My Research Philosophy and Interests
My Research Philosophy and Interests
Research is an integral part of my academic experience and career goals. It enhances my personal knowledge base
and informs my teaching and service. My current research interests are in the areas of: decision making; design
science; trust violation & rebuilding; examination of individual traits such as personality; privacy and security
concerns and their differences, antecedents and outcomes; security policy compliance; grounded theory; content
analysis; data mining; role of context; methodological issues such as moderation and social network analysis;
sociology and the role of gender, anthropology and culture, and scholarship of teaching & learning among others.
Below I attempt to categorize the issues that excite me to conduct research:
1. Trust, Privacy and Security Perspectives: I am excited about researching on trust, and privacy and security
concern issues. I am excited about examining the mutual and intrinsic relationship between trust and privacy. For
instance, I am interested in examining the role of privacy issues in building, violating and rebuilding trust. I am
equally excited about examining the role of trust in alleviating privacy & security concerns. Moreover, my
research studies privacy concern in direct, mediating as well as the moderating role, and differences between
security & privacy concern, security policy compliance among others.
2. Methodologies: In my research I am excited about learning and using different methodologies in different
applications. I am excited about utilizing various methodological tools in my research such as moderation analysis,
data mining approaches, structural equation modeling, survey and scenarios methodologies, social network
analysis, grounded theory and qualitative approaches among others.
3. Interdisciplinary perspective: MIS is inherently interdisciplinary in nature - so is my research. I have utilized
various theories and perspectives in my papers ranging from design science perspectives to the use of
psychological, anthropological, organizational and sociological theories. If the research question satisfies my
intellectual curiosity then I am comfortable using different units of analysis, and perspectives - design science,
behavioral, organizational and / or content analysis.
4. Rigor and Relevance: I believe that good research needs to have both – theoretical and analytical rigor as well
as strong practical and social implications.
I have 31 research papers and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. My research has been blessed with several
best paper nominations at International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) and Americas Conference on
Information Systems (AMCIS), and best paper awards at Midwest Association for Information Systems
Conferences (MWAIS). Most of my work has been published in top MIS journals and conferences. I have few
papers with my colleagues in nursing and urban economics as well. I have an interest in the scholarship of teaching
and learning – I feel it helps me to connect my scholarship with my teaching and also helps me to understand how
I can improve as a teacher.
Currently, I am working on several different papers. One of the papers that I am currently working on evaluates
the role of apologies and denials, and CEO gender on trust restoration in wake of privacy breaches – this work is
directed to assist female CEOs in understanding how the gender information is processed by the users when they
examine the response to rebuilding the violated trust in wake of a privacy breach.
Going forward I am interested in pursuing high-quality research that has both the theoretical and methodological
rigor, but also a strong sense of relevance in terms of social and practical implications. I believe that the problems
facing the world today are complex and it would be naïve to continue examining them with the singular approach.
I would like to be able to investigate research questions using multiple theoretical lenses as well as multiple
methodological perspectives – integrating design science, behavioral and organizational perspectives at solving
some of the real world issues. That would be rigorous and also relevant!
My Research Philosophy and Interests by Gaurav Bansal, 11/21/2015