A field study of 29 resource-constrained firms that varied dramatically in their responses to similar objective environments is used to examine the process by which entrepreneurs in resource-poor environments were able to render unique services by recombining elements at hand for new purposes that challenged institutional definitions and limits. We found that Levi-Strauss's concept of bricolage—making do with what is at hand—explained many of the behaviors we observed in small firms that were able to create something from nothing by exploiting physical, social, or institutional inputs that other firms rejected or ignored. We demonstrate the socially constructed nature of resource environments and the role of bricolage in this construction. Using our field data and the existing literature on bricolage, we advance a formal definition of entrepreneurial bricolage and induce the beginnings of a process model of bricolage and firm growth. Central to our contribution is the notion that companies engaging in bri...

Creating Something from Nothing: Resource Construction through Entrepreneurial Bricolage:

This article describes the latest development of a generic approach to detecting and visualizing emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature. The work makes substantial theoretical and methodological contributions to progressive knowledge domain visualization. A specialty is conceptualized and visualized as a time-variant duality between two fundamental concepts in information science: research fronts and intellectual bases. A research front is defined as an emergent and transient grouping of concepts and underlying research issues. The intellectual base of a research front is its citation and co-citation footprint in scientific literature—an evolving network of scientific publications cited by research-front concepts. Kleinberg's (2002) burst-detection algorithm is adapted to identify emergent research-front concepts. Freeman's (1979) betweenness centrality metric is used to highlight potential pivotal points of paradigm shift over time. Two complementary visualization views are designed and implemented: cluster views and time-zone views. The contributions of the approach are that (a) the nature of an intellectual base is algorithmically and temporally identified by emergent research-front terms, (b) the value of a co-citation cluster is explicitly interpreted in terms of research-front concepts, and (c) visually prominent and algorithmically detected pivotal points substantially reduce the complexity of a visualized network. The modeling and visualization process is implemented in CiteSpace II, a Java application, and applied to the analysis of two research fields: mass extinction (1981–2004) and terrorism (1990–2003). Prominent trends and pivotal points in visualized networks were verified in collaboration with domain experts, who are the authors of pivotal-point articles. Practical implications of the work are discussed. A number of challenges and opportunities for future studies are identified. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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CiteSpace II: Detecting and visualizing emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature

Interpretive research in information systems (IS) is now a well-established part of the field. However, there is a need for more material on how to carry out such work from inception to publication. I published a paper a decade ago (Walsham, 1995) which addressed the nature of interpretive IS case studies and methods for doing such research. The current paper extends this earlier contribution, with a widened scope of all interpretive research in IS, and through further material on carrying out fieldwork, using theory and analysing data. In addition, new topics are discussed on constructing and justifying a research contribution, and on ethical issues and tensions in the conduct of interpretive work. The primary target audience for the paper is less-experienced IS researchers, but I hope that the paper will also stimulate reflection for the more-experienced IS researcher and be of relevance to interpretive researchers in other social science fields.

/pdf/doing-interpretive-research-wi2sr8g3xh.pdf

Doing interpretive research

Knowledge Management

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

1. Invitation 2. Krisis - judging methods 3. Bricolage - improvisation, hacking, patching 4. Gestell - the power of infrastructures 5. Derive - drift and deviation 6. Xenia - hosting an innovation 7. Shih - architecture and action 8. Kairos (and Affectio) - seizing the opportunity (and moods and mental states) Methodological Appendix (Odos) - my chosen road

/pdf/review-of-the-labyrinths-of-information-challenging-the-1obrbdh3y2.pdf

Review of "The labyrinths of information: Challenging the wisdoms of systems" by Claudio Ciborra, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2002

Investigating evaluation frameworks for health information systems.

To make knowledge visualizations clear and easy to interpret, we have developed a method that extends and transforms traditional author co-citation analysis by extracting structural patterns from the scientific literature and representing them in a 3D knowledge landscape.

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~cc345/papers/ieeecomputer2001.pdf

Visualizing a knowledge domain's intellectual structure

This article proposes considered futures for the use of simulation as a problem solving technique within healthcare settings Using a synthesis of trends identified by a selection of experts in the field, academics and industrialists, critical analysis was applied to find the differences between what exists and what could be created based on outlining some major themes The survey data reveals that most respondents agree on following whole system approaches with more joined up modelling or mixed methods to tackle problems rather than single-solution-based practices The article then presents options for how simulation could be used within the healthcare domain Such options or futures could assist in identifying the critical barriers towards having a successful strategy and provide the basis for debate that will be necessary to attain it

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fpalgrave.jors.2602222.pdf

Ray J. Paul

Papers

Review of "The labyrinths of information: Challenging the wisdoms of systems" by Claudio Ciborra, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2002

Investigating evaluation frameworks for health information systems.

Visualizing a knowledge domain's intellectual structure

Simulation modelling in healthcare: reviewing legacies and investigating futures

Simulation model reuse: definitions, benefits and obstacles