dialogical process, moral actions in the form of policy recommendations are proposed by citizens and for citizens. The authors find that tackling these dark sides of digitalization is something too important to be left to “Big Tech” and equally requires an understanding of citizens’ perspectives to ensure an informed and positive imprint for change.
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    The research method we need or deserve? A literature review of the design science research landscape
    (Association for Information Systems, 2022-04-27) Nagle, Tadhg; Doyle, Cathal; Alhassan, Ibrahim M.; Sammon, David
    Senior Scholars have made a concerted effort to help researchers adopt and top-ranked IS journals publish design science research (DSR). However, DSR continues to underperform, and the support that Senior Scholars have provided to it in editorials and exemplars has created both confusion and clarity. In this study, we report on a descriptive literature review that we conducted to bring empirical context and insight to the many discussions that Senior Scholars have had on presenting, implementing, and contributing to DSR. In particular, we reviewed 111 papers in the AIS Senior Scholars’ basket of eight journals and found significant transparency issues that have led to methodological slurring. We also found that, while DSR has produced research with a strong focus on utility and usefulness, it has done so through generalized problems and solutions and, thus, overlooked the messy complexity of real IS problems and the actual use of proposed solutions. Finally, we found little evidence to support theory obsession in DSR, a topic of concern for the wider IS research community.
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    Building consumer trust in the cloud: an experimental analysis of the cloud trust label approach
    (Springer, 2019-04-24) van der Werff, Lisa; Fox, Grace; Masevic, Ieva; Emeakaroha, Vincent C.; Morrison, John P.; Lynn, Theo; Enterprise Ireland; IDA Ireland
    The lack of transparency surrounding cloud service provision makes it difficult for consumers to make knowledge based purchasing decisions. As a result, consumer trust has become a major impediment to cloud computing adoption. Cloud Trust Labels represent a means of communicating relevant service and security information to potential customers on the cloud service provided, thereby facilitating informed decision making. This research investigates the potential of a Cloud Trust Label system to overcome the trust barrier. Specifically, it examines the impact of a Cloud Trust Label on consumer perceptions of a service and cloud service provider trustworthiness and trust in the cloud service and cloud service provider. An experimental study was carried out with a sample of 227 business decision makers with data collected before exposure to the label to examine initial perceptions and after exposure to the label to examine any change in perceptions and attitudes. As hypothesised, the results suggest that Cloud Trust Labels that contain positive information can have a positive impact on trust and trustworthiness while Cloud Trust Labels that contain negative information have a negative impact. The practical implications of this new method of communicating trustworthiness online are discussed and recommendations are made for future research.