Title of the Talk 

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Design Theory Development in Information Technology

Speaker 

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Vijay Vaishnavi is Board of Advisors Professor of Computer Information Systems and Professor of Computer Science at Georgia State University. He has conducted research in efficient data structures and algorithms, software development, information integration and web mining, and design science research methods. His research has been funded by research agencies such as the National Science Foundation as well as by the industry. He has been a consultant to various companies and organizations including IBM, AT&T, and Bell Northern Research in the area of object-oriented modeling and management. He is a co-founder of Comsoft: Consortium for the Management of Emerging Software Technologies. He has published extensively in such journals as IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ACM Computing Surveys, MIS Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, SIAM Journal on Computing, Journal of Algorithms, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, Computer Graphics and Image Processing, and Communications of the ACM. He is the author of four books including, Design Science Research Methods and Patterns: Innovating Information and Communication Technology (Auerbach Publications). He is currently on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals including MIS Quarterly. Dr. Vaishnavi was elected to be an IEEE Fellow in 2002 for "contributions to the theory and practice of software development." In 2007, he was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award in Design Sciences (DESRIST 2007) for “making significant fundamental contributions in design science research through research, leadership and mentorship." Dr. Vaishnavi received his B.E. with Distinction in Electrical Engineering from J&K University (India), M.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, and Ph.D. from IIT Kanpur (1976). He was a postdoctoral fellow at McMaster University (Canada), 1977-79.

Abstract

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Theory is a vehicle for building knowledge so that it can be communicated, justified, and created cumulatively. Being a field of design science as against natural science or human science, information technology disciplines such as software engineering and information systems need to build their knowledge in the form of prescriptive design theories (DT) that provide functional requirements and methodological guidance for the construction of their artifacts. While the development of design theories would be beneficial for both research and practice, much of the effort of many design science research projects in information technology (DSRIT) is involved in refining kernel theories from other fields or developing empirical underpinnings for intuitively guided problem solutions. This effort is not often captured in prescriptive design theories as the DSRIT community currently understands them. The talk will review the current state of the art in DT development in information technology. It will, in particular, discuss the role of mid-level theories and the use of mid-level theory development methods from qualitative research.