Ten Questions for Cathy Urquhart

Cathy Urquhart is Professor Emeritus of Digital Business at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, and visiting Professor at the Department of Informatics can Lund University, Sweden. Before returning to the UK in 2009, she worked at the Universities of Tasmania, Melbourne and the Sunshine Coast in Australia, and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. She also worked as a systems analyst for eight years in public sector computing in the U.K.  Cathy served as Vice President SIGS and Member Services on the AIS Council for four years.

1. You served as co-founding Chair of the AIS Women’s Network (AISWN) and also served on the AISWN Advisory Board. Could you please share a bit about the history of the Women’s Network and what your involvement in co-founding the organization was?

For many years, there had been a Women’s Breakfast at ICIS. While these events were supportive, I felt there was a need for us to network and shape our own future between conferences. I felt that the inequalities in our own community were obvious - they just needed to be documented. Facts, not emotions, would persuade. It is no coincidence that SIG Social Inclusion was also founded in 2010 - there was a real need for research into why these exclusions exist.  And so, the network was born - Eleanor Loiacono and I launched it at the Women’s Breakfast at 2011. The year was significant, in that there had been an attempt to rename the Women’s Breakfast a ‘Diversity Forum’. We used the occasion to launch the AIS Women's Network and discuss the future of the Women’s Breakfast. We invited Jason Thatcher, from the AIS Council, and he was hugely supportive.

2. While it was born from ICIS, the Women’s Network has also expanded into a women’s reception held at ECIS and beyond. How has the Women’s Network grown over time in other ways and what do you hope to see come next from the group?

Through the AISWN College, we now have a very strong identity that I am grateful for. When we started to mount Women’s Network receptions at ECIS, it was initially hard to get funding and backing, but they were wildly popular and stacked out - we were fulfilling a valuable function for female AIS members, especially younger members.

What next? The College has done the hard foundational work of establishing a mentoring scheme and a lot of research on the characteristics of our own community. I think we need to continue to listen to our members. It’s also very heartening to see that the AIS awards are much more gender balanced. Society will continue to change, and it is important that our academic community reflects that.

3. As a volunteer on the AIS Council, you served as the Vice President of SIGs and Member Services. The organization was only 10-15 years old during your years of service. What challenges did you experience in that role and what programs/work were you most proud of during that time?

I am extremely proud that as VP for SIGs and Member Services, I was able to approve SIG GTM, SIG SI, and SIG Green. These SIGs continue to thrive and play a valuable role in our community, and when you consider they were approved so long ago, they show how forward thinking our community is. The challenge then and the challenge now is twofold; first, coming up with a viable member proposition; second, the need for members in a global organization to feel included and part of the decision-making processes of the AIS.

4. Your work on Grounded Theory Research has been invaluable to PhD students and throughout your career, you have served in various volunteer roles to support students and doctoral consortiums. How has that work with students shaped your own professional path?

Writing a book on grounded theory, for me, was incredibly important and to some extent led me down a different path. I wanted to demystify grounded theory and support PhD students, who like me when I was a PhD student, struggled alone with grounded theory and research design. I absolutely adore teaching postgraduate students and I always feel I learn something from them!

5. In 2021, you served on the Charter Association of Business Schools (CABS) Scientific Committee to advocate on behalf of all the AIS basket of eight journals. Your work resulted in five IS Journals being upgraded by the CABS Academic Journal Guide (AJG). Could you share a bit about that process and what this means for not just those five journals, but also for the field of IS to be recognized?

With Joe Nandhakumar, we worked hard to make a case for parity between our discipline and other discipline areas in the CABS Guide with regard to 4 rated and 4* journals.  As always, it’s important to make a case based on facts not emotions, and to lay out the case compellingly, which is what we did, using journal metrics and indicators of reputation. We did our best to be objective, but also persistent!

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

This has to be ICIS in St. Louis (2005?) dancing to ‘Let me Think About It’ by Freda and Ida Corr with Aretha from the AIS Office!

7. Who have been major influencers not just in your career, but also in your volunteer service with AIS and why?

I am so grateful to many people who inspired me as a young academic and beyond. Allen Lee was so kind to me as a PhD student. Geoff Walsham and Lynne Markus were good role models of people doing superb research with real integrity. Carol Saunders, Cynthia Beath and Yolande Chan continue to inspire with their service to the community - they have done so much and continue to do so.

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

The answer has to be AI, but of course the challenge is to map out the terrain and avoid the inevitable hype.

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

The problem of our impact as an academic discipline on the real world is a perennial one. Curiously, I think the answer is to build better theory, grounded in the real world, that solves real problems, that then becomes widely used. But then you might expect a grounded theorist to say this!

10. What are some challenges and opportunities for the IS discipline and what do IS doctoral programs need to do to address them?

Again, the challenges and opportunities are constant. It is much, much harder for new career academics in IS than it ever was. The funding situation in many universities in the UK in particular makes it a tough career choice for new colleagues. I have always wanted, but not seen yet, a shift to seriously considering what values we hold as IS academics and the role our knowledge creation plays in the world.

11. BONUS QUESTION! What is the one trend you are most excited about for the future of IS?

The increasing plurality of IS research is a joy. Serious consideration of alternative research approaches such as decolonial approaches is very good to see. I personally would like to see more queer approaches and consideration of race in IS - this is normal in sociology but not in our discipline. So, I am watching the younger generation of researchers to see where they take us