[Assistant Professor Job] We’re recruiting again!

Having successfully just recruited two amazing new Assistant Professors to the Information Systems and Innovation Group here at the LSE we are seeking a third person to join! The advert is below but feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions! Also you’ll get to work in our brand new building above!

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DGO930/assistant-professor-in-management-information-systems-and-innovation

LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university For this post, we particularly welcome applications from women and people from minority ethnic groups.  

Salary is competitive with Departments at our peer institutions worldwide.

Salary is no less than £61,466 per annum, the salary scale can be found on the LSE website
In addition this post will attract a significant market salary supplement which reflects current market conditions.

The Department of Management plays a central role in the LSE, a global, single-faculty, social science university located in the heart of London. The Department is organised into faculty groups of information systems and innovation; employment relations and human resource management; operations management; managerial economics and strategy; organisational behaviour; and marketing. The Department’s faculty are engaged in research and scholarly activity within their faculty groups and across LSE in research centres such as the Data Science Institute and other interdisciplinary institutes. The Department’s degree portfolio includes the BSc Management, a two-year Master’s in Management, and a number of specialist one-year Master’s programmes, including the MSc Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation (MISDI). 

The Department of Management at LSE seeks to hire an outstanding Assistant Professor belonging to the Information Systems and Innovation (ISI) group. The post holder will contribute to the intellectual life of the School by conducting and publishing outstanding quality research, engaging in high quality teaching as instructed by the Head of Department, and participating in School and Department activities. 
In recruiting for this position, the LSE intends to build on the ISI group’s distinctive socio-technical approach to research and education by adding depth specifically in emerging digital innovations. All members of ISI faculty are expected to contribute to our flagship degree, MSc MISDI. We will prioritise applications that show good understanding of our teaching programme and research tradition. 
Successful applicants will have a PhD or be close to completing a PhD by the end of 2024 in a social science discipline and/or an interdisciplinary field relevant to Management (Information Systems and Innovation). A track record of internationally excellent publications, or a trajectory for achieving this, as well as a well-developed strategy for future outstanding socio-technical research in information systems and innovation that has the potential to result in world-leading publications is essential. We also require a demonstrable ability to teach on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. 

The other criteria that will be used when shortlisting for this post can be found on the person specification attached to this vacancy on LSE’s online recruitment system.

In addition to a competitive salary the rewards that come with this job include an occupational pension scheme, research incentive scheme with personal reward options, generous research leave (sabbatical) entitlement, collegial faculty environment and excellent training and development opportunities. 

For queries about the role contact: dom.facultyaffairs@lse.ac.uk
The closing date for receipt of applications is Sunday 26 May 2024 (23.59 GMT). We are unable to accept any late applications.

New Publication – Research Policy: The role of Web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems.

I’m happy to share that our paper “The value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems: The case of the online travel ecosystem” co-authored with Roser Pujadas and Erika Valderrama has been published in Research Policy. It is available free from here (open access). The paper examines the role of interfaces (specifically APIs) within digital ecosystems.

Pujadas, R., Valderrama, E., & Venters, W. (2024). The value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems: The case of the online travel ecosystem. Research Policy, 53(2), 104931. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931

– We show a dynamic ecosystem where decentralized interfaces enable decentralized governance.

– We show Web APIs are easily replicated and so switching costs are relatively low. Thus, they do not easily lock-in complementors.

– We show Web APIs create synergistic interdependencies between ecosystem actors which are not only cooperative.

– We show Web APIs create networks of interorganizational systems through which services are co-produced.

– We show Web APIs are important sources of value creation and capture in digital innovation ecosystems.

We do all this through an analysis of 26 years of the online hotel booking ecosystem (1995-2021). Within the paper we present network analysis which reveals the complexity of actors involved in booking a hotel room today – see the following image for evidence of how complex this hotel booking ecosystem has become!

Some random choice quotes from the discussion section:

“Our research uncovers the distinctive structuring role and economic value of web APIs within a digital innovation ecosystem that is decentralized, and not organized around a platform technology as the focal value proposition”

“uncovers a dynamic and competitive digital ecosystem, where web APIs are not centrally controlled, and they are not only developed by incumbents, but also by new entrants offering new services or reintermediating existing ones.

“the competitive advantage that interfaces provide to a platform or firm does not lie so much in the capacity to lock in complementors, nor even on data collection per se, but upon increasing the capacity to process and analyze data in real time, gaining valuable contextual insights within value-adding services, which can be directly monetized.”

The structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems

interfaces can structure directly competitive relationships within an ecosystem. For instance, by revealing, what we term, surreptitious interfacing through web scraping (e.g. by early metasearchers), we show how interfaces can be imposed upon another actor against their will. Jacobides et al. (2018 p. 2285) define an ecosystem as ‘a group of interacting firms that depend on each other’s activities’ –we might add to this: or exploit each other’s activities.

“our research shows an ecosystem without a single orchestrator, and where a wide range of interfaces are designed and controlled by a range of actors, in a highly decentralized manner. Our research thus contributes to ecosystem orchestration and governance theory.”

The strategic value of web APIs

Web APIs do not enable control over standards. As web APIs draw upon open shared web standards, parsing them is relatively simple and understandable, and they are agnostic to the systems they interface. This makes them relatively easy to imitate and adapt.”

Web APIs proved ineffective tools to lock in complementors and so to establish leadership. Once an actor uses a web API, the cost of connecting to a different web API that offers the same or similar service is low, thus potentially increasing the power of suppliers and customers (Porter, 2008).”

A “consequence of low specialization costs is that the cost of establishing connections with multiple firms is relatively low…our research provides evidence of large-scale multihoming in an ecosystem built around decentralized web APIs”  

“We see firms constantly adapting, changing their roles, and adding existing services by replicating web APIs, but also offering new web APIs over time. Together, this helps explain the dynamism, growth, and decentralized governance of the ecosystem”

Web APIs in value creation and capture within the digital economy

“web APIs are used by actors within a decentralized ecosystem to interface their information systems and so, to co-produce services and products…the value of web APIs is not only as a design rule…but also as a technology-in-use that enables the interaction of distributed systems.”

“…the value of web APIs is … in facilitating the production of meaningful data… attention should be focused on the exchange of information and integration of digital capabilities through web APIs, and on the real-time production of information and prediction that web APIs enable.”

“An indirect… form of value that web APIs enable is access to potential customers.”

The problem with Web APIs, AI and policy.

“We also reveal how data analytics and AI are becoming deeply embedded across such decentralized web API-based ecosystems. As AI can benefit from harvesting data from multiple sources so we expect it to become increasingly ingrained. This embedding will make it hard to research and trace AI’s impact within the digital economy– with policy implications for those regulating AI.”

Pujadas, R., Valderrama, E., & Venters, W. (2024). The value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems: The case of the online travel ecosystem. Research Policy, 53(2), 104931. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2023.104931

New research publication: Does proximity matter in cloud adoption?

I am pleased that my jointly authored paper that asks does proximity matter in cloud adoption? has now been published in the prestigious Journal of Information Technology.  

For researchers we develop an important proximity dimension to research on IT technology adoption with a focus on technologies which are assumed as remote or distant. We draw on the case of cloud computing to question existing assumptions.

For practitioners we show that those adopting cloud want a close interaction with cloud vendors, and so cloud cannot be as remote and ethereal as the metaphor implies. While it was assumed that cloud is purchased in a more impersonal and distant way and with minimal interaction between providers and purchasers, we show this not to be the case.  

Analyzing the experiences of over 50+ CIOs (or equivalent) across Europe, we explore the influence of the locational (where), relational (with whom) and temporal (when) dimensions of cloud adoption. Through our case evidence we show three types of proximity in cloud adoption: Organi-technical, Mercantile, Counsel proximity (see Table below).  

The influence of locational, relational and temporal dimensions on cloud adoption 

 Locational Relational Temporal 
Organi-technical Locationality of the servers and the data and their connection to the organisation. Relationship of the organisation with existing technology.  Retrospective and future projections of the nature of, and use of, cloud technology by the organisation. 
Mercantile Locationality of the sales team and customers.  Support in identifying and selecting the desired cloud service.  Retrospective and future projections of the collaboration with the vendor’s sales function. 
Counsel Locationality of expertise to assist with the decision making, and the availability of expertise once the cloud service is in use.  Access to trusted expertise and their ability to advise on the selection and future use of the cloud-services.  Retrospective and future projections of the technology’s capacity and vendor’s capacity to assist once the cloud service is in use. 

We show that during cloud adoption, organizations do not treat cloud as impersonal and location-independent by default. Consequentially, trust, mutual flexibility, value co-creation and risk-sharing between the organization and the vendor remain important areas for future research as the cloud ecosystem evolves and as further distributed technologies (e.g., IoT, blockchain etc.) are connected to an organization’s technological resources.  

For vendors, localized sales and support functions are beneficial within their marketing and sales efforts. The location of data is significant. Closer vendor-IT department relationships and sales support alongside a broader ecosystem of consultancies and sales agents help adoption. Vendors’ presence at local events enhances their potential to establish a relationship with a future customer. Local vendors can benefit from promoting their presence and locational relevance to future customers (e.g., alignment with local legislation), whereas international vendors may consider opening local branches or forming alliances with companies (e.g., consultancies) in locations with a large potential client base. Further, our findings on temporal proximity highlight the need for vendors to assist adopters in evaluating their product in relation to their existing technology and their projected future intentions (and the cloud technology’s future innovation).  

The research is available FREE and open access here:  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02683962231186161

Full abstract from the journal: 

We show that proximity is significant during cloud computing’s adoption. This is counter to the prevailing assumptions of cloud adoption as being more impersonal and distant, with less interaction between provider and purchaser than on-premise technologies. We do this through an interpretive study of cloud computing adopters across Europe. We develop a conceptual framework of cloud proximity which draws attention to its locational, relational and temporal proximal dimensions. Our proximal analysis leads us to identify three aspects of cloud adoption where proximity plays a key role: mercantile aspect (e.g., cloud sales support), counsel aspect (e.g., access to internal and external expertise) and organi-technical aspect (e.g., the understanding of cloud technology and services alongside their organizational adoption context). By challenging assumptions of distant and remote adoption, we contribute to the cloud computing adoption research and raise questions for IT adoption in general. 

LSE is recruiting for assistant professor in Information Systems.

Come join our amazing group of information systems faculty!

https://jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/2843/0/401980/15539/assistant-professor-in-management-information-systems-and-innovation

LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university

For this post, we particularly welcome applications from women and people from minority ethnic groups.

Department of Management

Assistant Professor in Management

(Information Systems and Innovation)

Salary is competitive with Departments at our peer institutions worldwide.

Salary is no less than £61,466 per annum, the salary scale can be found on the LSE website

In addition this post will attract a significant market salary supplement which reflects current market conditions.

The Department of Management plays a central role in the LSE, a global, single-faculty, social science university located in the heart of London. The Department is organised into faculty groups of information systems and innovation; employment relations and human resource management; operations management; managerial economics and strategy; organisational behaviour; and marketing. The Department’s faculty are engaged in research and scholarly activity within their faculty groups and across LSE in research centres such as the Data Science Institute and other interdisciplinary institutes. The Department’s degree portfolio includes the BSc Management, a two-year Master’s in Management, and a number of specialist one-year Master’s programmes, including the MSc Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation (MISDI).

The Department of Management at LSE seeks to hire an outstanding Assistant Professor belonging to the Information Systems and Innovation (ISI) group. The post holder will contribute to the intellectual life of the School by conducting and publishing outstanding quality research, engaging in high quality teaching as instructed by the Head of Department, and participating in School and Department activities.

In recruiting for this position, the LSE intends to build on the ISI group’s distinctive socio-technical approach to research and education by adding depth specifically in emerging digital innovations. All members of ISI faculty are expected to contribute to our flagship degree, MSc MISDI. We will prioritise applications that show good understanding of our teaching programme and research tradition.

Successful applicants will have a PhD or be close to completing a PhD by the post start date in a social science discipline and/or an interdisciplinary field relevant to Management (Information Systems and Innovation).  A track record of internationally excellent publications, or a trajectory for achieving this, as well as a well-developed strategy for future outstanding research that has the potential to result in world-leading publications is essential. We also require a demonstrable ability to teach on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in management.

The other criteria that will be used when shortlisting for this post can be found on the person specification attached to this vacancy on LSE’s online recruitment system.

In addition to a competitive salary the rewards that come with this job include an occupational pension scheme, research incentive scheme with personal reward options, generous research leave (sabbatical) entitlement, collegial faculty environment and excellent support, training, and development.

For further information about the post, including shortlisting criteria, please see the how to apply documentjob description and the person specification.

To apply for this post, please go to www.jobs.lse.ac.ukIf you have any technical queries with applying on the online system, please use the “contact us” links at the bottom of the LSE Jobs page. For queries about the role contact: dom.facultyaffairs@lse.ac.uk

The closing date for receipt of applications is 25 September 2023 (23.59 UK time). We are unable to accept any late applications.

[Academic Call]: AI and the Artificialities of Intelligence.

I am really excited to be a co-chair of the following academic workshop at ESSEC & Université Paris Dauphine-PSL. Please join us if you can!

AI and the Artificialities of Intelligence: What matters in and for organizing?

Call for papers 14th Organizations, Artifacts & Practices (OAP) Workshop #OAP2024

When: June 6th and 7th 2024

Where: Paris (ESSEC & Université Paris Dauphine-PSL). Face-to-face event.

Co-chairs:

Ella Hafermalz (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)  François-Xavier de Vaujany (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL)    Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte (CNRS, LEM, IESEG, Univ. Lille)
Julien Malaurent (ESSEC)Will Venters (LSE)Youngjin Yoo (Case Western University)

This 14th OAP workshop jointly organized by Université Paris Dauphine-PSL (DRM), ESSEC and ESSEC Metalab will be an opportunity to come back to the issue of Artificial Intelligence and its relationship with the history, philosophy and politics of management and organization.

Artificial Intelligence now pervades discussions about the future of organizations and societies. AI is expected to bring deep changes in work practices and our ways of living. Utopian and dystopian narratives are abundant. However, AI is far from being a fleeting trend; rather, it constitutes a collection of techniques with a rich history dating back to the 1950s. AI serves as a broad framework deeply intertwined with ideals of rationalism and representationalism – much like the broader digital landscape it epitomizes. The aspiration in the realm of AI is that self-sufficient techniques will progressively and continuously enhance our comprehension of the world. By means of rules and the use of massive amounts of data, it is expected that learning capabilities make AI tools more and more likely to expose and elucidate the underlying realities of the processes they initially are designed to represent. Increasingly, AI transcends its role as a ‘unraveller’ of complexity in the present. It discloses our future, what will happen in the next seconds, days, month, years or centuries. It arguably encompasses the entirety of our potential futures.

As well as having a certain hold on our future(s), these powerful tools are impacting how we think. Our cognition and understanding of the world are dramatically extended, amplified, revolutionized, but also individualized, siloed, and cut off from traditional social processes of interaction and sensemaking. In this vein, the gap between our ways of acting (in an embodied way) and our ways of thinking, grows. The dualism at the heart of representationalism, although more and more visual, narrative and corporeal, become central and even foundational. Part of our cognition – and our social practice of gaining and sharing knowledge – is delegated to AI.

These artificialities of intelligence (in particular collective intelligence), will be at the heart of this 14th OAP workshop in Paris. Behind and beyond AI as a set of codes, norms, standards, and massive use of data, our intelligence is more and more artificialized. Our collective intelligence relies on a representationalist philosophy which starts from a problem (a request) submitted to Bard or Chat GPT, generative AI tools, offering then a relevant narrative likely to answer brilliantly and confidently. Co-problematization, inquiry, concerns, openness, in short, life, are not at all part of this equation. This artificial organizing process will be central in  our discussions.

In particular, we welcome abstracts likely to cover the following topics:

  • Artificialities of intelligence as organization and organizationality;
  • Historical perspectives on digitality and AI;
  • Historical perspectives on calculative techniques, cybernetics, AI and digitality in general, in relationship with management and organizationality;
  • Revisiting and problematizing traditional assumptions about knowledge sharing and communities of practice;
  • Ethnographies, collaborative ethnographies and auto-ethnographies about AI in organizations ;
  • Pragmatist inquiries about collective intelligence;
  • Critiques of cognitivism in organization studies and management, e.g., strategic management, accounting, marketing, logistics and MIS;
  • Explorations of the relationships between new managerial techniques and AI;
  • Temporal and spatial views about AI and artificialities of intelligence;
  • Phenomenological and post-phenomenological perspectives about AI in organizations;
  • Process perspectives on the artificiality of intelligence;
  • Critical views of AI and the artificialities of intelligence;
  • AI and the metamorphosis of scientific practices;
  • AI the dynamic of scientific communities and scientific paradigms;
  • AI and its political dimension in organizations.

Of course, our event will also be opened to more traditional OAP ontological discussions around the time, space, place and materiality of organizing in a digital era, e.g., papers discussing ontologies, sociomateriality, affordances, spacing, emplacement, atmosphere, events, becoming, practices, flows, moments, existentiality, verticality, instants in the context of our digital world.

Please note that OAP 2024 will include a pre-event, the Dauphine Philosophy Workshop also hosted by University Paris Dauphine-PSL on June 6th 2024 and entitled: “Beyond judgement and legitimation: reconceptualizing the ontology of institutional dynamics in MOS”.

Those interested in our pre-OAP event and our OAP workshop must submit an extended abstract of no more than 1,000 words to workshopoap@gmail.com. The abstract must outline the applicant’s proposed contribution to the workshop. The proposal must be in .doc/.docx/.rtf format and should contain the author’s/authors’ names as well as their institutional affiliations, email address(es), and postal address(es). Deadline for submissions will be February 3rd, 2024 (midnight CET).

Authors will be notified of the committee’s decision by February 28th, 2024.

Please note that OAP 2024 will take place only onsite this year.

There are no fees associated with attending this workshop.

Organizing committee: Hélène Bussy-Socrate (PSB), François-Xavier de Vaujany (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL, DRM), Albane Grandazzi (GEM), Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte (CNRS, LEM, IESEG, Univ. Lille), Sébastien Lorenzini (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL, DRM) and Julien Mallaurent (ESSEC).

REFERENCES

Aspray, W. (1994). The history of computing within the history of information technology. History and Technology, an International Journal, 11(1), 7-19.

Berente, N., Gu, B., Recker, J., & Santhanam, R. (2021). Managing artificial intelligence. MIS quarterly, 45(3).

Chia, R. (1995). From modern to postmodern organizational analysis. Organization studies, 16(4), 579-604.

Chia, R. (2002). Essai: Time, duration and simultaneity: Rethinking process and change in organizational analysis. Organization Studies, 23(6), 863-868.

Clemson, B. (1991). Cybernetics: A new management tool (Vol. 4). CRC Press.

de Vaujany, F. X., & Mitev, N. (2017). The post-Macy paradox, information management and organising: Good intentions and a road to hell?. Culture and Organization, 23(5), 379-407.

de Vaujany, FX. (2022). Apocalypse managériale, Paris : Les Belles Lettres.

Introna, L. D., & Introna, L. D. (1997). Management: and manus. Management, Information and Power: A narrative of the involved manager, 82-117.

Nascimento, A. M., da Cunha, M. A. V. C., de Souza Meirelles, F., Scornavacca Jr, E., & De Melo, V. V. (2018). A Literature Analysis of Research on Artificial Intelligence in Management Information System (MIS). In AMCIS.

Öztürk, D. (2021). What Does Artificial Intelligence Mean for Organizations? A Systematic Review of Organization Studies Research and a Way Forward. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Governance, Economics and Finance, Volume I, 265-289.

Pickering, A. (2002). Cybernetics and the mangle: Ashby, Beer and Pask. Social studies of science, 32(3), 413-437.

Lorino, P. (2018). Pragmatism and organization studies. Oxford University Press.

Simpson, B., & Revsbæk, L. (Eds.). (2022). Doing Process Research in Organizations: Noticing Differently. Oxford University Press.

Thompson, N. A., & Byrne, O. (2022). Imagining futures: Theorizing the practical knowledge of future-making. Organization Studies, 43(2), 247-268.

Vesa, M., & Tienari, J. (2022). Artificial intelligence and rationalized unaccountability: Ideology of the elites?. Organization, 29(6), 1133-1145.

Wagner, G., Lukyanenko, R., & Paré, G. (2022). Artificial intelligence and the conduct of literature reviews. Journal of Information Technology, 37(2), 209-226.

Yates, J. (1993). Control through communication: The rise of system in American management (Vol. 6). JHU Press.

Academic Colloquium: LSE Information Systems and Innovation Group

For the academics reading this blog it would be wonderful to see you at the following which the IRIS research project is sponsoring:

Research Colloquium on Digitalization and its Impacts

The Information Systems and Innovation Group within the Department of Management at the London School of Economics is pleased to announce a Colloquium on Digitalization and its Impacts which will be held on LSE campus in London on the 7th of June 2023. The Colloquium is an opportunity for IS researchers, at any level of experience and seniority, to discuss research related to key and emerging themes surrounding Digitalization in a constructive setting. 

The Colloquium will include research talks from noted IS scholars representing a range of different genres as well as discussions on the nature of Digitalization, and the opportunities and challenges it creates for business and society. 

Speakers include the following: 

Monideepa Tarafdar, University of Massachusetts Amherst 

Roberta Bernardi, University of Bristol 

Stefan Seidel, University of Cologne 

Philipp Hukal, Copenhagen Business School 

Emmanuelle Vaast, McGill University  

Full details of the agenda, as well as abstracts of the talks, will be provided closer to the date. 

The colloquium will be held in-person and we invite IS scholars to join us.  Attendance is free of charge (though attendees will have to cover their own travel and lodging costs). For administrative reasons, registration to the colloquium is required. Please click on the link below to complete your registration, no later than 31st May, 2023. 

 If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us at ISIGevent@gmail.com

We are looking forward to seeing you in June! 

Colloquium organizers:  

Chrisanthi Avgerou, Saonee Sarker, Susan Scott 

This event is sponsored by the EPSRC-funded project Interface Reasoning for Interacting Systems (IRIS) – EP/R006865/1. 

CIOs keen to drive consequential-innovation

A couple of weeks ago I chaired a Global CIO Institute conference, hosting a dinner, various talks, and round table discussions with CIOs.

What has struck me during all these interactions was the marked contrast between these CIOs at the coalface and the topics obsessed upon by LinkedIn/academic/journalistic style discussions. While CIOs are interested in topics like digital transformation, AI, robotics, data-lakes and lakehouses, the API-economy and the rise of ChatGPT (the usual LinkedIn fare) these were not what drove them. Their interest was much more on safely driving consequential innovation within their company’s line of business.

Of significant interest within this was the need to manage various forms of risk. Risk was not to be “avoided” – or as Robin Smith (CISO) at Aston Martin put it, we need to promote “positive risk taking” for innovation. All intervention generated risk. For some this manifested as needing guard-rails around IT innovation so creative and innovative staff were not constrained by the risk of a catastrophic failure. This was particularly true as low-code and citizen development expands. For CIOs, developing a culture of innovation demanded systems that allowed innovations to fail safely and elegantly.

Risk-taking behaviour within innovation was only one risk they face. Sobering conversations concerned external sources of risk and the need for business resilience in the face of pandemic, war, and cyber-security challenges. Any innovation in digital technology increases the potential surface-area that companies can be attacked through. This demands ever more sophisticated (and expensive) technical countermeasures but also cultural changes. While attention is driven towards the use of AI (like ChatGPT) for good, nefarious actors are thinking about how such tools might be used for ill. For example, attackers can use emails, telephone calls, and deep-fake video calls to sound, and even look, like a company’s CEO or top customer asking for help[1]. How can CIOs ensure their staff do not fall foul of these and various more technical scams? How can trust be established if identity is hard to prove? What happens when AI is applied to exploring possible attacks through Public APIs?

Also of significant concern was keeping-the-lights-on with their ever more demanding and heterogenous estate of products, platforms and systems. One speaker pointed out the following XKCD cartoon which captures this so well. The law of unintended consequences dominated many of their fears, particularly as organisations moved towards exploiting such new-technologies in various forms.  

 Source/: https://xkcd.com/2347/ (cc) XKCD with thanks).

What was clear, and remains clear, is that we need to have a view of the enterprise technology landscape that balances risk and reward. While commentators ignore the complexity of legacy infrastructure, burgeoning bloated cloud computing estates, and the risks involved in adding more complexity to these, those tasked with managing the enterprise IT estate cannot. 

These thoughts are obviously not scientific and are entirely anecdotal. The CIOs I met were often selected to attend, the conversations were steered by agenda etc. But they did remind me why CIOs are not as obsessed with ChatGPT as everyone might think.


[1] An executive from OKTA gave the example of this for Binance exec says scammers made a deep fake hologram of him • The Register

Header Image “Business Idea” by danielfoster437 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Recruitment: LSE Fellow in Management (Information Systems and Innovation)

Come join our group of Information Systems Researchers for a year: LSE Advert copied below.

LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university

Department of Management

LSE Fellow in Management (Information Systems and Innovation)

Salary from £36,647 to £44,140 pa inclusive with potential to progress to £47,456 pa inclusive of London allowance

This is a fixed term appointment for one year

The Department of Management at LSE seeks to appoint an outstanding candidate in the area of Management – Information Systems and Innovation. The department’s faculty and research strength is centred in Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, Information Systems and innovation, Managerial Economics and Strategy, Marketing, Organisational Behaviour and Operations Management. The department’s faculty members are engaged in research and scholarly activity across LSE, through research centres such as the Centre for Economic Performance, the Behavioural Research Lab, and interdisciplinary institutes.  The department’s own portfolio of degrees includes the BSc Management, one-year and two-year MSc in Management, and six specialist one-year MSc programmes. 

The post holder will contribute to the Department’s teaching (postgraduate and/or undergraduate) and research activities in the discipline of Management – Information Systems and Innovation.

The successful applicants must have completed or be very close to completing by the post start date, a PhD in the area of Management including Information Systems and Innovation or a discipline relevant to the post.  A developing research record in well recognised peer reviewed outlets, and a clear and viable strategy for future research in the field of Management – Information Systems and Innovation is essential; as is relevant teaching experience and excellent communication and presentation skills.

For further information about the post, please see the how to apply documentjob description and the person specification.

We offer an occupational pension scheme, generous annual leave and excellent training and development opportunities.


If you have any technical queries with applying on the online system, please use the “contact us” links at the bottom of the LSE Jobs page. Should you have any queries about the role, please email dom.facultyaffairs@lse.ac.uk.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 8 August 2021 (23.59 UK time). Regrettably, we are unable to accept any late applications.

An LSE Fellowship is intended to be an entry route to an academic career and is deemed by the School to be a career development position.  As such, applicants who have already been employed as a LSE Fellow for three years in total are not eligible to apply. If you have any queries about this please contact the HR Division.

I’m recruiting: Research officer in Information Systems and Innovation (IRIS Project)

We’re recruiting for the IRIS research team at the LSE!

Research Officer in Information Systems and Innovation (lse.ac.uk)

The post holder will work on the EPSRC funded project: Interface, Reasoning for Interacting Systems (IRIS). The IRIS project is a collaboration between University College London, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Queen Mary, University of London, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The successful candidate will manage all stages of the research process. This will include coordination of data gathering; research production; dissemination and communication of research findings; demonstrating the impact of the research; and contributing to applications for further research funding.  The post holder will co-author outputs for the projects and will likely co-author the academic papers.

Candidates should have expertise and research interests in Information Systems and Innovation.

A completed PhD, or close to obtaining a PhD, in Information Systems or a relevant related field by the post start date. Proven ability or potential to publish in internationally excellent publications; and experience in qualitative research method skills.

For further information about the post, please see the how to apply documentjob description and the person specification.

 If you have any technical queries with applying on the online system, please use the “contact us” links at the bottom of the LSE Jobs page. Should you have any queries about the role, please email W.Venters@lse.ac.uk  

The closing date for receipt of applications is 7 June 2021 (23.59 UK time). Regrettably, we are unable to accept any late applications.

DIIESL Seminar Series – Innovation in the interface economy – APIs, business value and ecosystems

DIIESL

Please join us for the next seminar in the DIIESL Seminar Series to be held online on Thursday 28th May 2021, details below.

DIIESL Seminar Series

Innovation in the interface economy – APIs, business values and ecosystems

Thursday 27th May 2021 

3.00 – 5.00pm (British Summer Time = GMT+1)

This is an online seminar, please click to register

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) arguably sit at the heart of innovating in this digital era. They allow the integration of cloud services, enable containerised applications (e.g. via Docker) to operate in new ways within Cloud environments, allow developers of all levels to innovate new services quickly and at low cost, and enable new business models such as product platforms and service ecosystems. For example, the explosion of AI technologies is, to a significant degree, enabled by APIs connecting cloud-based Machine Learning ‘Lego’ bricks to create ever new services at the point of need. In this way APIs are underpinning ‘combinatorial innovation’ (Yoo, Boland et al. 2012) of the modern cloud-based world.

Our third DIIESL seminar will bring together insights from academics working on Interfaces, APIs, modularity, and innovation.

Chairperson: Dr Will Venters, LSE

Speakers: 

Prof Nigel P MelvilleUniversity of Michigan, “Generating Business Value from Machine Interfaces: Models of Efficiency, Focus, & Transformation.

Dr Roser Pujadas, LSE, The role of interfaces in fostering digital ecosystems: A study of the online travel service ecosystem”.

Prof Hans Berends, KIN, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Innovation ecosystems and systems of use: the role of intermediary platforms and users in creating complementary value.

For abstracts and speaker bios and for more information about DIIESL’s forthcoming and past seminars, please visit www.diiesl.org

(Image by Denny Müller on Unsplash)