Editorial: Researchers and the stakeholder's perspective

In this editorial, I wish to broach a sensitive topic that relates to all IS research, yet is seldom explicitly discussed. When researchers formulate research questions, design research investigations, discuss findings and consider contributions, they also identify the perspective of the (usually) one key stakeholder, whose interests they are prioritizing. This key stakeholder is the entity for whom the research has most value, while the perspective also relates to the specific interest that the key stakeholder is likely to obtain from the research (cf. Clarke, 2015). For instance, imagine a study designed to answer the questions 'How does social media contribute to knowledge sharing?' and 'What are the impacts of this social-media based knowledge sharing on organisational performance?'. Data about the use of social media and the knowledge sharing process will need to be collected, as will measures of organizational performance. Although individual knowledge workers may undertake the work, supported by social media, the real impact of the study is likely to focus on organizational performance. Here, it is the organization whose interests are prioritized and whose perspective is central to the research. The researcher will design the research in such a way that the organization's perspective is emphasized. Moreover, the specific organizational interests that are in focus are likely to be economic in nature, since we are considering performance measures. However, the interests of other stakeholders who may benefit from the shared knowledge, such as employees or customers, are neglected even though their perspectives are in principle neither less interesting nor less valuable. As researchers, we investigate topics related to information systems in a wide variety of contexts, notably those that involve organizations. My summative sense of IS research that focuses on the interests of organizational stakeholders is that there is a strong tendency for researchers to privilege an economic perspective. What this means is that our research questions and objectives are often formulated in such a way that they identify the economic benefits that may accrue to the organization as a result of the application of information systems. Although there is nothing wrong, in principle, with such an approach to IS research, I suggest that there are other, equally valid perspectives and stakeholders. For instance, IS research does not have to be restricted to the economic benefits associated with the application of IS. It could also involve benefits or impacts at the social or environmental levels, and it could involve non-corporate stakeholders such as individual employees, consumers, citizens or tourists, work groups and teams, ecosystems and even the planet. For instance, I would hope that Green IS research could consider the benefits of IS deployment for the planet, yet very often Green IS appears to be driven by what is good for organizations and how they can leverage IS to enhance their profit margins and competitiveness. Equally, it would be good to see studies of how IS can benefit not only businesses and individual consumers but also communities at the village level. For instance, I am aware of studies that examine the social and cultural impact of e-commerce in a village in Sarawak, Malaysia (Tarawe & Harris, 2007); IS for development in a Tzeltal community in Chiapas, Mexico (Gomez, Lefthand-Begay, Berwick, Zubair, Iribe, & Mora, 2017); social media in rural Dayak communities in Kalimantan, Indonesia (Raihani, 2014); and mobile information kiosks in Liberia (Smyth, Etherton, & Best, 2010), but these studies are few and far between and seldom reported in our top tier journals. The apparent subservience to the economic benefits that are of value to organizations, and the consequent neglect of social or cultural benefits for other stakeholders, is troubling, but perhaps not surprising. One possible explanation of the phenomenon may have much to do with the positioning of the researchers who engage in IS research. Those who are located in Colleges/Faculties/Schools of Information/Computer Science/Design/Media may be inclined to examine more fundamental issues, such as those that have led to the establishment of Human Computer Interaction and Design Science; those in the Social Sciences or Humanities may develop a discrete focus that privileges a sociological or ethnographic perspective of IS; and those in Business/Management/Economics may be naturally oriented (or coerced) towards a business, management or organizational perspective. Indeed our research is sometimes funded by granting agencies that may place a premium on the creation of economic value for identifiable stakeholders, normally in organizations. Research is also funded by organizations themselves, both directly, in such forms as commissioned research and block grants, but also indirectly, in such forms as sponsorship for posts and events, student placements and projects, prizes, etc. My intention in this editorial is to open our collective eyes to what I see as a rather too exclusive focus on issues that are central to organizations, to encourage researchers to recognize the existence of other stakeholders and on occasion to adopt the perspectives of those other stakeholders when conceiving, designing, conducting and reporting on research. The relevance of the substantive ideas in this editorial to this issue of the ISJ is that the papers it contains represent a microcosm of the discipline. Most of them have the mainstream, strong commitment to the economic dimension and the interests of organizations. One, however, which appears second, emphasizes the social dimension, with the individuals whom it studied motivated by the interests of the environment. In the first of the seven papers in this issue, Carugati, Fernández, Mola, & Rossignoli (2018) investigate the dynamics of mandated IT in networks of organizations. Through the lens of institutional theory, the authors present an organizational transformation process that altered perceptions of the technology and resolved tensions among the proponents and users of the mandated system. The authors suggest a path of IT adoption in which the technology becomes the reification of a bi-directional discourse about the transformation of practices across the networked organization. The authors also show the importance of a process of dynamic evolution that balances the often-competing needs of maintaining extant institutional and social contracts and achieving efficiency and transparency gains. In the second paper, Tim, Pan, Bahri, & Fauzi (2018) explore the emerging use of social media in enabling grassroots movements with an environmental focus. The authors draw on an in-depth case study in rural Malaysia, where grassroots activists actualize social media to realize a nationwide environmental movement in opposition to a rare earth processing project. This long-running social media-enabled initiative illustrates the unique affordances of social media in supporting grassroots-initiated collective actions. More intriguingly, the authors also shed light on an underexplored side of technology use. Through an analysis of their rich data, they identify a set of unintended consequences that arise from the increasing use of social media. Overall, the findings from this study not only extend our understanding on the uses of social media in supporting collective environmental efforts but also simultaneously illuminate our understanding of the potentially paradoxical roles of social media in influencing community-driven actions. In the third paper, Peppard (2018) focuses on the IS organization, one of the core concepts for the IS discipline, though it has been labelled in a variety of different ways over the decades (e.g. Data Processing Department, Computer Services, IT Function). Whatever its label, scholars have used the concept both as a dependent and as an independent variable in their research, as well as a phenomenon that is studied directly. In this article, Peppard presents an in-depth, critical analysis of 50 years of scholarly work, examining the use of the concept in the literature. He makes some startling findings that have implications for interpreting the conclusions, contributions and implications reported in these articles and the subsequent theory development from this body of work. In the fourth paper, Havakhor, Soror, & Sabherwal (2018) seek to enhance our understanding of the impacts of social media platforms on knowledge diffusion in organizations. More specifically, the authors use agent-based modelling to understand how objectivity of reputation signals and distribution of knowledge roles (seekers, contributors and brokers) in such platforms interact to diffuse knowledge. The results unveil the importance of brokers, especially when reputation signals depend less on interpersonal knowledge exchange. Moreover, the findings show that the presence of knowledge seekers, but not contributors, can offset the negative impacts of brokers' departure. Implications for organizational platform designers and managers are discussed. In the fifth paper, Hekkala, Stein, & Rossi (2018) undertake a longitudinal study to examine the metaphors used by project team members (users, software developers and managers) in a public sector information systems development project. The findings indicate that project team members and managers use a rich and distinct set of metaphors to make sense of the project and the records management system they are working on. They contend that metaphors have significant power in sense-making, influencing action and project outcomes. In particular, they find that in highly ambiguous, knowledge-intensive situations, metaphor use with unclear intentions and purpose hinders learning and creates more chaos than order. From a practical perspective, the study highlights the relevance of metaphor use for project management. In the sixth paper, Hassan & Mathiassen (2018) highlight a major gap in the intellectual structure of the IS field that contributes to its fragmented state, namely, the missing 'body of knowledge' that is taken for granted in other established fields of study. Having a distinguishable body of knowledge is not only practically useful for teaching, training and recruitment purposes, but it also represents a jurisdictional and authoritative claim on behalf of the members of the IS community that its many years of work have produced, despite rapidly changing technology, a unique stock of knowledge that has contributed to the general stock of knowledge. The article systematically distills this body of knowledge for the subfield of ISD based on the most significant works published in the IS field and should be useful for future research and professionalization of the field. In the seventh paper, Kock & Hadaya (2018) consider one of the most fundamental issues in partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), i.e. that of minimum sample size estimation. The '10-times rule' has long been a favourite due to its simplicity of application, even though it tends to yield grossly imprecise estimates. This article proposes two related methods, based on mathematical equations, as alternatives for minimum sample size estimation in PLS-SEM: the inverse square root method and the gamma-exponential method. Both methods are shown to be fairly accurate, with the inverse square root method being particularly attractive due to its ease of application. I would like to thank Roger Clarke, Monideepa Tarafdar, Jonas Hedman, Stefan Heningsson and Christoph Schneider for stimulating feedback associated with the ideas set out in this editorial.