Research in information systems: A study of diversity and inter-disciplinary discourse in the AIS basket journals between 1995 and 2011

The paper investigates how Information Systems (IS) has emerged as the product of inter-disciplinary discourses. The research aim in this study is to better understand diversity in IS research, and the extent to which the diversity of discourse expanded and contracted from 1995 to 2011. Methodologically, we apply a combined citations/co-citations analysis based on the eight Association for Information Systems basket journals and the 22 subject-field classification framework provided by the Association of Business Schools. Our findings suggest that IS is in a state of continuous interaction and competition with other disciplines. General Management was reduced from a dominant position as a reference discipline in IS at the expense of a growing variety of other discourses including Business Strategy, Marketing, and Ethics and Governance, among others. Over time, IS as a field moved from the periphery to a central position during its discursive formation. This supports the notion of IS as a fluid discipline dynamically embracing a diverse range of adjacent reference disciplines, while keeping a degree of continuing interaction with them. Understanding where IS is currently at allows us to better understand and propose fruitful avenues for its development in both academia and practice. © 2013 JIT Palgrave Macmillan All rights reserved.

The interaction of economic and pedagogical ideals in the context of workplace learning in Germany: a framework for empirical research – inspired by business ethics

As an effect of marketisation, the importance of workplace learning in Germany has increased. The article follows up on the long-standing discourse around the question of how economic and pedagogical ideals interact in this context. In order to develop a theoretical framework for empirical research, three major positions of the discipline of business ethics are introduced. Business ethics in more abstract ways deals with the very same question, namely how do ideas such as profit orientation interact with other norms and values? The new perspectives show that the discourse has been hitherto based on a specific understanding of economy. In order to derive an empirical answer to the research question, the question is re-formulated as follows: Which values are inherent in the decisions taken? Consequently, it suggests using the concept of ‘rationalities of justification’ for empirical research. The article shows how this concept can be applied by conducting a test run. (DIPF/Orig.)

Animals in international development: ethics, dilemmas and possibilities

This paper explores the role and perceptions of animals in international development efforts and the possible contradictions between differing priorities of agencies involved in international charitable efforts. Although there is a wide range of purposes for a charitable organization, as shown in the (England and Wales) Charities Act 2011 (c.25) and having one purpose does not preclude a second, organizations concerned with animal welfare are quite distinct from those working for poverty alleviation in the developing world (and indeed the developed world). A fun and novel gift of a donkey may equally be perceived as a cruel, environmentally unsustainable and misguided development effort, a valuable asset, or a burden to a household struggling to feed existing mouths. Exacerbating this situation is the fact that much of the debate around animals in a developing context is heavily polarized between livestock welfare, and animal rights, with a very limited middle ground. This chapter analyzes the underlying tensions between human development, animal welfare, and poverty alleviation, exploring cultural tensions, philosophical tensions and where areas of common ground may be found, with specific reference to development programming. The chapter is framed by contemporary debate on ethics and international development. International development interventions are driven by human welfare concerns, within the broader context of an increasingly globalized world economy. There is a danger in not engaging with ethical considerations with regard to animals and development , as there are potentially complex, interrelated and unintended outcomes. Such outcomes include rising inequality for those who depend on livestock for livelihoods in a business-as-usual scenario of increasing production and intensification; a focus on animal welfare in isolation, with potential accusations of forcing limitations on animal production on low income communities and countries;, and, finally, a moral debate surrounding the issue of whether it is reasonable to require animal welfare standards of people who live in poverty, as a pathway out of poverty. Discourse and practice needs to engage with how to link debate on international development with ethics of livestock production, beyond animal welfare, with global sustainability as core.

A fragmented discourse of religious leadership in France: Muslim youth between citizenship and radicalization

At a time when public debates about radicalization of Muslim youth in the West are taking center stage and when questions about “home-grown” security threats are increasing in the wake of a number of terrorist attacks in many émigré societies, this article provides fresh empirical insights from the perspective of religious leadership. It outlines a picture of a highly diverse Muslim religious landscape where competing religious discourses are struggling to attract and support Muslim youth facing social dislocation and identity crises within increasingly contested social milieus. The article argues that a typology of religious leadership is clearly emerging where a spectrum of faith-based orientations and religious practice emphasize, to different degrees, notions of attachment to universal ethics and individual agency. The fact that conservative, sometimes radical, interpretations of such contestations represent a minority of voices is heartening even though the actual damage by such minority is often disproportionate to its actual size within the so-called silent majority. The empirical insights provided by the religious leaders interviewed for this study offer hope that the future of Western Muslims is more positive than we are led to think, if the possibility of combining devout faith with local political engagement becomes a real and sustainable conduit towards social inclusion and intercultural understanding and if necessary support and understanding are extended by the host communities.

IT professionals' experience of ethics and its implications for IT education

This study investigates variation in IT professionals' experience of ethics with a view to enhancing their formation and support. This is explored through an examination of the experience of IT, IT professional ethics and IT professional ethics education. The study's principal contribution is the empirical study and description of IT professionals' experience of ethics. The empirical phase is preceded by a review of conceptions of IT and followed by an application of the findings to IT education. The study's empirical findings are based on 30 semi-structured interviews with IT professionals who represent a wide demographic, experience and IT sub-discipline range. Their experience of ethics is depicted as five citizenships: Citizenship of my world, Citizenship of the corporate world, Citizenship of a shared world, Citizenship of the client's world and Citizenship of the wider world. These signify an expanding awareness, which progressively accords rights to others and defines responsibility in terms of others. The empirical findings inform a Model of Ethical IT. This maps an IT professional space increasingly oriented towards others. Such a model provides a conceptual tool, available to prompt discussion and reflection, and which may be employed in pursuing formation aimed at experiential change. Its usefulness for the education of IT professionals with respect to ethics is explored. The research approach employed in this study is phenomenography. This method seeks to elicit and represent variation of experience. It understands experience as a relationship between a subject (IT professionals) and an object (ethics), and describes this relationship in terms of its foci and boundaries. The study's findings culminate in three observations, that change is indicated in the formation and support of IT professionals in: 1. IT professionals' experience of their discipline, moving towards a focus on information users; 2. IT professionals' experience of professional ethics, moving towards the adoption of other-centred attitudes; and 3. IT professionals' experience of professional development, moving towards an emphasis on a change in lived experience. Based on these results, employers, educators and professional bodies may want to evaluate how they approach professional formation and support, if they aim to promote a comprehensive awareness of ethics in IT professionals.

Being ethical : how process drama assists pre-service drama teachers to reflect on professional ethics

This research thesis focuses on the experiences of pre-service drama teachers and considers how process drama may assist them to reflect on key aspects of professional ethics such as mandatory codes or standards, principled moral reasoning, moral character, moral agency, and moral literacy. Research from higher education provides evidence that current pedagogical approaches used to prepare pre –professionals for practice in medicine, engineering, accountancy, business, psychology, counselling, nursing and education, rarely address the more holistic or affective dimensions of professional ethics such as moral character. Process drama, a form of educational drama, is a complex improvisational group experience that invites participants to create and assume roles, and select and manage symbols in order to create a fictional world exploring human experience. Many practitioners claim that process drama offers an aesthetic space to develop a deeper understanding of self and situations, expanding the participant’s consciousness and ways of knowing. However, little research has been conducted into the potential efficacy of process drama in professional ethics education for pre-professionals. This study utilizes practitioner research and case study to explore how process drama may contribute to the development of professional ethics education and pedagogy.