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50 Years of The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems: Reflections of the Editor in the Middle
Abstract
This article offers a historical overview of the middle years of publishing The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems in the context of the evolution of the field of Management Information Systems. The journey of the editor-in-chief during these years is revealed, including the challenges and professional development achieved through journal editorship. The development of DATA BASE is contrasted with the complementary evolution of the MIS Quarterly. Possibilities for advancing DATA BASE into a socialmedia platform are explored.
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Budgets are shrinking in higher education, and greater financial accountability is simultaneously being demanded of universities. One of the consequences is that internal funding for research is more difficult to access than in years past. In such an environment, corporate sponsorship is an alternative that must be considered. In this article, we describe the forces compelling business schools to seek corporate sponsorship for research. Then, we discuss why some business faculty may perceive undesirable constraints in corporate-sponsored research. We also describe the challenges that researchers often need to address in order to secure corporate sponsorship and take full advantage of it. We conclude by describing some of the implications of this paradigm shift in research funding. When corporate funding is accessed and the relationship with the sponsoring organization is managed well, incentives are aligned among researchers, universities, and corporations. Benefits also include the development of new knowledge, solutions to real-world business problems, funding for researchers and universities, enhanced teaching, and a clear demonstration of the value of academic research.
Although business school enrollments have soared and business education has become big business, surprisingly little evaluation of the impact of business schools on either their graduates or (he profession of management exists. What data there are suggest that business schools are not very effective: Neither possessing an MBA degree nor grades earned in courses correlate with career success, results that question the effectiveness of schools in preparing their students. And. there is little evidence that business school research is influential on management practice, calling into question the professional relevance of management scholarship.
This study examines occupational stress among information systems personnel. A self-report stress and health behavior instrument was completed by 580 respondents in 18 large corporations in the midwestern and southwestern sections of the United States. The data indicate that various job factors are perceived as stressful by respondents. However, the stress levels reported by respondents are not as excessive as have been found in studies of other occupational groups.
Most managers spend half their time trying to get the information they need, whether it be informally through meetings, phone conversations, or reading, or formally through organizational computer-based information. During this process they have to sift through a great deal of useless information, a situation commonly referred to as "information overload" With the proliferating capabilities and plummeting cost of computers, it seems relief should be in sight for weary executives. Unfortunately, most information systems-formal or informal- do not meet executive needs. Indeed, most new systems require extensive revision (after they are supposedly completed) to even partially fulfill needs. This is a terrible loss. Most systems are expensive enough to develop. They are even more expensive to revise. As the pace of business accelerates, decisions that could wait for weeks must now be made in days, hours, or even minutes. Failure to get executives the information they need in a timely manner can result in lost opportunities or in a problem not being solved in time. Increasingly, executives have little reaction time to make decisions on pricing, product introduction, resource allocation, media inquiries, response to competition, and mergers. They need access to information without waiting several weeks or months for a computer project. Why can't executives and system designers work together to more correctly anticipate and determine information requirements? In this article, four reasons information requirements are not met are discussed, and four straightforward solutions executives can use to solve this problem are offered.
Business schools are facing intense criticism for failing to impart useful skills, failing to prepare leaders, failing to instill norms of ethical behavior--and even failing to lead graduates to good corporate jobs. These criticisms come not just from students, employers, and the media but also from deans of some of America's most prestigious B schools. The root cause oftoday's crisis in management education, assert Warren G. Bennis and James O'Toole, is that business schools have adopted an inappropriate--and ultimately self-defeating--model of academic excellence. Instead of measuring themselves in terms of the competence of their graduates, or by how well their faculty members understand important drivers of business performance, they assess themselves almost solely by the rigor of their scientific research. This scientific model is predicated on the faulty assumption that business is an academic discipline like chemistry or geology when, in fact, business is a profession and business schools are professional schools--or should be. Business school deans may claim that their schools remain focused on practice, but they nevertheless hire and promote research-oriented professors who haven't spent time working in companies and are more comfortable teaching methodology than messy, multidisciplinary issues--the very stuff of management. The authors don't advocate a return to the days when business schools were glorified trade schools. But to regain relevancy, they say, business schools must rediscover the practice of business and find a way to balance the dual mission of educating practitioners and creating knowledge through research.
Making business school research more relevant
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