Promoting indigenous theory

In the information systems (IS) discipline, we routinely expect contributing authors to our premier journals to make significant contributions to both theory and practice. Theories are considered to be important for a number of reasons, including their facilitation of the systematic treatment of a topic, their sense-making potential, their explanation and prediction of some aspects of human behaviour, and their ability to abstract our knowledge to the most fundamental and universal ideas, thereby demonstrating underlying patterns and conceptual relationships. Lee and Baskerville (2003, 2012) suggest that theory plays a role in the generalisation of research findings, since findings from one study can be generalised to theory (either by creating a new theory or by modifying an existing theory) and a theory can be validated in a context different to the one where it was originally developed, thereby leading to further generalisation of the ideas. Theory should therefore be practical, helping us to advance knowledge, guiding researchers towards the essential questions, and ultimately enlightening both the academy and practice (Poole & Van de Ven, 1989). However, theory should also be appropriate to the context where it is applied if we are to reach an accurate understanding about the phenomenon investigated. An inappropriately applied theory could be very dangerous since the assumptions that frame the theory may not exist in a context different to the one where it was created. Although the benefits of theory are well recognised, the actual process of theorising is less well understood. Mathiassen's (2017) reinterpretation of Van de Ven's (2007) work on engaged scholarship to propose a model for theorising is a useful example, as is Martinsons, Davison, and Ou's (2015) process theory for theoretical development. Theorising often blends concepts culled from a thorough review of both the literature and the focal phenomenon in a specific context. Theoretical perspectives reflect the circumstances of a particular context. For instance, The Art of War, a military treatise attributed to Sun Tsu, was written in a time characterised by conflict between royal authority and local feudal lords in the years preceding the formation of Imperial China. Aristotelian thought, which laid the foundations of western civilisation, can be traced back to Plato's Academy. Caliph Al-Ma'mun, who had a great interest in astronomy, sponsored Al-Khwārizmī's prolific work on mathematics. Machiavelli's The Prince was inspired by the political intrigues affecting the Florentine Republic. These ideas did not develop in a vacuum; they flourished in a propitious environment. Their intrinsic significance for understanding our world, combined with historical processes, in which political influence, economic pressure, and military power played a role, contributed to their dissemination and adoption as part of accepted “universal” knowledge. However, this accepted “universal” knowledge often overwhelms and confines, if not silences, local expressions of knowledge. Nowadays, much theory development work is published in English as a result of research that has been undertaken in the more developed economies of the West, sometimes referred to as the global North. Despite the recognition of English as a lingua franca in the IS community, its dominance constitutes a menace to other ways of knowing. The reliance on one language may be just a symptom of a fundamental problem, since language “is more than communication … it constitutes a way of seeing the world” (Alves & Pozzebon, 2013, p. 630). Of the 104 theories (the vast majority published in English) listed on the IS Theory Wiki (https://is.theorizeit.org/), it is remarkable that when examining the authorship of the original book or article in which a specific theory appeared, 87 involved authors were based in the United States. Non-US authors hail from the United Kingdom (10), Hong Kong (3), The Netherlands (3), Australia (2), Canada, (2), France (2), and Germany (2) and 1 from each of the following: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Japan, New Zealand, and Norway. Not a single theory has an author from Africa, South or Central America, Asia (except the relatively developed economies of Japan and Hong Kong), or the Pacific Islands, ie, the less economically developed countries of the world, sometimes referred to as the Global South. The imbalance that is indicated by this pattern of theory development is startling. It appears that scholars in the less economically developed societies have made very few contributions in the English language to the development of original theory in IS. As a result, the rich cultural heritage of these societies is not represented in theories that would be available for corroboration, testing, and validation in other contexts. Further, researchers in developing economies rely to a large extent on the theories developed in the so-called developed world in what is best described as a form of unconscious hegemonic participation (Wall, Stahl, & Salam, 2015). This entails adopting or taking for granted a dominant theoretical ideology, ie, the superiority of Western-originated theories, at the same time neglecting their own indigenous concepts. In consequence, indigenous theories are not brought forward and published. The aura of respectability and credibility possessed by well-established academic circles dominated by Western theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches act as a hindrance to the development of indigenous theories. There are exceptions to the above tendency, though they are not easy to discern. For instance, the Chinese cultural concept of guanxi (together with allied terms such as renqing, mianzi, ganqing, huibao, and hexie) has been drawn on by a few IS scholars in their theorising (see, for instance, Martinsons, 2008; Ou, Pavlou, & Davison, 2014; Young, Kuo, & Myers, 2012). There is also a small number of studies of indigenous concepts in other societal cultures, including waqf (Arab), sanuk (Thai), hygge (Danish/Norwegian), sisu (Finnish), and jugaad (Indian) (Amin, Abdul-Rahman, Ramayah, & Supinah, 2014; Radjou, Prabhu, & Ahuja, 2011). Our interest to highlight the potential value associated with indigenous theorising is strongly connected with a call for papers for a special issue of the Information Systems Journal, focusing on the development of indigenous theory in IS. In this forthcoming special issue, we define indigenous theory as a theory of human behaviour or mind that is specific to a context or culture, not imported from other contexts/cultures and purposely designed for the people who live in that context or culture (cf. Kim & Berry, 1993). The word indigenous itself needs some unpacking, since it can be interpreted in different ways. Some would argue that indigenous people are those who were the first inhabitants of a place, sometimes called First Peoples. Examples might be the Inuit of Nunavut, in what is now Northern Canada, or the Kelabit of the island of Borneo (today's Malaysian Sarawak and Indonesian Kalimantan). Others would argue that indigenous can be applied more loosely and refers to any people who live in a particular location but with an emphasis on the local nature of the context. Our intention here is to be inclusive, recognising the validity of different interpretations of ethnic indigeneity. We argue that indigenous theory is important for several reasons. While some fundamental aspects of human behaviour (the need for shelter, food, and safety) may be universal, many other aspects involve culture to a greater or lesser degree. Since culture varies considerably across different geographical and social contexts, it is reasonable to assume that theoretical explanations of specific behaviours will also need to vary if they are to be accurate at the local level. An interesting example concerns the phenomenon of trust. Trust has been researched extensively in the literature, notably in the functional context of buying and selling on e-commerce platforms, but also in the context of knowledge sharing. It has been asserted, for instance, that trust is the single most important factor that determines the willingness to engage in knowledge exchange (Rolland & Chauvel, 2000). The fact that trust plays a central role in many e-commerce studies, since it is asserted that customers need to trust e-commerce sellers and platforms, hints at its hegemonic power here too. However, is trust as universally important as these assertions suggest? Could any other factor be equally or more important? In their work on buyer behaviour on Chinese e-commerce platforms, Ou et al. (2014) modelled the effect of guanxi, in addition to trust, and their respective impacts on buyer behaviour. Guanxi turned out to be a significant influence on buyer behaviour, challenging the earlier notion that trust is the universally single most important factor. Similarly, Davison, Ou, and Martinsons (2013) observed in their study of knowledge-sharing practices in Chinese professional service firms that guanxi is a critical enabler of knowledge-sharing behaviour. In the absence of guanxi, employees were extremely reluctant to engage in knowledge sharing. Having identified and theorised indigenous concepts, those same concepts become available for adoption and assessment in other societal cultures and contexts. While the romanised word guanxi refers to a Chinese concept, just as the word trust refers to an English concept, the extent to which a concept is limited to the societal context that informed its development is open to validation. A powerful justification for indigenous theorising is thus the opportunity not only to offer a better explanation of behaviour at the local or indigenous level but also to offer new explanations of behaviour globally. Thus, Sue-Chan and Dasborough (2006) noted, in their study of human resources decision making in Australia, that behaviours akin to guanxi are, perhaps surprisingly, prevalent there too. A further justification for indigenous theorising is the need to engage in research that can usefully inform practitioners. Given that the social contexts and the belief systems of professionals vary, it is important that we generate research findings appropriate to the context where they may be applied. For instance, given the Chinese reliance on guanxi, it is reasonable to expect that Chinese firms need to be sensitive to guanxi in their marketing efforts. A research study that involved the collection and analysis of data in China based on a non-Chinese theory and that failed to theorise and measure any Chinese constructs could hardly be expected to have much value for Chinese organisations: The findings would at best explain only that aspect of the phenomenon that overlapped with the non-Chinese theory. All the Chinese aspects would be absent. It should now be apparent that context is very much bound up with theory, for a theory can only be valuable so long as it is plausible or appropriate in a given context (Davison & Martinsons, 2016). In this special issue, we wish to champion the development of new theory that draws on indigenous cultural elements from specific contexts around the world. We emphasise that a new theoretical development need not be exclusively drawn from the contexts wherein the new theory is situated, since there are likely to be aspects of human behaviour with respect to technology that are universal. However, we are looking for substantively new theoretical developments that are anchored in specific contexts, rather than modifications to existing theory. The detailed call for papers is available on the ISJ website at this link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2575/homepage/special_issues.htm In this fifth issue of 2018, we present 8 papers. In the first paper, Kude, Lazic, Heinzl, and Neff (2018) explore the information technology (IT) governance capabilities that enable organisations to achieve IT-based synergies. The authors develop a contextualised resource-based view of IT-based synergies by drawing on extant work and on interviews with 26 chief information officers and other IT executives from multibusiness firms. The findings suggest that different IT governance capabilities lead to IT cost synergies and IT-based value synergies through increasing IT relatedness and business process relatedness. These insights contribute to a better understanding of effective IT governance capabilities and the potential trade-off between IT-based synergies and business-IT alignment. In the second paper, Thapa and Sein (2018) argue that the mere existence of affordances does not lead to achievement of desired outcomes. Affordances need to be perceived by a goal-oriented actor and then actualised. The actualisation of affordances requires facilitating conditions and arises in a socio-political context. On the basis of insights gathered from a case study of the Nepal Telemedicine Project (NTMP), the authors introduce the concept of a “Trajectory of Affordances,” which reveals the intricacies of affordances from identification to actualisation. The authors describe how goal-oriented actors identified 3 affordances of NTMP: virtual colocalisability, volunteeribility, and educability. The facilitating conditions in actualising the identified affordances were the social network of the actors that NTMP leveraged successfully, which in turn enabled them to bring quality health care to remote mountain villages in Nepal. In the third paper, Keil, Park, and Ramesh (2018) investigate the role of attributions, the seriousness of wrongdoing and emotion in shaping individuals' whistle-blowing intentions in the context of health information privacy violations. On the basis of 3 studies in which the intentionality of wrongdoing and the stability of wrongdoing were manipulated independently, the study found consistent evidence that the intentionality of wrongdoing affects anticipated regret about remaining silent. Interestingly, in the 3 studies, the seriousness of wrongdoing was found to affect whistle-blowing intentions, but this effect was mediated by anticipated regret about remaining silent. The findings regarding the impact of stability were mixed in the studies. In the fourth paper, Gaskin, Berente, Lyytinen, and Rose (2018) investigate the diverse ways in which software development organisations (SDOs) innovate. On the basis of an extensive review of innovation typologies, the authors develop a theory-driven typology of SDO innovator classes. They theorise about the driving forces behind these classes, with specific attention given to knowledge-based dispositions that relate to the SDO's knowledge-based competencies in technology appropriation, technology generation, and network intensity within ecological niches. They empirically verify that these classes also determine different ways that SDOs innovate around software services they provide to their clients. Their findings suggest that the knowledge-based dispositions of different SDO innovator classes impact how they innovate. In the fifth paper, Althuizen (2018) analyses the well-known technology acceptance models (technology acceptance model/unified theory of acceptance and use of technology) from a fresh perspective: finite mixture partial least squares. The results reveal distinct segments of intended users of a newly implemented sales force automation technology based on observed differences in the estimated model parameters across individuals, as well as differences in user profiles across segments. The findings have implications for determining the most effective, segment-specific levers to stimulate the acceptance and use of new technologies in companies. In addition, user profiles can help to identify and target segment members among existing and prospective employees. In the sixth paper, Boonstra and Offenbeek (2018) use an exploratory in-depth case study to explore how software selection in a public organisation is affected when it is necessary to meet the requirements of tendering legislation. This legislation aims to ensure equal treatment of suppliers, transparency, and nondiscrimination. However, opposing views on tendering legislation are developing. Some authors suggest that buyers can still manipulate the selection process to give the order to a preferred supplier. Others insist that tendering legislation gives suppliers equal chances and facilitates buyers in acquiring software that meets their requirements. This study concludes that functional, economic, and political norms of decision-making rationality are affected by tendering legislation. In the seventh paper, Qureshi, Fang, Haggerty, Compeau, and Zhang (2018) note that in the knowledge-based economy, organisational success depends on how effectively employees share information. Many studies have investigated how different types of communication activities and communications media influence knowledge sharing among employees. The present study contributes to this literature by examining the IT-mediated social interactions that are increasingly prevalent yet understudied, and their effects on knowledge sharing among employees, in comparison with friend-to-friend social connections. By integrating the literature on knowledge sharing, social networks, and IS, the authors theorise the capability of IT-mediated social interaction to afford interactions between individuals with heterogeneous backgrounds, and facilitate frequency-based strong social ties that are high in competence-based trust. Each of these capabilities is suggested to support effective knowledge sharing. Through a social network analysis of the employees in a high-tech organisation, the authors find that IT-mediated frequent social interactions are most effective in promoting knowledge sharing. In the eighth paper, Xu, Benbasat, and Cenfetelli (2018) consider persuasive technologies as the next wave in website design beyond usability. The authors identify user perceptions of tools, media, and social factor functionalities of computing technologies as 3 antecedents of persuasion outcomes. They empirically examine the effects of these 3 perceived functionalities on 3 types of persuasion outcomes, namely, (a) persuading users to use the technology, (b) persuading users to follow the advice of the recommendation technology, and (c) persuading users to recommend the technology to others. They maintain that the 3 perceived functional roles can be used to explain the underlying reasons of why a design feature of computing technologies can lead to certain persuasion outcomes. Their results shed light on which perceived functional roles are important for certain persuasion outcomes and advise designers whether they should design a persuasive technology to resemble a tool, a medium, and/or a social actor.

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