Anatomy of a Good Paper – Writing a Practical Implications & Discussion Section

What makes a solid practice-oriented research contribution? Faculty are increasingly asked to increase their impact beyond the confines of their academic discipline. Practice-oriented research is the most direct way to do so. The panel will discuss the many research design and writing choices that lead to an impactful practice-oriented contribution, including topic selection, writing style, rigor and the crafting of timely, actionable and clear recommendations for practicing managers.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Mary C. Lacity is Walton Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Blockchain Center of Excellence in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at The University of Arkansas. She was previously Curators’ Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.  She has held visiting positions at MIT, the London School of Economics, Washington University, and Oxford University. She is a Certified Outsourcing Professional ® and Senior Editor for MIS Quarterly Executive. Her recent research focuses on improving business services using Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Cognitive Automation (CA),and Blockchain technologies.  She has conducted case studies and surveys of hundreds of organizations on their adoption journeys. She has given keynote speeches and executive seminars worldwide and has served as an expert witness for the US Congress.  She was inducted into the IAOP’s Outsourcing Hall of Fame in 2014, one of only three academics to ever be inducted. She has published 30 books, most recently, Blockchain Foundations for the Internet of Value (2020) and Becoming Strategic with Robotic Process Automation (2019) with Leslie Willcocks. Her publications have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, MIS Quarterly, MIS Quarterly Executive, IEEE Computer, Communications of the ACM, and many other academic and practitioner outlets. According to Google Scholar, her work has been cited over 19,000 times, with an h-index of 58.

Martin Mocker is a professor of information systems at ESB Business School, Reutlingen University, Germany. He is also a Research Affiliate at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His teaching and research focus on the digital transformations of large, traditional companies aiming to stay competitive in an increasingly digital economy. Martin has co-authored the book “Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success” with Jeanne W. Ross and Cynthia M. Beath. The book was listed as one of the “Top Ten Technology Books of 2019” on Forbes.

Gabriele Piccoli is the Edward G. Schlieder Chair of Information Sciences and a member of the Cultural Computing group at the Center for Computation and Technology at Louisiana State University (USA). He is also on the faculty at the University of Pavia (Italy) where he received his Laurea in Economia e Commercio. Gabe is a Fellow of the Association of Information Systems and an advocate for practice-oriented research. He is the current Editor in Chief of the MIS Quarterly Executive. Gabe’s academic, teaching and consulting interest has traditionally been in the area of Strategic Information Systems and Customer Service Systems. His recent research focuses on value creation and appropriation with digital resources and on competition within aggregators. Prior to returning to LSU and the University of Pavia, Gabe held tenured academic positions at Cornell University (USA), the University of Sassari (Italy) and the Grenoble Ecole de Management (France). Gabe served the IS community through his work on editorial boards (MISQ, Decision Sciences), council positions (ICIS Executive Committe), conference committees (e.g., Program Co-Chair Chair and Review Chair at ICIS, Doctoral Consortium Co-Chair at ECIS, Conference Chair at ITAIS, Mini-Track Co-Chair at HICSS), and Special Interests Groups (founding member of SIGDITE).

Rick Watson is a Regents Professor and the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He is a former President of the Association for Information Systems. In 2011, he received the Association for Information Systems’ LEO award, which is given for exceptional lifetime achievement in Information Systems. For about a decade, he was Research Director for the Advanced Practices Council of the Society of Information Management and a visiting researcher at the Research Institute of Sweden (RISE) in Gothenburg.

Watson has published over 190 journal articles and written books on electronic commerce, data management, and energy informatics. His most recent book is Capital, Systems, and Objects. His work has been accepted by leading academic and practitioner journals and has been translated into several languages. Dr. Watson has given over 300 invited presentations to practitioners and academics in more than 30 countries, including conference keynotes on six continents. He was educated at the University of Western Australia (BSc, Dip. Comp), Monash University (MBA), and the University of Minnesota (PhD).