:: About Us

In 2004 it will have been 20 years since a group of 'Young Turks' meeting in Manchester set out to break the mould of orthodox IS research methodology. Over the 20 years since that auspicious gathering, the reputation, reach and impact of the WG 8.2 community has been extended into mainstream IS journals, conferences and academic institutions world-wide. Twenty working conferences have been held, publishing 400 papers covering all manner of social theories and IS topics.

The first gathering had bold and radical ambitions. Twenty years on, is it timely to look back and take stock of the working group's real impact upon the practice of IS, IS strategy, development and IS use in human organisations? This conference is proposed to debate this question. How relevant has our work really been? To what extent have we made impact on IS practice. To what degree have our theories drawn on practice and been enhanced by this grounding, or posing the corollary issue: have we been sullied by practice? Has the positivist mould really been broken: does the 'methods war' still rage, has the' method war' been won, or is the victory illusory or even pyrrhic? Is the war metaphor a valid one?

Two decades on, we would like to invite researchers and practitioners, both members of the now 'old guard' and the 'new young Turks', to explore the relevance of IS research using any of the tools and methods now open and available to us. The meeting will be both a celebration of the iconoclastic idealism of its forebearers and a serious opportunity to reflect and to take stock of how the discourse on research questions, themes and methods has evolved in the interim.