Best Jan Recker Podcasts (2025)

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Managing academics is like herding cats 50:46

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1h ago50:46

50:46

Some academics go into the office every day; some are rarely ever seen on campus. Is one way better than the other? Who better to ask than the brilliant Ella Hafermalz who spent her career on the topic of remote work and its implications for belonging, community, collaboration, and performance. She points out that academia has always been a distrib…

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When you watch Tik Tok, your maturity in the academic enterprise is zero 37:44

22d ago37:44

37:44

A key problem in empirically oriented research, especially inductive and abductive work, is figuring out which theoretical lens or scaffold to apply to uncover novel insights. In other words, which theory should you use? We discuss a few heuristics scholars can draw on to reach a higher level of scholarly maturity, namely disposition, empirical sal…

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Data is the fuel that sets innovation on fire 43:40

1M ago43:40

43:40

Most think that algorithms are the modern root cause of innovations. But Marta Stelmaszak says not only are organizations today powered by data, they innovate through data. With several other colleagues, Marta is bringing data studies back to the forefront of information systems research. She produces workshops, a forthcoming book, and an online bi…

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If you're writing a paper about AI you are not allowed to talk about AI 53:14

2M ago53:14

53:14

When we discuss artificial intelligence, what metaphors do we use to illustrate what we mean? Is artificial intelligence some sort of robot—like Ultron—or is it an organism—like a beehive? What happens to our expectations, our thinking, and our conclusions when we change these metaphors, say, from an entitative metaphor (say, an agent) to a relatio…

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Nick's rules for a good PhD education 50:36

2M ago50:36

50:36

We are together in South Bend and teach a class to PhD students in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. Our joint teaching experience makes us wonder: What should all doctoral students learn or what should we all teach the next generation of IS students? We come up with Nick's rules for a good PhD education: First, under…

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Should all qualitative researchers use LLMs? 52:42

3M ago52:42

52:42

One of the big topics at the AOM 2025 conference this summer was the use of large language models in the research process, especially in qualitative studies. We expand this discussion by asking: can qualitative research be automated—or augmented? Yes and no. Some of the advantages LLMs bring to the table are hard to ignore. LLMs can act as critical…

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Cognitive conflict, courage, humility, and respect: Ingredients for a productive academic discourse 51:58

3M ago51:58

51:58

A new season of podcast episodes is starting and what better place to kick it off as the world's largest business and management conference. We are recording this episode at AOM 2025 in beautiful Copenhagen, made possible through a generous invite from Attila Marton from CBS who organized a recording studio for us. Being here amid symposia, profess…

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Elitism, conflicts of interest, and collusion in the information systems field? 54:36

5M ago54:36

54:36

Is there collusion in our field? Do we have elites running wild, making sure that their work gets published whilst the rest of us struggles to find room to publish our own work? And are we handling conflicts of interest that may exist between authors and the editors who are charged with making decisions about their work? These are serious questions…

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The great debate 1:04:03

5M ago1:04:03

1:04:03

Which research methods are better, quantitative or qualitative? What is more important, getting a richer picture of what goes on in organizations, or seeking generalizable insights about causality? This debate has raged at the very least since Glaser and Strauss popularized the grounded theory method in the mid twentieth century. In 2025, we want t…

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Ask us anything - Part Two 45:39

6M ago45:39

45:39

We continue with our special "Ask us anything" episode to celebrate the centenary of the This IS Research podcast. This time, we handle questions such as "do we have to worry about ontology?" - No; "should we engage in community building?" Yes; and "what have you learned from the podcast?" A whole lot - and we hope you have learned a thing or two a…

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Ask us anything – Part one 39:57

6M ago39:57

39:57

We have an anniversary to celebrate: one hundred episodes of the This IS Research podcast. We mark the occasion by answering questions we received from our audience: Which bear is the best, who likes a hug more... and what advice would we give about starting as an assistant professor, pivoting your research, and what books to read. All this and muc…

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Are digital technologies helping to green our planet? 53:23

7M ago53:23

53:23

In 2010, the Association for Information Systems formed a special interest group (SIGGreen) to nurture an international community of academics that study the role of digital technologies in fostering environmentally, economically and socially sustainable development. Fifteen years later, we sit down with Jacqueline Corbett, the current SIGGreen pre…

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How to be an editor 101, or: how to get away with bad paper decisions 1:06:21

7M ago1:06:21

1:06:21

Jason Thatcher is back on the show and he is bringing decades of experiences as a journal editor. So we decided we play a game of round robin where each of us is giving rules of what to do (or not to do) as an editor. How long can we sit on papers before we make decisions? On what basis should we offer revise and resubmit decisions? When is it okay…

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If it feels like a shortcut, it's probably a shortcut. 57:55

8M ago57:55

57:55

Is it okay to use large language models in the research process? For what task, exactly, and to automate the task or to augment the researcher? In this episode, we try to explore whether and how LLMs could be used in five aspects of the research process - for paper writing, reviewing, data analysis, as a subject of research, or as a surrogate for r…

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New theories or new scripts for the digital age? 42:34

8M ago42:34

42:34

Is there a formula for doing and publishing research on digital phenomena? And if so, it is the same formula as the scripts for IS papers of the past, or has it changed? We discuss how our field has historically worked with reference theories from other disciplines and how we have moved beyond this one way of doing and publishing research to a vari…

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Let's all cheer for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems 56:35

9M ago56:35

56:35

Our field of information systems is in the fortunate position that we have our own independent and self-governed association (we have more than one, in fact), which publishes one of the true top journals of our field, which means that the journal is entirely in our control as members. But as Monideepa Tarafdar, the current Editor-in-Chief of the Jo…

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The five best episodes to get you started with this podcast 6:05

9M ago6:05

6:05

Nick is traveling, Jan is sick - no time to produce a new episode in time. But fear not, we still have a giant archive of episodes that you may have forgotten or not even heard so far. So we picked five of our best episodes and link to them below so that you can re-visit them, or maybe you haven't even gotten around to listening to them yet. All ep…

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Is hunting journal articles making us miss the boat of big ideas? 41:44

10M ago41:44

41:44

Is the journal publishing process and the "game" around journal publishing forcing us to give up on big ideas and instead work on small ideas about trivial matters? We are not so sure. We think that science needs many different types of academics, and they have all sorts of different ideas, big and small, and we need outlets for expressing every si…

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Stop having your paper rejected for lack of fit 39:48

10M ago39:48

39:48

One of the main reasons article submissions get desk-rejected by journals is for lack of fit. But what does that actually mean? And how can we figure this out before we submit our work? Well there are several tests you can do to evaluate the fitness of your work to an information systems journal: you can evaluate whether you are writing about a dis…

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Awards under the Christmas Tree 32:31

11M ago32:31

32:31

Look at what Santa dropped when he came down the chimney last night. A bunch of valuable ThisISResearch Best paper Awards! As we do at the end of every year, we look back at the finest information systems scholarship our field has produced this year, and we pick some of our favorite papers that we want to give an award too. Like in previous years, …

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What do practitioners want from us? 55:22

12M ago55:22

55:22

What do academics have to offer that practitioners do not already have? They have the data academics want. They can analyse it by themselves, sometimes better than academics. They are also not reading our articles. So why would academics bother engaging with them? Why should we even bridge that perceived or existing gap between theory and practice?…

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You just did a bad job doing qualitative research 51:05

1y ago51:05

51:05

You set up an assumption, you have a theory, you analyze your data, and you show that the assumption does not hold. Doing good qualitative research is that simple. Except that it's not, of course. On the ground, in the research and writing process, these basic rules can be quite tricky to implement. So we discuss some heuristics researchers can use…

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Have we lost our ability to create big impact? 41:12

1y ago41:12

41:12

Did you know there is someone who published a MIS Quarterly paper in its inaugural issue in 1977 and has another one forthcoming in 2024? Hard to fathom but Izak Benbasat has published at least one paper in our top journal in every decade of its existence. Izak has been doing IS scholarship for almost fifty years, which makes him the perfect resear…

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Can you publish papers on digital technology in Academy of Management Review? 49:47

1y ago49:47

49:47

We continue our discussion around theorizing about digital phenomena and publishing conceptual papers. Today, we are joined by Robert Gregory, who has published several theoretical articles on digital technology in Academy of Management Review. He is also an AMR editor for a special issue on AI in management and he heads the Theory section as senio…

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Journal editorials that are must-reads for every IS scholar 37:20

1y ago37:20

37:20

Editorials are spaces in journals where the key stewards of the field leave advice for others about what type of research the journals they lead are looking to publish. We discuss some of our favorite editorials and dissect the advice to dish out for finding important research problems, theorizing effectively, and writing persuasively. References R…

1
Why you should never write a conceptual paper 51:52

1y ago51:52

51:52

Conceptual papers that offer new theories are hard to write and even harder to publish. You do not have empirical data to back up your arguments, which makes the papers easy to reject in the review cycle. We are also typically not well trained in theorizing, and there isn't even a clear process to theorizing we could learn or follow. Does that mean…

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Orthogonal testing planes and electricity in the kitchen 54:01

1y ago54:01

54:01

Did you know that when you spend time on an online platform, you could be experiencing between six to eight different experimental treatments that stem from several hundred A/B tests that run concurrently? That's how common digital experimentation is today. And while this may be acceptable in industry, large-scale digital experimentation poses some…

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The three most useless slides in conference presentations 51:26

1y ago51:26

51:26

We are back with the usual dose of fortnightly folksy academic wisdom sprinkled in with some serious and substantive conversations. We kick this new season off by discussing observations we made at this year's Academy of Management conference in Chicago. We talk about how to get the most out of doctoral and junior faculty consortia, how to pick whi…

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How to do a literature review 59:23

1+ y ago59:23

59:23

Many people think of summer as the best time to read. On the beach, on the airplane to a vacation, in between semesters… Sounds like a perfect time to do a literature review. But there are many ways to do a literature review, and in all honesty, we think most people choose the wrong type of review – the "systematic" literature review where they sel…

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Did we learn anything? 41:20

1+ y ago41:20

41:20

Time to reflect a bit. After our conversations with three excellent but very different IS researchers, we sit down and ponder the lessons we learnt from the three previous podcasts with Jan vom Brocke, Shaila Miranda, and Jason Thatcher. So did we learn anything? You betcha. We talk about the balancing humble scholarship with the need to popularize…

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Behavioral research is alive and well … online 59:16

1+ y ago59:16

59:16

Behavioral research is alive and well ... online Some time ago, we wondered whether survey research is dead. Today, we speak with Jason Thatcher, who argues the exact opposite. He gives us plenty of advice on how to design online experiments, sample rigorously on platforms like Prolific, build reliable psychometric measurements, and embed surveys i…

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Generalization or generalizability, that is the question 1:01:22

1+ y ago1:01:22

1:01:22

Shaila Miranda is with us today. She has done some amazing theory construct research using computational methods before this was really an accepted thing. We discuss which work she built her research around to give it legitimacy, what good stopping rules are for authors or reviewers to know when enough is enough, and how we can engage in humble gen…

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The Elon Musk of Information Systems 56:53

1+ y ago56:53

56:53

According to the internet, Elon Musk is often praised for his visionary mindset, innovation, risk-taking attitude, and energy. Jan vom Brocke is just like that, we think. With the positivity he brings into every project and meeting, Jan has been right at the center of many seminal developments in our field over the past twenty years, from the rise …

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Winning the citation game 43:51

1+ y ago43:51

43:51

In science, citations are used to give credit to sources that are relevant to the topic that is being discussed where the citation appears. They are a key vehicle through which we establish a cumulative knowledge tradition – we use them to acknowledge material that informs our arguments. But citations are much more than that. They have become a key…

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The blank page problem 33:54

1+ y ago33:54

33:54

Research is a conversation. Every scholar must become a professional writer. But how do we learn these things? Most graduate school programs do not include a writing course and books on how to write are read even less than other types of books. Is good writing maybe all either genetics or just experience? Or does it depend on how we approach resear…

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What is so special about special issues? 40:03

1+ y ago40:03

40:03

The thing is, special issues are special. Hence the name. But what is it that makes them special? We look at some of the hottest special issues out there for information systems researchers and we discuss three key aspects of special issues – topical fit, competition, and process – that provide both advantages and disadvantages to researchers think…

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Every study is a case study 56:38

1+ y ago56:38

56:38

Jan has a boy crush on IS Econ researchers while Nick thinks they reduce all phenomena to regressions. Time to put both myths – and a few others – to rest. We brought on the inimitable and wonderful Gordon Burtch and Brad Greenwood to talk about everything you ever wanted to know about economics, econometrics, difference-in-difference designs, mech…

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Navigating the jagged frontier of computing 59:08

1+ y ago59:08

59:08

Generative AI is the biggest tech issue of our time. We might be witnessing history in the making. At least, so says Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, who is not only senior editor for Organization Science but also has been studying AI and innovation for years and who is part of an inter-disciplinary team that explores the impact of generative AI on professiona…

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Professional athletes make better scientists 1:01:00

2y ago1:01:00

1:01:00

Trivia question: which information systems scholar was a division one tennis professional and has an award-winning MIS Quarterly paper to her name? Of course, it can only be Carolina Salge. She joins us today to talk about bots and cyborgs, how to deal with publishing pressures, and how to find a perfect co-author. Our solution is to build a Tinder…

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Your best course of action is to cheat and put your name on every paper 46:29

2y ago46:29

46:29

One of the biggest cases of academic misconduct in recent times has been the case involving Francesca Gino, Dan Ariely, and Max Bazerman. Is there anything we can learn from this case and how it was handled? Nick and Jan are back from the winter break and dig straight into questionable research practices, whistleblowers, senior co-authors and what …

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Trailblazers, innovators, and elegant scholars 46:04

2y ago46:04

46:04

As the year draws to a close, it is time for us to revisit some of the best IS scholarship that got published this year. Yes, time for the 3rd annual thisISresearch podcast awards. This year, it was particularly tough to choose so we just invented a new award! Tune in to find out who won the trailblazing research award, the innovative method award,…

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The songs by Lady Gaga will be forgotten 53:37

2y ago53:37

53:37

What is so special about digital technology? Is digital innovation about architecture or is it about data? We talk with the enigmatic Jannis Kallinikos – truly one of the great thinkers in our field. Our conversation covers the ambivalence of digital objects, the role of data as records in organizations, the role of books in expressing broader idea…

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Who would think Management Science is Not a Top Information Systems Journal? 55:53

2y ago55:53

55:53

Nick and Jan venture into new publishing territory. We talk with the fabulous D.J. Wu, one of the information systems department editors at Management Science, about journal procedures, reviewer expectations, and innovations in the review process. We discuss how our field nurtures multiple communities that all share the aim of advancing information…

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Jan does not research ChatGPT but that does not mean no one should. 40:36

2y ago40:36

40:36

ChatGPT is back in our podcast one more time. Last time we talked about its impact on the academic enterprise. But ChatGPT is also the key digital technology issue of our time. It should be researched, of course, and we information systems researchers should jump on the opportunity to learn more about it. What are some of the questions that surroun…

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Disclaimer: ChatGPT produced this episode. 54:16

2y ago54:16

54:16

Or maybe it did not. Who knows? ChatGPT is here for the world to see and not even our podcast can avoid talking about it. All the firms we know have long started exploring ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies. Will generative AI also change the academic enterprise? Some suggest it already has. We think we are at the cusp of changes, both in…

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Reference disciplines, IT managers, and Taylor Swift 55:14

2y ago55:14

55:14

IS as a field has the same problem that IT departments have in organizations - we think those other people should come to us with their questions about digitalization and benefit from our decades of wisdom! But we argue that this is not going to happen. It is our job (as it is the IT manager's job) to make the case for how we can help. OK, so that'…

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We like big books and we cannot lie 48:33

2y ago48:33

48:33

Someone asked us to do an episode on books that shifted our thinking. So here we are and we each brought two books that changed the way we look at the world when we read them. We discuss these books and what new things they told us. And of course, it's turning into a showoff about who remembers more from these books. And suffice to say: Jan loses t…

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Anything qualitative researchers write has been said before 1:00:54

2y ago1:00:54

1:00:54

What are the secrets to publishing qualitative papers? We have no idea but Paul Leonardi does – after all he is one of the most prolific and impactful scholars on technology and organizing of our time. We grab the opportunity and ask him for his secret tricks. Together, we reflect on fancy words, detailed method descriptions, obligatory Glaser and …

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I know that you HARKed last summer 46:08

2+ y ago46:08

46:08

Summer is over, all wine is consumed, and all vegetables harvested. Time for this IS research to get back to work. We kick off the new season by talking about questionable research practices – HARKing, p-hacking, fishing for asterisks, data dredging, and so on. Nick digs out an old paper Jan wrote, and we use it to discuss the situations in which H…

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Shiny new ideas for the next decade 55:02

2+ y ago55:02

55:02

After talking about the big theories from the past millennium, it is time to talk about the ideas that emerged after the year 2000. From sociomaterality and two-sided markets to temporal networks, modularity, and routine dynamics – contemporary scholarship is ripe with new ideas that warrant further development, empirical exploration, and rigorous …