Fall 2007
No.1
Publisher:
Dr. Michael J. Shaw, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Editor Group: Dr. Matt Nelson, Illinois State University,
Dr. Ravi Sen, University of Texas A&M,
Dr. Hsin-Lu Chang, National Chengchi University
The Inauguration of SIGeBIZ Newsletter
Dr. Michael J. Shaw, University of Illinis, Urbana-Champaign
Dear Friends:
This is the inauguration issue of the AIS SIGeBIZ Newsletter. It is the fruit of the collective efforts of many people, to whom I am deeply
grateful. Professors Hsinlu Chang and Matt Nelson, along with Professor Ravi Sen, are the editors and have been especially instrumental in
establishing the foundation of this publication. In this and future issues of the SIGeBIZ Newsletter, we plan to bring you the latest
information concerning e-business research and technological developments.
SIGeBIZ is one of the first “special interest groups” developed within the AIS community. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you
for your support of our activities over the years. In this letter you can find the list of the SIGeBIZ officers. A lot more people than listed
have made important contributions. To all of the people who have helped, I would like to give a big thank-you on behalf of the SIGeBIZ
community.
The editors and contributing authors have done a great job in making this interesting newsletter possible. It is your newsletter, and we
very much would like to hear from you if you have any good ideas for future issues. Better yet, please consider contributing an article
yourself.
SIGeBIZ again is organizing the Workshop on e-Business (WEB), for the sixth time, at the ICIS conference hotel on December 9 just before
the 2007 ICIS. SIGeBIZ has founded and sponsored this annual workshop since its first meeting in 2001. Professor T. P Liang and I are
pleased to see the continuing growth of WEB. It has become a tradition for our members to get together at the annual workshop while
discussing and sharing ideas. I know this year’s program, under the leadership of Professor Han Zhang at Georgia Tech as the program cochair, is shaping up very well. I have heard many past attendees telling me how much they enjoyed the workshops. Other than the
research content of the programs, WEB has also developed a reputation for giving out nice gadgets and putting together entertaining social
events. For detailed information of this year’s WEB, please see the Featured Event section of this Newsletter.
Looking beyond this year, we would like to start a number of initiatives to create more interesting activities. As a first step, for instance,
Professor Vijay Sugumaran is helping us develop a new web site to serve SIGeBIZ members better. Professor Christof Weinhardt at
Universitat Karlsruhe will be the Program Chair of WEB2008 to be held in Paris in December 2008. We are hopeful that the Paris WEB
meeting will help us link up more with our European friends. Please start planning ahead for your participation in that event!
If you have any suggestion on how we may make the SIGeBIZ better, please let us know. Please come join us on December 9 at the
Workshop on e-Business and I look forward to seeing you there
Michael J. Shaw University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
[AIS SIGeBIZ Organization and Officers]
A Research Agenda Moving Forward: Visualization, Collaboration, SOA
An interview conducted by Dr. Matt Nelson, Illinois State University
The following notes are from an interview with Mr. Bruce Cather, Client IT Architect, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Corporation. The
interview was conducted on September 14, 2007. The focus of the discussion surrounded emerging trends in the IT industry and research
needs. The notes below are based solely from the interviewer’s perspective (Matt Nelson) who assumes full responsibility for their content.
I noticed a new title associated with your role at IBM of Distinguished Engineer. Where does this fit in the IBM career
path?
The Distinguished Engineer is affiliated with the IBM Fellows career path. The program requires a balance between practical work
experience, research and some publications.
I have recently read several articles from the IBM Systems Journal, is this an outlet where some of this research would be
published?
Yes, but there are other outlets. The IBM Systems Journal is aimed at practical, applied, interdisciplinary papers. The IBM Research Journal
is aimed at more theoretical, material sciences and engineering papers.
What is the status of transitions to services orientated architectures (SOA) in industry?
Well, the core concepts associated with SOA have actually been around for nearly 30 years. Although some of the technologies are new,
the underlying trends are not. Thus, I become concerned at times when I hear people refer to SOA as being something new or different.
That said, we are at an interesting point in the evolution to “SOA”. The old ‘technical’ barriers towards reaching SOA are, for the most part,
gone (e.g. reuse of components, standards). Now, the barriers to further progressing to SOA are largely organizational related. For
example, many companies still view their organizations in separate silos, or some companies have disputes over which business unit will
bear the initial investment towards SOA, and so on. The technology is now here and working, it is these types of organizational related
issues that seem to be the largest barriers towards SOA at this point. Breaking down these SOA organizational issues is an area where
much research is still needed from my perspective.
What are some research areas that need to be further examined?
As I just mentioned, breaking down the SOA organizational barriers is an area where much research is still needed. Other areas include
real-time business collaboration technology (within and outside traditional business applications), as well as unified communications
(integrated applications with voice, video, data). Another key area of much needed research is visualization from all respects (within
systems, simulations, business models, SecondLife, etc.).
With so much emphasis towards programming modularity and reuse (with SOA) will the old traditional notion of an
Information System still be relevant in the future?
Probably not, but it will take some time reach that point. That perspective of thinking is just too general / simplistic moving forward.
How do MIS Job opportunities and outlooks appear in the foreseeable future?
They look very good. As the labor arbitrage continues to decline in BRIC countries, and the tighter technology becomes with core business
processes, and the need for localization, customization, specifications continue to rise in many segments of the IT industry, the MIS job
outlooks appear to be very bright.
Service science: the new academic discipline in the 21th century
An interview conducted by Dr. Hsin-Lu Chang, National Chengchi University
The following notes are from an interview with Dr. Fu-ren Lin, Professor and Chairman at Institute of Technology Management in National
Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan. He is leading his school to launch the Graduate Institute of Service Science to offer service science
curriculum.
In your opinion, why is there a need for an academic discipline in service science?
As the world moves to service economy, the needs to integrate business segments in order to fulfill constantly changing markets and
customers’ demands are well recognized by academic and practitioners. To deliver services relies on the effective interaction between frontand back-end activities among functional units within or across organizational boundaries. There exist many opportunities to innovate
services by virtue of advanced technologies along with innovative business models. However, the fragmentation of existing disciplines, such
as marketing, service operation management, information systems, technology development, etc. may not be able to comprehensively
tackle issues occurred in service innovation. Thus, the multi-disciplinary efforts on understanding phenomena seen in service operations
bring the new opportunities in building theories to better explain these phenomena, and in turn, cultivate the new discipline, called service
science. Through the deep understanding of services, we may be able to innovate, re-design, and manage services by systematic
engineering processes. These analytic, design, and innovation practices lay the foundation of service science.
In recent years, NTHU has been actively participating in the global efforts of designing service science as a new academic
discipline. Can you briefly summarize the efforts have been involved, the current achievements, and the goal NTHU is
striving toward?
To integrate constituent disciplines for emerging service science, the College of Technology Management has been spending efforts on
connecting related disciplines, such as service marketing, innovation & entrepreneurship, information systems, service design, law for
science and technology, organizational sociology, and industrial economics, within and across colleges at the National Tsing Hua University
(NTHU) to launch the Graduate Institute of Service Science to offer service science curriculum. Since service science is an outside-in
discipline, we work tightly with industries, such as IBM, Institute for Information Industry, Industrial Technology Research Institute, etc., to
identify emerging issues in service innovation. The institute will admit master students in fall 2008. The curriculum includes three major
categories: service management and innovation, service information system and management, and service culture and society. In order to
allow students to internalize what they have learned, we also design internship and practitioner mentoring programs with related business
domains. The vision of this initiative in service science institute includes (1) integrating science, technology, and management to develop
service science discipline, (2) nourishing professionals in service innovation to improve wellbeing of human society, (3) leveraging academic
and industrial resources to raise national competitiveness, and (4) participating in international academic communities for service science
research.
Being one of the leading universities establishing a graduate program in service science, what is the biggest challenge you
have encountered during the establishment?
To be one of universities launching service science programs in the world, the establishment of the Institute of Service Science at NTHU
needs to convince stakeholders of the university that the need of service science discipline for Taiwan’s economical and social growth and
academic excellence in this emerging research domain. On the way of applying the setup of the new institute, we held many workshops
and panels to invite people from local and international academic institutes and industries to give us comments and suggestions in shaping
up the proposed curriculum and research plans. The biggest challenge is to bring the comprehensive picture of service science while it is
still evolving based on various initiatives in research and practice. The establishment of the institute is mainly to set up a platform to
integrate science, technology, and management to develop service science discipline. Therefore, the approval of setting up the new
institute becomes the commitment that we are going to contribute to the emerging service science in terms of education, research, and
professional services.
Do you have any suggestion to those schools that are interested in embarking on service science?
The College of Technology Management at NTHU is a relatively young and small institute. We have under-employment of faculty in
domains related to service science. It is a natural opportunity for us to launch a new institute to staff faculty in this new discipline. For
other business schools which have full fledged disciplines and departments, the launch of a new service science institute may face more
challenges than we did. I have three suggestions to those schools which are interested in starting service science discipline. First, faculty in
related disciplines should open their minds to re-define research issues and re-discover new research methods in order to tackle issues in
service science; second, institutes in related fields should collaborate to sponsor curriculum in service science; third, due to the outside-in
essence of service science, institutes should strengthen tight relations with industries to smooth the outlets for graduates and seek relevant
research topics in services.
Manage the Job Hunting Process
Dr. Kexin Zhao, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Doctoral students live a busy life, especially for those who are at the final year of their Ph.D. programs. They need to juggle between
multiple chores, including proposing and defending their dissertations and nailing down a job offer. As a fresh graduate myself, I just went
through this stressful process. I want to share some personal job hunting experience with my fellow doctoral students, as managing an
effective job hunting process can reward your hard working in the past few years.
I will discuss three major steps to search for an academic job and provide some useful resources.
Step 1: Submit Your Application Package
If you feel that you are ready for the job market, you can begin to prepare an application package and look for job announcements.
Although different schools may have different application requirements, a typical application package includes four core components: the
cover letter, curriculum vitae (CV), research statement, and teaching statement.
The cover letter is used to introduce yourself and highlight the fit between you and the position. A cover letter is usually 1 to 2 pages. The
CV is the most important document in the application package. The CV indicates your educational background, research, teaching, and
service experience. The research statement summarizes your research interests, previous research experience, and future research plan.
The teaching statement describes your philosophy of teaching.
In general, there are two types of academic positions: teaching-oriented ones and research-oriented ones. Application materials should
have different emphases for these two types of positions. If time permits, a good application package should be tailored to each position.
Good reference sources:
http://grad.uiuc.edu/careerservices/academic/
http://web.mit.edu/career/www/graduate/academiccareers.html
After putting your package together, polish it again and again. Ask your advisors, colleagues, family and friends to criticize those materials.
Check the career center at your university, as it may offer related workshops and individual services.
To find job announcements in the IS field, you can check out the following websites:
http://home.aisnet.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=45
ISWorld Mailing List
http://chronicle.com/search/jobs/
https://www.decisionsciences.org/placement/mega_index.asp
Step 2: Prepare for Conference Interviews
After screening application packages, many schools will select candidates for a conference interview. In the IS field, many conference
interviews are scheduled at two major annual meetings: AMCIS in August and ICIS in December.
A conference interview typically lasts 20 to 30 minutes. It is short and offers employers an opportunity to quickly learn the applicant. You
need to dress professionally and prepare carefully for your conference interviews.
Conference interviews usually have three types of questions. First, the employers want to understand your current status in the Ph.D.
program. They want to feel confident that you can complete your degree before you start the new job. Hence, it is preferred if you can
finish your dissertation proposal defense before the conference interview. You need to have an explicit plan about how you will finish your
dissertation in time. Second, the employers want to see the fit between your credentials and the position. You should be able to summarize
your research and teaching interests in short statements, each lasting 1, 3, or 5 minutes. Finally, prepare for 2 or 3 questions for each
school.
Step 3: Get Ready for Your Job Talk
You are close to a job offer if you are invited for a campus visit. Schools usually bring the top 2 to 4 candidates for a one-day campus
interview, which is the final stage of academic job searches.
You may need to make your own flight arrangement. Select appropriate arrival and departure times, since your interviewers may need to
pick you up and drop you off at the airports. Carry on important documents with you during the flight. Practice your job talk before your
visit. Present your talk at a department seminar will be a good exercise. Before your interview, confirm the time, equipment, and audience
for your job talk. Research the school and the department, and get to know faculty members through their websites. Prepare for a day full
of meetings. During the day of the interview, be yourself.
This article just briefly summarizes major activities during an academic job search. I wish all fellow Ph.D. students could land an ideal job
offer in the end.
WEB 2007, 9 December 2007, Montreal, Canada
Please allow us this opportunity to provide you with an update on the upcoming events of the SIGeBIZ. Again this year, the SIGeBIZ will be
sponsoring the pre-ICIS Workshop on e-Business (WEB07) on the Sunday before ICIS at the conference hotel and will also have a
reception for its members at ICIS.
WEB2007 website:http://www.ebusinessworkshop.org/
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