Robert Campbell

Qualitative research routinely requires expert practitioner knowledge to be elicited. However, effectively eliciting tacit or implicit knowledge can be problematic. This chapter presents a method in which pedagogy and infographics were combined to elicit the knowledge of expert professionals. During interlocutions, using a progressive series of infographics accompanied by explanations, research participants were quickly taught new topics. Then as the learning occurred, they were asked to reflect on their experience using their new knowledge as a lens. Deployed with Information Systems practitioners, the approach was effective, bringing forth 130,000 words of relevant and advanced discourse. Although details of the Information Systems research are presented in the chapter as an illustration, the chapter’s foci are the method’s underpinning principles and deployment. It is believed that this approach could be easily transferred into a range of qualitative research domains. Given the ambiguity surrounding the term, the concepts of expert and expertise are also discussed along with the challenge of establishing definitions for a given domain.

Qualitative research routinely requires expert practitioner knowledge to be elicited. However, effectively eliciting tacit or implicit knowledge can be problematic. This chapter presents a method in which pedagogy and infographics were combined to elicit the knowledge of expert professionals. During interlocutions, using a progressive series of infographics accompanied by explanations, research participants were quickly taught new topics. Then as the learning occurred, they were asked to reflect on their experience using their new knowledge as a lens. Deployed with Information Systems practitioners, the approach was effective, bringing forth 130,000 words of relevant and advanced discourse. Although details of the Information Systems research are presented in the chapter as an illustration, the chapter’s foci are the method’s underpinning principles and deployment. It is believed that this approach could be easily transferred into a range of qualitative research domains. Given the ambiguity surrounding the term, the concepts of expert and expertise are also discussed along with the challenge of establishing definitions for a given domain.

This article examines the attitudes that can cause users to resist information system implementations using an established theory from social and cognitive psychology: the Elaboration Likelihood Model. It is argued that users who do not think deeply about systems represent a key blockage and that their attitudes are based largely on heuristics and peripheral influences. The results of a wide-ranging study are presented in which 28 heuristics and peripheral influences that commonly affect user attitudes are identified.

A three-country study was undertaken to assess the educational efficacy of two textbooks authored by the researcher. The same texts were distributed to groups of student nurses in the United Kingdom, Cambodia, and Kenya. A data collection tool was developed to obtain quantitative data and to ask open-ended questions on how useful readers found the texts to be. Quantitative data indicated that the books were useful in areas such as aiding understanding of scientific and medical terminology and helping nurses to assess their patients and understand nursing care. It was also found that simplified diagrams were a useful modality for communicating bioscientific concepts. Answers to open-ended questions indicated areas where the texts could be improved. Evidence for how useful bioscientific concepts can be to improving patient assessment and management was also identified. Significant agreement between quantitative data and answers to open-ended questions was noted. It was concluded that the same texts could have a significant degree of educational acceptance and efficacy in wildly differing cultural and national situations. This approach to resource production and distribution also forms a model other educationalists may choose to adopt.

Purpose
This paper aims to expose the behaviours through which modern professional people commonly obstruct information system (IS) implementations in their workplace. Users often resist IS implementations, and it has been established that this can cause an implementation to fail. As the initial analysis of an on-going research project, this paper does not yet seek to present IS resistance as a good or a bad thing, it simply identifies and codifies forms of IS resistance. Design/methodology/approach – Inductive interviews with IS implementers threw light on 29 resisted projects across 21 organisations. Interviewees were introduced to established theories of attitude change from social and cognitive psychology then asked to reflect on their experiences of IS implementations using these theories as a lens.
Findings Although it is not claimed that all approaches by which users obstruct IS implementations are identified here, we believe that those most commonly deployed have been uncovered. It is also revealed that such behaviours result from negative user attitudes and that their impact can be significant. They can emotionally or psychologically affect system champions and can often cause implementation projects to fail.
Research limitations Our method was based on an epistemic assumption that significant understanding is found in the experience and knowledge (tacit and explicit) of IS implementation experts. The paper’s contents are drawn from reflections on a combined 302 years of experience using attitude change psychology as a lens. Using this method, a range of obstructive behaviours was identified. Although it is claimed that the obstructive behaviours most commonly deployed have been unveiled, it is not probable that this list is comprehensive and could be appended to using alternative approaches.
Practical implications This paper has significant implications for stakeholders in IS implementations. It enables project risks originating from users to be better identified, and it highlights the critical role that negative user attitudes can play in an implementation.
Social implications This paper considers a common area of conflict in professional organisations, modelling its nature and effect. It also encourages system champions to consider user attitude cultivation as a critical part of any implementation project.
Originality/value The contribution of this research is twofold. In the arena of user resistance, it is the first to focus on how implementations are resisted and is accordingly the first to identify and taxonomise forms of IS resistance. A contribution is also made to an ongoing literature conversation on the role of attitude in technology acceptance. This paper is the first to focus, not on user attitudes but on how negative attitudes are manifest in behaviour.

Qualitative research routinely requires experienced practitioners in a given field to be interviewed, and there are a range of methods known to elicit dialogue. The method presented in this paper, however, goes a stage further, it seeks not only to elicit dialogue but to provide subjects with additional knowledge, which they are encouraged to use as a lens for reflection on their own experience. Using a progressive series of related information graphics, accompanied by explanations, subjects are quickly taught a new topic and are asked to reflect on their own practice while the learning occurs. The approach was tested with six Information Technology (I.T.) specialists, each with extensive experience of encouraging users to participate in new I.T. environments. Subjects were provided with information graphics that incrementally increased their understanding of psychological theories related to attitude change, namely cognitive dissonance and the elaboration likelihood model. As their knowledge increased, they were guided to reflect on occasions where they had encountered phenomena related to such psychological theory, its effect and affiliated best practice. Over all, this approach was effective, with over 50,000 words of relevant, advanced discourse forthcoming. In this paper, the methodology, its affiliated epistemology and an overview of the test are presented.

Qualitative research routinely requires experienced practitioners in a given field to be interviewed, and there are a range of methods known to elicit dialogue. The method for elicitation presented in this paper, however, goes a stage further it seeks not only to elicit dialogue but to provide subjects with additional knowledge, which they are encouraged to use as a lens for reflection on their own experience. Using a progressive series of related information graphics, accompanied by explanations, subjects are quickly taught a new topic and are asked to reflect on their own practice while the learning occurs. The research project is described to contextualise the elicitation method within the wider engagement. The approach was tested with a number of Information Technology (I.T.) specialists, each with extensive experience of encouraging users to participate in new I.T. environments. Subjects were provided with information graphics that incrementally increased their understanding of psychological theories related to attitude change, namely cognitive dissonance and the elaboration likelihood model. As their knowledge increased, they were guided to reflect on occasions where they had encountered phenomena related to such psychological theory, its effect and affiliated best practice. Over all, this approach was effective, with over 130,000 words of relevant, advanced discourse forthcoming. In this paper, the elicitation method, its affiliated epistemology, an overview of the project and the research methodology are presented, along with some early results.

In social and cognitive psychology, theories related to human attitude change are well established. In recent years, it has become increasingly common for those who seek to change attitudes towards computer based information systems to employ attitude change notions that originate from psychology.
In this paper, the findings of those who have employed ‘attitude change psychology’ to understand or change user attitudes, are synthesised to create a prototype framework by which it is proposed that user attitudes could be cultivated as part of a system implementation. Operating as a summary of existing knowledge, this frame work also unveils significant areas of empirical deficit, providing a basis for future investigation.

At the best of times; the integration of new computer based information systems that carry a high level of inscription can be problematic; the situation is exasperated further if the information system is being imposed upon an organisation by an absent and previously unknown body. This paper proposes that Relational Agents when combined with StructurANTion theory can assist in the integration of such environments. Relational agents have been found to make computer interfaces more attractive and have enabled the automation of procedures that depend on interpersonal relationships. It is proposed here that a relational agent could be embedded into an application to assist in its own integration. To do this; an agent would automate the StructurANTion translation process; on behalf of an absent actor as well as initially attracting users to the interface. To support this proposition; existing research into relational agents is reviewed.