This document is at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/ICEC06-ABC.html
Introduction
The International Conference in Electronic Commerce (ICEC) featured a
half-day Industry-Academia Brokerage Session, organised by the McMaster
e-Business Research Center (MeRC). The purpose of the Session was to bridge
the gap between the kinds of research conducted at universities, and the
practical requirements of business and industry.
The panellists were from diverse backgrounds:
Matthew Ivis, Government Programs Manager for IBM, focussing on B2B
My brief contribution to the panel started by recognising that Business and
Academe mostly just pass one another by. We can leave it that way, or we can
do something about it.
To do something about any gap, both sides need to suspend their doubts about
one another, and get inside one another's skins. As a self-employed
consultant, and dilettante academic, I live on both sides. So here goes:
What Does Academe Thinks Academe Does?
Develops Deep Knowledge
Accumulates Knowledge
by basing research designs on current Theory
by extending current Theory
Avoids Bias through Rigour
Researches things that are Empirically Researchable
Gets Rewarded for Publications whose Rigour has been Confirmed
What Would Business Like Academe To Do?
Address Current Topics, whether or not Empirically Researchable
Focus on Instrumentalist Research (cf. Applied, and Pure)
Help Innovation
Balance Relevance against Rigour
Get Rewarded for Work whose Relevance has been Confirmed
What are the Bridges?
Interact - to convert misunderstanding to appreciation
Resource - to encourage business-relevant research
Reward - to compete with conventional academic rewards
in the B2C sphere, self-regulation demonstrably doesn't work (and was
never, ever going to work - wolves self-regulate for the good of the wolves,
not the sheep). We need policy-relevant research that will put to rest the
nonsense of the last couple of decades that has seen parliaments abrogate their
responsibilities under the pretence that the 'invisible hand' (a) exists, and
(b) works
in G2C / eGovernment, services are coming a poor second to cost-transfer
and social control. We need policy-relevant research that will identify
citizen segments who are ill-served by e-this-and-that, that will put some
flesh on the various digital divides, and that will document what citizens'
relationships with governments used to be, and what they are now
the computing and information sciences don't do policy. Various social
sciences do. My own discipline of information systems (MIS in IS terms) is
still scared of 'policy', because it involves 'normative' rather than merely
descriptive, explanatory and predictive models; and it demands the recognition
of competing 'values' and the relativity of data, rather than blithe
assumptions that truth exists and everything is capable of Pareto-optimal
solutions. IS is increasingly falling short of being 'business-relevant', and
it lacks the self-confidence to even try to be policy-relevant
eBusiness research is genuinely difficult, because the phenomena change to
rapidly, misinformation abounds, and we know so little about even longstanding
cultures let alone the new ones that keep coming and going
key issues in the policy area include:
getting the scope of stakeholder analysis broad enough
facing up to the responsibilities we have in relation to the deployment of
powerful, culture-changing technologies, and accepting that social impact
assessment is a fundamental requirement of all eBusiness research and
development
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