ISR Special Issue on Collaboration and Value-Creation in Online Communities

The Information Systems Research (ISR) Journal has issued a call for papers for a Special Issue on Collaboration and Value-Creation in Online Communities edited by Samer Faraj, Georg von Krogh, Karim Lakhani,and Eric Monteiro.

You can read the complete call for papers here.

GCC Student receives Best Student Paper Award for the Information Systems Division of ASAC

GCC Student Karla Sayegh has received the Best Student Paper Award for the Information Systems Division of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC). Her paper entitled Understanding the Materiality of Technology: Thing or No-Thing? Substance or Consequence? will be presented at the next ASAC Conference to be held in Muskoka, ON in May.

Karla will also present a second paper at the Organizational Theory Division with the title How Lower Participants in Complex Organizations Acquire Informal Power: A Tune-Up of Mechanic’s Power. GCC Student Diego Mastroianni will also present at the same division his most recent work entitled Synchronizing Knowledge in Cross-Functional Teams.

Professors Faraj and Vaast's Grant Ranked First

Professors Samer Faraj and Emmanuelle Vaast’s Insight Grant to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), entitled: "Complex Collaboration in Communities of Innovation," was ranked 1st out of 90 applications in Committee 435-3C and was awarded $189,409 in the competition year 2012-2013.

With the overall objective of gaining a deeper understanding of open innovation, Profs Faraj and Vaast’s research focuses on how online communities focused on innovation create, share, and evolve knowledge artifacts. Specifically, the grant will explore the development, evolution, and knowledge dynamics in a Community of Innovation centered on an open-source Electronic Medical Record (EMR) named OSCAR. This community is primarily Canadian, has been in existence for a decade, and has developed an EMR that is rapidly diffusing (currently used by over 1500 Canadian doctors to follow over a million patients). The OSCAR EMR is a freely available open-source software and is gaining market share against commercial products typically costing $25,000 per year per user. Given the complexity of such software, the mission-critical nature of patient records for solving Canadian and world health issues, and the fact that the vast majority of users (family doctors) are not computer savvy, this success is unusual and significant. The research contributes theoretically by exploring the knowledge exchanges and innovation dynamics in these Communities of Innovation that involve very different groups of participants (e.g., doctors, programmers, nurses, administrators, private firms). For practitioners, this study will shed light on an important class of innovation communities, ones where Canada is a leader and where the innovation outcomes are helping computerize healthcare in Canada.

SSHRC is the federal agency that promotes and supports postsecondary-based research and training in the humanities and social sciences. The SSHRC Insight program aims to support and foster excellence in social sciences and humanities research intended to deepen, widen and increase our collective understanding of individuals and societies, as well as to inform the search for solutions to societal challenges. Committee 435-3C covers grant applications in Canada on the topics of business, management and related fields.

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Prof. Faraj delivers keynote on "technology and sociomaterial performation"

Prof. Faraj delivered a keynote address on "technology and sociomaterial performation" at the 2nd European Theory Development Workshop, Paris on June 21.

GCC student awarded Quebec doctoral grant

GCC PhD student Mahmood Zargar was awarded a Quebec Research Fund for Culture and Society (FQRSC) doctoral research grant to study collaboration in multi-disciplinary research units. FSQRC doctoral grants secure government funding for a three-year period and are allocated further to a province-wide competition.

Canada Research Chair in Technology, Management and Health Care renewed

Professor Samer Faraj's Canada Research Chair in Technology, Management and Health Care (TMH) has been renewed. Canada Research Chairs are granted to outstanding scholars and provide stable funding for career-defining projects with the potential to lead in the field. The TMH Chair was established in 2008 as a Tier 2 chair with the ambition to study how information technology is transforming work and the provision of health care. The Canada Research Chairs program allocates the grants based on peer assessments, and has reaffirmed the eligibility of TMH for a five-year funding plan.

Prof. Samer Faraj wins "Best Supervisor Award"

Prof. Samer Faraj won this year's "Best Supervisor Award" at McGill's Desautels Faculty of Management. Every year, the doctoral students at Desautels hold a vote to choose the most supportive, most available mentor and teacher in the program. He shared the honor with Marketing Professor Ashesh Mukherjee.