Information Systems Research: Relevant Theory and Informed Practice (IFIP International Federation for Information Processing) : 9781402080944

International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 8.2
conference entitled “Relevant Theory and Informed Practice: Looking Forward from
a 20 Year Perspective on IS Research.” The conference was held at the University of
Manchester in Manchester, England, on July 15-17, 2004.

It was during the working group business meeting following the IFIP WG 8.2
working conference in 2001 on “Realigning Research and Practice in Information
Systems Development” in Boise, Idaho, that a conference call was approved for a new
conference dealing with the alignment of research practice and IS development. Those
who proposed the conference had been involved with WG 8.2 and other TC 8 working
groups over many years. The initial incentive for developing the theme of the conference
dates back to 1997 at the Philadelphia conference. It was observed that while
some were celebrating the end of the “methods wars” because some types of qualitative
work had become acceptable for publication in mainstream journals, the work by others
who were exploring questions outside the managerial, organizational, or technological
mainstream, or who were employing innovative research approaches, was still being
excluded from the discourse. Thus it was concluded that further attention to the question
of research approaches was required.

In a real sense, however, the seeds of this conference were sown in 1984 at the first
Manchester conference, when in the proceedings introduction Enid Mumford made a
declaration that continues to express a concern of the working group.