Ten Questions for Dorothy Leidner

This week’s Ten Questions features Dorothy Leidner, the Leslie H. Goldberg Jefferson Scholars Foundation Distinguished Professor in Business Ethics in the McIntire School of Business at the University of Virginia.

As a long-time volunteer of the association, she has served in many roles, including 2015 ICIS Co-Chair and editor-in-chief of Journal of the Association for Information Systems. On September 1, she started her term as AIS President.

1.    You are just finishing up your tenure as Editor-in-Chief of JAIS. The journal saw significant change while under your leadership. Would you mind sharing a few of the more notable changes that were made and what you are most proud of?

I suppose that I see the change less as change than as a continuation of the forward progress the journal has been experiencing with each successive editor-in-chief.  I do feel that JAIS continues to build and solidify its reputation as one of the field’s most prestigious journals.  This is not only great for the journal, but also great for AIS and for those whose primary discipline is information systems.

2.    You have served as an AIS volunteer throughout your career in various roles. How have those volunteer opportunities shaped your leadership style first as an EiC and now as incoming AIS President.

With each role, you learn new things and experience different styles. There are many great ideas and many different perspectives of what initiatives should be undertaken and how they should be done.   One has to be patient and not try to force change too quickly as well as work toward some shared objective(s).  

3. As AIS celebrates its 30th anniversary and looks to the next 30 years, what are some of your goals as President?

I hope to oversee some initiatives related to increasing the visibility of the IS discipline and AIS journals to outside constituencies, including business school deans worldwide and to ranking organizations. And I hope to look at ways to encourage greater sustainability—logistical, financial, and environmental--of AIS conferences.

4. In 2018, while you were the Editor-in-Chief of MISQE, the journal became an official journal of AIS. How did that change come to be and how has that impacted the AIS eLibrary overall, as well as individual AIS Journals?

Alan Dennis deserves all the credit for that.  It was his idea and he did a fantastic job managing the transition.  I think MISQE is a tremendous addition to the AIS eLibrary.  What I have always loved about MISQE is that you can read almost a full issue in about the amount of time often required to read a single article in many of our academic-oriented journals.  MISQE has stayed true to its mission of providing practice-oriented research.  I have found MISQE very useful for producing cutting-edge thought on issues before they become mainstream, for providing examples for class discussions and for setting the stage for academic-oriented research.

5. What was the most rewarding part of your time as an AIS volunteer? Are there any programs or initiatives that stand out that you were especially proud to be involved in?

Aside from my roles as editor-in-chief of MISQE and JAIS, what stands out as a particularly enjoyable and meaningful experience from which I also learned a tremendous amount, was serving as co-chair of ICIS 2015 in Fort Worth.

6. What is your favorite memory at an AIS event (ICIS/AMCIS) or affiliated conference (ECIS/PAIS/etc.)?

I have a lot of great conference memories, but probably my favorite is the social event at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth (ICIS 2015).  It was, for me, even better than I’d hoped – ICIS attendees could have their photo taken on a bull, there was a rodeo, great music, country line dancing, pool tables, and great barbeque.

7. You have been a part of many collaborative projects over the years. How has AIS helped to build your network of partnerships and what can further be done to expand collaborations?

I’m by nature more of an introvert and tend to walk straight towards people I know at conferences which doesn’t exactly lend itself well to network building although I really enjoy catching up with close colleagues and friends that I don’t get to see on a regular basis.  

8. What do you think the next big area of focus will be for IS? How can AIS support it?

I don’t think I’m so great at predicting areas of focus for IS, but it seems almost obvious to say that there will be a huge amount of research done on generative AI in the years ahead.  The question is whether this area will be short-lived or paradigm-changing.   I personally think it has the potential to be paradigm-changing but only time will tell. As far as AIS and generative AI, AIS will need to be looking to establish policies for all its journals and conferences on the appropriate uses of generative AI in conducting research, authoring papers, and reviewing papers.

9. What are some of the most important research areas with the potential for lasting global impact that IS researchers should focus on more?

Systems for sustainability is not a new topic but certainly one with the potential for long lasting global impact and one upon which we should continue to focus.  The problem is less that we don’t do research with global impact than that achieving the full impact of our research is beyond our control. We need to think of ways that AIS can help spread the impact of research published in AIS journals to the broader community.

10. What is the one trend you are most excited about for the future of IS?

I’m not sure if it qualifies yet as a trend or not, but I am seeing more people taking an interest in pure theory and theorizing. I think this is wonderful because it shows our field has reached a point of maturity where we are no longer having to just borrow theories from other fields.

For more articles related to AIS History and the AIS 30th Anniversary please visit HERE.