Honoring the Memory of Phillip Ein-Dor

With sorrow, we share the news of the passing of one of the field’s influential founders. Professor Emeritus Phillip Ein-Dor of Tel Aviv University died on November 11, 2022 at the age of 88. A prominent figure in substantiating the field of Information Systems, Ein-Dor established our flagship Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS) as its founding editor, led the Association for information Systems (AIS) as its eighth president, and chartered the Israel chapter of AIS. 

First and foremost, Phillip Ein-Dor will be membered for kindness, friendliness, wisdom and modesty, and for his quiet talk and bold impact on individual members of the IS community and on institutional initiatives. He never ceased to help students and colleagues with advice, guidance and pragmatic support in their career development, and never ceased to be deeply involved in the profession, in local and global academic affairs, as well as national education and governance of the profession. Phillip was a dear friend and mentor to so many of us.

During his term as President (2002-2003), Phillip advanced the issues of globalization, transparency, and defining the nature of the IS field. Globalization initiatives included funding for surveys of the IS field in Eastern Africa and the Asia-Pacific region and scheduling the first AMCIS meetings outside the US and Canada starting with AMCIS 2006 in Mexico. Transparency included an improved budgeting process, especially creating a combined budget for AIS and ICIS, following the affiliation of the two organizations. During his tenure, to help define the nature of the information systems field, a meeting of senior people in the field was held at ICIS in Barcelona and a Blue-Ribbon Committee was formed to examine the role of the IS field.

Phillip Ein-Dor's research interests included MIS, information system theory, artificial intelligence - especially natural language processing and commonsense knowledge representation, economics of computers and information systems, technology infrastructure and diffusion, Internet applications, and the digital divide. He published four books, 7 book chapters, and more than 50 papers on various aspects of information systems and their management. His most frequently cited works are papers concerning the relationship between organizational context and management information systems and a book proposing a paradigm for MIS, all co-authored with Eli Segev.

Upon retirement in 2003, he served as professor of the IS staff at Tel Aviv University where he remained professor emeritus. Continuing to influence the field even then, Phillip was a faculty member of the Academic College of Tel Aviv - Yaffo, where he established an undergraduate program in information systems and worked on establishing an MBA program. While at Tel-Aviv University and on visiting appointments, he directed numerous masters’ and Ph.D. theses supporting generations of scholars. He held visiting appointments at leading departments on four continents, including New York University, Claremont Graduate University, the Naval Postgraduate School, The University of Capetown, the National University of Singapore, City University of Hong Kong, and ESSEC Business School.

Phillip was chosen as an AIS Fellow in 2000 and received the LEO Award in 2006. In Israel he was recognized as one of the founders of the IS discipline in the country. In 2010 Prof. Ein-Dor received an award from the Israel Chamber of Information System Analysts for "Primacy and Contribution in Founding, Establishing, and Strengthening the Information Systems Area in Academe.” Additional awards include incumbency of a Hui Sun Chair at National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan (2002) and an award from the Fourth Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems in "Recognition of Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Information Systems in the Mediterranean Region.”

He will be remembered for his incredible impact encompassing diverse research contributions in the philosophy, management, AI, human-computer interaction and economics of IS.

In a recorded interview, Phillip talked about his optimistic yet sober vision of our field (Te'eni, Dov, "Interview of Dr. Phillip Ein-Dor (Video)" (2013). AIS eLib / IS History / Interviews – available at http://aisel.aisnet.org/history_interviews/).

A remark from Phillip's son:

Phillip, to the casual observer Phillip epitomized the absent-minded professor.
Those who knew him recognized how organized and often innovative his thoughts and ideas always were.

Phillip was a beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather.
Gentle, sensitive, considerate, a wealth of information.
He was unique in everything he did.
Phillip touched everyone in his own special way.
All who knew him felt and loved his Phillip-ness (no better way to describe it).
 
He is sorely missed.

We invite members of the Information Systems family to share their memories and condolences below.