Authors

The ISPJ has a global scope and solicits manuscripts from authors across the world written for a global audience. The ISPJ has no bias in favour of or against any particular country or context. The journal welcomes research situated in and/or addressing problems that span the entire spectrum of development, from developed to emerging and underdeveloped economies, in the global North and South. It is important that authors be explicit with respect to the locations to which their study and recommendations pertain. Authors submitting to the journal may be practitioners, academics, consultants, or ideally a combination of these. Authors may be associated with all manner of public and private organisations, including government, communities, charities, non-governmental organisations and others, who have unique stories to tell based on their particular experience with IS. We prefer at least one author to be a practitioner, to ensure that the practical perspective is front and centre in the study submitted for consideration. Practitioners do not need to be managers or executives: practitioners can be at any level and in any role.

The journal acknowledges that higher education institutions are increasingly recognising the value of practical impact-focused research. However, potential authors from academia should only submit practically focused research in real-world contexts if they are somewhat involved in the IS-related situation; ideally, they will be co-authoring with practitioners. Other potential contributors could be adjunct and clinical professors, and students who, although engaged in higher-level study, are themselves practitioners in organisations. Non-academic writers may work with each other or alone, but they are encouraged to work with academics in higher education institutions to leverage the best of both worlds, bringing insights into the practice of IS combined with the perspective and methodological experience that academics can provide.

Problematisation & Contributions

It is critical that authors problematise their areas of investigation, i.e. they seek to identify a current problem situation in a practice context be it an organisation, community, NGO, charity, government, or society at large, where there is the opportunity to make a novel contribution to knowledge. Authors should refrain from relying on a literature gap to make the case for the relevance and contribution of their study (see Chatterjee and Davison 2020). It is essential that the research places IS at the heart of the problem whilst describing it in detail. The manuscript should clearly explain who cares about the problem and why, and who would like to see it solved. It is expected that the problem is approached from multiple perspectives, including, but not limited to, managerial and/or organisational perspectives. Authors should explore how practitioners experience the problem and provide recommendations that will be relevant to practitioners and potentially other readers of the journal.

The journal invites submissions that critically analyse IS in practice and shed light on the underlying problem. For instance, a study on IS failure is perfectly legitimate. Since many IS are implemented at the behest of managers, yet those same IS do not always work effectively, especially when they ignore the legitimate needs of employees, a contrarian or emancipatory perspective, where the authors take the side of junior employees in opposition to management, are also welcome. Significant practical insights could come from research into such situations. The journal views it as essential that authors demonstrate support for their arguments and that submissions have significant implications, big-picture thinking or strong practical recommendations emerging from the research, even if the recommendations are local in scope.

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