My career as a teacher of information technology now spans twenty years, and my research interests have varied over that time. My research as falls into three subareas of the MIS field: Decision Support Systems (DSS), Economics of Information Systems, and Management of Information Systems. For specific citations of publications mentioned below, please see my vita.
Much of my research has been in the DSS area, specifically in the model management subarea. My best research, such as my 1994 Management Science paper with Waleed Muhanna, several papers in HICSS Proceedings, and, more recently, a paper in Decision Support Systems, has been in model management concerned with using computers to support models towards the goal of improved decision-making. My planned work in DSS will be in two general areas.
The first area will be concerned with document-based DSS, intended to support knowledge management initiatives. I have two recent papers in that area, published in AMCIS proceedings and in an edited book. Other manuscripts in the area are in preparation.
The second area of DSS research is the problem of integration. My Management Science paper gave an approach to solving the problem of model integration. My interest today is in generalizing that work to include database integration and the integration of processes within an organization. This work is just beginning, and I think it will be several years before I have any noteworthy output.
I have also studied the economics of computers, with papers appearing in Communications of the ACM and Journal of MIS as well as other outlets. I have studied such issues as economies of scale in computer hardware, rate of technological change in computer hardware, and transfer pricing for computer services. A manuscript is under preparation which looks at the wealth impact of ERP systems. Once that manuscript is finished, I intend to apply the same methodology to CRM systems.
My third area of research interest is management of information systems. There are two series of papers. The first series is with Arthur Gilbert and Sidne Ward on IS issues. These papers were inspired both by a series of articles on IS issues that appeared in MIS Quarterly and other outlets, and by my teaching of a course entitled "Management and Economics of Computers." The range of possible topics in that course is huge, and I use some of the results of these studies to justify to the students why I have chosen some of the particular topics we look into. Our methodology uses a sample survey/questionnaire rather than the highly labor-intensive Delphi method used by the MIS Quarterly articles. In these papers, we look at how CEOs and CIOs think about major information systems issues at their firms. We tie their ratings of importance of these issues with characteristics of their firms and characteristics of the respondents.
I use some of these papers in teaching my course "Management and Economics of Computers." In the very earliest lectures in the course, I have my students read one of the papers in this series, and I use the results reported in the paper to introduce the topics that will be covered for the remainder of the semester. The paper serves to inform my students that not only do I think these topics are important, but I can document that people their future employers also think those topics are important.
The second series is with Gary Klein and James Jiang and is concerned with IS personnel/projects. Our most recent article in this area just appeared in Information and Management.
Last updated on 16 October 2006.