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This article was downloaded by: [McMaster University] On: 19 December 2014, At: 18:26 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Global Information Technology Management Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ugit20 What Would Truly International IT Research Look Like? Paul S. Licker a a Oakland University, . Published online: 09 Sep 2014. To cite this article: Paul S. Licker (2011) What Would Truly International IT Research Look Like?, Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 14:3, 1-4, DOI: 10.1080/1097198X.2011.10856540 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1097198X.2011.10856540 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/ page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 1: What Would Truly International IT Research Look Like?

This article was downloaded by: [McMaster University]On: 19 December 2014, At: 18:26Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Global InformationTechnology ManagementPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ugit20

What Would Truly International ITResearch Look Like?Paul S. Lickera

a Oakland University, .Published online: 09 Sep 2014.

To cite this article: Paul S. Licker (2011) What Would Truly International IT ResearchLook Like?, Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 14:3, 1-4, DOI:10.1080/1097198X.2011.10856540

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1097198X.2011.10856540

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoeveras to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Anyopinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of theauthors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracyof the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verifiedwith primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and otherliabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: What Would Truly International IT Research Look Like?

Editor's Desk

Editorial Preface What Would Truly International IT Research Look Like?

Paul S. Licker, Oakland University, [email protected]

It is a cliche now to speak about globalization as though it were a standard element of business strategy and that almost anything involving movement of goods, people, cash, products or information across national boundaries constituted some aspect of "globalization." And it is hardly a cliche for readers of this journal that the internationalization of information systems both contributes to globalization as well as stands as a result of this globalization. In some regards, international IT is the poster child of globalization, since all of those previously mentioned aspects (goods, people, etc) are in fact components of informational IT. Nonetheless, on a practical level, "globalization" is definitely not precisely equal to international IT, despite our most earnest efforts to identify these two.

First, globalization is nothing new. Globalization is a characteristic of empire- building, after all, and throughout history most empires have been built on a model of propagating a central culture or ethnicity throughout a geographic region with little regard for local values or desires. The pharonic Egyptian, classical Greek and Roman, Chinese, Indian, Inca, Assyrian, Babylonian, Russian, Zulu, British, French, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, and American imperial powers were all accompanied by massive movements of goods, people, cash, products, and, yes, information, across former "national" boundaries. These movements were facilitated in most cases by technological advances in transport, information processing (such as language, writing and recording, and computational methods), and engineering -- the last primarily civil engineering (such as road building). Each empire created vast networks of trade routes but also facilitated and nurtured vast networks of the flow of talent towards the center and culture towards the periphery.

Second, international IT is often a commercial response to economic pressure, facilitated, of course, by technological advances such as networking, but no different

I in its essential nature from labor arbitrage. Just as employers seek to find the lowest cost labor (assuming that all costs enter the equation), so, too, do businesses seek the most efficient ways to create, store, access and process the information they need to succeed. The laws of economics do not fail us here; instead they lead us to natural conclusions that may predict what we are seeing in our field.

Third, international IT, while closely identified with globalization, is not a creature of that globalization; it would exist without any pressure for globalization. That is, there

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are other reasons for information to cross national boundaries. For instance, there are those national boundaries, which while acting often as fences, often do just the opposite and act as interfaces. Customs control, political activity, social and cultural exchanges and, unfortunately, warfare, necessitate the movement of information across these boundaries. It would be an odd world, indeed, if each culture or society were surrounded by a perfect information wall.

Finally, there is no single phenomenon called "international IT". The ways in which information moves across borders, the methods through which information is used across borders, and the results of the use of information across borders vary border- by-border and seemingly minute-by-minute. To unify the disparate concepts of offshoring, global e-commerce, global communication, integrated information processing and international standards under the heading "international IT" seriously oversimplifies what is happening. Facilitated not only by technological advances, but also tectonic shifts in culture, education, political institutions, and international cooperation, international IT does not just mean processing information across borders but includes how different countries or even cultures within countries apprehend their intellectual universes. Add to this the rapidly changing technology, which is characteristic of and a driver for all these changes and one can hardly put one's finger on anything resembling a fixed phenomenon. Last year's "international IT" is this year's quaint attempt to build odd systems; this year's globalization effort will be next year's "tentative first step" and so on.

In the face of these apparent conceptual problems relating international IT and globalization, how should those of us interested in research in this area approach the challenge of understanding what is happening? What might guide us in our research? What principles or frameworks would make this task easier or at least less likely to end up as navel gazing?

I propose the following principles to generate questions concerning globalization and international IT.

1. International IT is best understood by an international group of people. No one country has either the resources or the cultural "right" to a monopoly over a set of phenomena, especially one that has in its name the word "international". Any phenomenon crossing several countries must be studied across those countries.

International IT phenomena may look very different and fleeting, but we must assume that they reflect the results of an enduring set of causes. Just as each radioactive element decays differently, some extremely rapidly, so too will events

I that occur rapidly in our "radioactive" environment appear fleeting and mysterious. But such events must be driven by a set of knowable causes, not magic. Hence it is important that any studies of phenomena we want to call "international IT" be sensitive to, and able to factor out, superficial differences due to viewpoint, cultural bias, and political fashion.

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3. International IT, as a set of phenomena, is not merely technological in nature. Because, or maybe despite, of the informational nature of the deployment of the technology, international IT is about culture in all its forms. It is about human endeavor, rather than merely about technology. Hence any study of international IT cannot be culture-free, which means that all studies are tainted, to an extent, by cultural influences which must be carefully parsed. This implies that such studies are best conducted and reported by teams of individuals from multiple cultures.

4. On the other hand, these phenomena are technological and we should not forget that therefore we are talking about the use of tools. Tool use implies an understanding of task, goal, and environment within which the tool is being deployed (hence, again, culture is important), but it also implies understanding how people function with these tools, i.e., basic human factors. Because our modern tools are so powefil and so easy to use (well, perhaps easier for us in the research field than for those who struggle with multiple versions of poorly-taught software each year, but still easier than, say, twenty years ago), we tend to forget that we are actually putting forth effort to use them. These tools cost us in terms of time, effort, and emotion to master and they, as commercial products, tend to have life cycles that are not under the control of the users. So international IT also has to examine the use of technology in the hands of various kinds of people under a variety of economic, commercial and physical situations.

5. As with most IT research, we have to understand what is a persistent and stable phenomenon (such as a characteristic of a tool or a task) and what is just the result of momentary, typically introductory, circumstances. In short, we have to distinguish between what is going on in international IT and what is simply a result of having to learn something new or track something that is changing. A great deal of what we think of as "real" is simply a reflection of the fact that people are having to cope with change. Perhaps, as some cynics would think, everything is about change (could this be called the quantum view of research, where there are no phenomena, because to measure it is to change it?). Regardless of that extreme view, we must be aware of what is the change and what is the phenomenon. So studies that take place across time are to be preferred to studies that are simply snapshots.

So here are the principles: studies including many researchers, from many countries, in many places, across lengthy time spans, seen from multiple perspectives and involving multiple users. Consider the following potential examples:

a. A team of ten researchers, one from each of ten countries, each gathering data on the penetration of certain classes of software in their markets, across two or three years, where "penetration" is defined not merely as "the use of', but also takes into account how people use the software and their impressions of how they and others use it.

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Page 5: What Would Truly International IT Research Look Like?

Editor's Desk

b. A collaborative effort among a set of six academics to teach information '

technology principles collaboratively in six countries simultaneously, building teams of students, one per country, to work across the Internet, to produce, say, term papers documenting their impressions of the use of software tools by their colleagues in those countries, across multiple terms.

c. A panel discussion that continues across several years involving academics and industry IT users that produces regular transcripts of their thoughts on "the most important issues in IT". The panel consists of eight academics from eight different countries, each paired with one industry IT manager. The panel meets quarterly on the Internet and representatives of the panel report regularly at conferences such as the GlTMA world conference.

d. A multiple-country study of the life cycle of versions of popular productivity software or an ERP available in multiple languages. Panels meet regularly to discuss the use of the software and to report on changes they've observed in their own perspectives because of the software. The study is conducted by academics from five countries, but each academic directs the reporting from two additional countries.

e. A long-term study involving teams of researchers and industry representatives from countries that span the economic divide between developing and developed countries to document the adoption of specific technologies over time. Candidate technologies can include state-of-the-art convergent communicationlcomputation technologies as well as other technologies that may seem obsolete in the developed countries. Comparisons and analyses focus not only on how much use, but also what kinds of uses and how these relate, over time and across cultural boundaries, to changing economic and social situations. In this regard, phenomena that are "fleeting" in developed countries can be studied over longer periods of time across multiple countries.

These are simple examples involving long-term, multiple country (and culture) studies using multiple researchers and examination through multiple perspectives. It does no injury to the concept of globalization, but conversely is not so thoroughly enamored of the idea of globalization that it becomes blind to the distinction between what is truly global and what just appears large.

Paul S. Licker, Ph. D. has been a social scientist, information systems professional, software entrepreneur, communication consultant and university lecturer in Thailand, Britain, the USA, Canada, and South Africa. He has authored over eighty published research papers, three textbooks, two monographs, and numerous refereed and invited conference papers. Research interests include IT-user relations, user responsibility in IT and strategic deployment of Ii? He is Professor of MIS at Oakland University and President of the Global Information Technology Management Association.

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