A new paradigm is sweeping the society, organisations and the business environment. In fact, society and business world alike are moving from its tangible bases to intangible ones based on knowledge and information systems (IS) to support its management, use and sharing. In this emerging paradigm, terms like information, communication, knowledge, and learning have acquired a critical relevance to the understanding of the nature of contemporary business. This led authors such as Drucker (1993) to state that we are entering the knowledge society in which the basic economic resource is knowledge.

In fact, since the mid-1980s, there has been a sudden avalanche of a new kind of vocabulary. Corporations, which so far had been economic entities, are being described as information-based organizations, learning organizations, knowledge-creating companies or knowledge intensive organisations. Instead of product-market strategies, the fashionable business discourse invokes core competencies, intangible assets, knowledge-based capabilities, intellectual capital, knowledge management etc. Consequently, in this 21st century of ours, terms such as intellectual capital, knowledge management, and knowledge mapping have increasingly become part of the corporate landscape.

However, none of this apparent revolution would be possible without the underlying technological support provided by IS. The IADIS Information Systems Conference (IS 2008) aims to provide a forum for the discussion of IS taking a socio-technological perspective. It aims to address the issues related to design, development and use of IS in organisations from a socio-technological perspective, as well as to discuss IS professional practice, research and teaching. A set of key issues has been identified (see below). However, these do not aim at being prescriptive, or set in stone, and any innovative contributions that do not fit into these areas will also be considered.

Key issues in this conference will focus on:

IS in Practice, Technology Infrastructures and Organisational Processes

- Power, Cultural, Behavioural and Political issues

- New Organisational Forms

- Dilution of Organisational Boundaries

- The centrality of IS and IT in Organisational
Processes

- IS Management

- Information Management

- Knowledge Management

- IS and SMEs

- Innovation and IS

- Innovation and Knowledge Management

- IS and Change Management

- IS and Organisation Development

- Enterprise Application Integration

- Enterprise Resource Planning

- Business Process Change


IS Design, Development and Management Issues and Methodologies

- Design and Development Methodologies and
Frameworks

- Iterative and Incremental Methodologies

- Agile Methodologies

- IS Design and Development as a Component-Based
Process

- IS Design and Development as Social Negotiation
Process

- IS D Design and Development as a Global and
Distributed Process

- Outsourcing in IS

- Outsourcing Risks, Barriers and Opportunities

- IS Project Management

- IS Quality Management and Assurance

- IS Standards and Compliance Issues

- Risk Management in IS

- Risk Management in IS Design and Development

IS Professional Issues

- Ethical, social, privacy, security and moral issues
in an e-society

- The role of information in the information society

- Myths, taboos and misconceptions in IS

- Practitioner and Research Relationship, Projects and
Links

- Validity, Usefulness and Applicability of IS Academic
Research

- Industrial Research versus Academic Research Issues

- Industry Innovation and Leadership and Academic
Laggards

- IS consultancy as a profession

- Organisational IS Roles

- Communities of practice and Knowledge Sharing






IS Research

- Core Theories, Conceptualisations and Paradigms in
IS Research

- Ontological Assumptions in IS Research

- IS Research Constraints, Limitations and
Opportunities

- IS vs Computer Science Research

- IS vs Business Studies

- Positivist, Interpretivist and Critical Approaches to
IS Research

- Quantitative vs. Qualitative Methods

- Deductive vs Inductive Approaches

- Multi-method Approaches and Triangulations in IS
Research

- Design Research and the Sciences of the Artificial
in IS

- Multidisciplinary Views and Multi Methodological
Approaches

- New and alternative approaches to IS research

- Examples of experimental research designs in IS

IS Learning and Teaching

- Patterns of Demand for IS Teaching Provision

- Fads, Fashions and Fetishes in IS Curricula

- Pedagogic practice in Teaching IS

- E-Learning in IS

- Instructional Design for IS

- National Cultures and Approaches to Pedagogy

- Multiculturality ad Diversity Issues in IS Learning and Teaching