This paper discusses applications of the measures of the risk of misinforming and the role of the warranty of misinforming in the context of the informing component of Customer Related Management (CRM) issues. This study consists of two parts. Firstly, we propose an approach for customers’ grouping based on their attitude toward assessing product's properties and their expertise on the terminology/domain of the seller’s message describing the product. Also we discuss what the most appropriate personal/group warranty is for each of these group/clusters. 

This paper identifies areas in the design science research (DSR) subfield of the information systems (IS) discipline where a more detailed consideration of practitioner audiences of socio-technical design artifacts could improve current IS DSR research practice and proposes an initial conceptualization of these audiences. The consequences of not considering artifact audiences are identified through a critical appraisal of the current informing science lenses in the IS DSR literature. There are specific shortcomings in four areas: 1) treating practice stakeholders as a too homogeneous group, 2) not explicitly distinguishing between social and technical parts of socio-technical artifacts, 3) neglecting implications of the artifact abstraction level, and 4) a lack of explicit consideration of a dynamic or evolutionary fitness perspective of socio-technical artifacts. The findings not only pave the way for future research to further improve the conceptualization of artifact audiences, in order to improve the informing power – and thus, impact on practice and research relevance – of IS DSR projects; they can also help to bridge the theory-practice gap in other disciplines (e.g. computer science, engineering, or policy-oriented sociology) that seek to produce social and/or technical artifacts of practical relevance.

The article presents Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) as an overdue individualized as well as a collaborative approach for knowledge workers. Designing a PKM-supporting system, however, resembles a so-called “wicked” problem (ill-defined; incomplete, contradictory, changing requirements, complex interdependencies) where the information needed to understand the challenges depends on upon one’s idea for solving them. Accordingly, three main areas are attended to. Firstly, in dealing with a range of growing complexities, the notion of Popper’s Worlds is applied as three distinct spheres of reality and further expanded into six digital ecosystems (technologies, extelligence, society, knowledge worker, institutions, and ideosphere) that not only form the basis for the PKM System Concept named ‘Knowcations’ but also form a closely related Personal Knowledge Management for Development (PKM4D) framework detailed in a separate dedicated paper. Reflecting back on a United Nations scenario of knowledge mass production (KMP) over time, the complexities closely related to the digital ecosystems and the inherent risks of today’s accelerating attention-consuming over-abundance of redundant information are scrutinized, concluding in a chain of meta-arguments favoring the idea of the PKM concept and system put forward. Secondly, in light of the digital ecosystems and complexities introduced, the findings of a prior article are further refined in order to assess the PKM concept and system as a potential General-Purpose-Technology. Thirdly, the development process and resulting prototype are verified against accepted general design science research (DSR) guidelines. DSR aims at creating innovative IT artifacts (that extend human and social capabilities and meet desired outcomes) and at validating design processes (as evidence of their relevance, utility, rigor, resonance, and publishability). Together with the incorporated references to around thirty prior publications covering technical and methodological details, a kind of ‘Long Discussion Case’ emerges aiming to potentially assist IT researchers and entrepreneurs engaged in similar projects.

This research aims to suggest key design characteristics that are necessary for developing usable e-commerce websites in the Arab world. A comprehensive usability evaluation of four leading Arab e-commerce websites was conducted using the heuristic evaluation method. The results identified major and minor usability problems and major and minor good design characteristics on the selected websites. Based on the results, 51 key design characteristics were suggested. The recommended key design characteristics comprised two levels according to their priority: level one which includes mandatory key design characteristics and level two which includes supplementary design characteristics. The key design characteristics in each level were categorized under specific pages and areas that can be found on any e-commerce website. Such categorizations could direct website evaluators and designers to important pages and areas that should be considered to improve the overall usability of e-commerce websites. The results of this research are particularly important to developing countries which are still facing challenges that may affect the design and accessibility of usable and useful websites. These relate to low speed of accessing the Internet and a lack of website designers who have experience in customers’ needs and websites’ usable design characteristics.

The following definition of “option” is given in Wikipedia - “In finance, an option is a contract, which gives the buyer (the owner or holder) the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price on or before a specified date, depending on the form of the option” (“Option,” n.d.). Option as a risk management (mitigation) tool is broadly used in finance and trade. At the same time, it introduces asymmetry in the sense that, probabilistically, it limits the level of losses (e.g., the price of the option) and allows for unlimited gains. In the market of sophisticated devices (as smart phones, tablets, etc.), where technologies are rapidly advancing, customers usually do not have the experience to use all features of the device at the time of the purchase. Due to the lack of appropriate expertise, the risk of misinforming, leading to not purchasing the “right” device is high, but given enough time to learn the capabilities of the device and map these to the needs and tasks that device will be used for, could provide the client with substantial long term benefits. Warranty of misinforming is a mechanism that provides the client with the opportunity to explore the device and master its features under limited risk of financial losses. Thus, the warranty of misinforming could be considered as an option - the custom-ers buy it (at a fixed cost) and may gain (theoretically) unlimited benefit by realizing (within the terms of the warranty) that the device can be used to solve a variety of problems not envisaged at the time of purchase. In this study we present the idea of treating the warranty of misinforming as an option in finances and provide examples to illustrate our viewpoint.

Aim/Purpose: Sharing ideas generated in a Business Intelligence (BI) Applications class to upgrade an Information System in to an Informing System. Background: Course Registration is the essential university’s business process in a university that follows a liberal-arts education model. Almost all categories of users are involved, including students, individual faculties and departments, and administration. A typical Information System, designed to support this process, allows departments to schedule selected courses for a particular time slot and location, and allows students to choose courses to study for the semester. Methodology: The course project is to design a BI application. Domain knowledge is essential for such projects and course registration was the natural choice for this class. The assignment includes (1) identifying the categories of stakeholders; (2) identifying the information needs of different categories; (3) identifying available information sources; (4) identifying how is possible to acquire the additional data; and (5) designing the Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) process and interface scenarios in a way to inform clients. Contribution: Contributions are in two directions: (1) pedagogy - involving students in such a project motivates creativity, also enforcing students to think in cost-benefit framework may lead to creation of really effective and efficient solutions; (2) practice - implementation of some of the ideas could be with low cost, but with high impact. Findings: Exploring BI techniques may increase the informing value of existing Information Systems. Recommendations for Practitioners: Careful analysis of information needs and the way information is used, combined with deep domain knowledge and understanding the value provided by Data Mining techniques, is the way to initiate a process of transforming an Retrieval Information System to better inform clients. Recommendation for Researchers : Combining pedagogy with practice allows one to overcome routine thinking and may lead to effective solutions. This needs further structuring and research on outcomes. Impact on Society Transforming Information towards Informing Systems has a significant impact by allowing users to make rational data driven decisions in an efficient way. Future Research: The future of this project is implementation of developed ideas and assessment of the results. Impact on Society : Transforming Information towards Informing Systems has a significant impact by allowing users to make rational data driven decisions in an efficient way. Future Research: The future of this project is implementation of developed ideas and assessment of the results.

Aim/Purpose: To develop and introduce a questionnaire that investigates the informing needs, information-seeking behavior, and supplier selection of procurement officers in Israel. The questionnaire’s internal consistency reliability is given. Additionally, we describe the demographic description of the procurement officers in Israel. Background: Procurement science is an important field that affects firms’ profits in the private sector and is significant to growth, innovation, sustainability, and welfare in the public sector. There is little research about the informing needs of procurement officers in general and particularly in Israel. Methodology: A quantitative questionnaire that is sent to all the procurement officers in Israel’s procuring association. Contribution: The questionnaire that is developed in this paper may be used by other researchers and practitioners to evaluate the information needs of procurement officers. Findings: The typical procurement officer is male, with a bachelor degree and is digitally proficient. Recommendations for Practitioners: The procuring side can use the questionnaire to develop better tools for obtaining information efficiently. The supplying side can use this knowledge to improve its exposure to potential customers and address its customer’s needs better. Recommendation for Researchers: The questionnaire can address theoretical questions such as how digital literacy affects the procuring process and provide empirical findings about active research areas such as supplier selection and information-seeking behavior. Future Research: Future research will examine the relationship between the various variables and demographic features to understand why specific information needs and information-seeking behaviors arise.

Aim/Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how Kuwaiti Academic Libraries (KALs) have responded to the rapidly evolving Smartphone-Apps (SP-Apps) environment, as well as exploring the level of electronic services provided in these libraries. Background: This study can illustrate whether the governmental, academic libraries in the State of Kuwait have already benefited from the mobile services provided by smart phones or not. Methodology: In this study, the researchers use both qualitative and quantitative methods. Therefore, questionnaires and interviews are used in order to collect in-depth data in this field. The questionnaire sample was 400 respondents. They divided in two KALs: Kuwait University Library (KUL) and Public Authority of Applied Education Training Library (PAAETL), while eight individual interviews were conducted one-to-one in this research. Contribution: This paper may be important for academic libraries to identify shortcomings in the smartphones’ content and services they provide and in highlighting efforts by libraries to address their users’ needs in this area. Findings: The findings show that most participants expressed the need to introduce an SP-App to their library. They also confirmed that there are many difficulties in creating an SP-App including lack of budget, lack of awareness of library management, lack of clarity about library management strategic objectives, and vision for an SP-App. Recommendations for Practitioners: Designing SP-Apps that have reliable content and user interface that is easy to use is a considerable challenge. For this reason, the study highly recommends introducing SP-Apps for KALs as soon as possible. Future Research: The recommendations proposed are relevant to Kuwait. Further research may be useful in this field in other developing countries, in order to test or develop the suggested strategy.

Aim/Purpose: The main aim of the research is to examine the performance of second language English speaking students enrolled in the Business Statistics course and to investigate the academic performance of students when taught under the constructivist and non-constructivist approaches in a classroom environment. Background: There are different learning theories that are established based on how students learn. Each of these theories has its own benefits based on the different type of learners and context of the environment. The students in this research are new to the University environment and to a challenging technical course like Business Statistics. This research has been carried out to see the effectiveness of the constructivist approach in motivating and increasing the student engagement and their academic performance. Methodology : A total of 1373 students were involved in the quasi-experiment method using Stratified Sampling Method from the year 2015 until 2016. Contribution: To consider curriculum adjustments for first year programs and implications for teacher education. Findings: The t-test for unequal variances was used to understand the mean score. Results indicate students have high motivation level and achieve higher mean scores when they are taught using the constructivist teaching approach compared to the non-constructivist teaching approach. Recommendations for Practitioners: To consider the challenges faced by first year students and create a teaching approach that fits their needs. Recommendation for Researchers: To explore in depth other teaching approaches of the Business Statistics course in improving students’ academic performance. Impact on Society : The constructivist approach will enable learning to be enjoyable and students to be more confident. Future Research: The research will assist other lectures teaching Business Statistics in creating a more conducive environment to encourage second language English speaking students to overcome their shyness and be more engaged.

Aim/Purpose: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) has been envisaged as a crucial tool for the growing creative class of knowledge workers, but adequate technological solutions have not been forthcoming. Background: Based on former affordance-related publications (primarily concerned with communication, community-building, collaboration, and social knowledge sharing), the common and differing narratives in relation to PKM are investigated in order to suggest further PKM capabilities and affordances in need to be conferred. Methodology: The paper follows up on a series of the author’s PKM-related publications, firmly rooted in design science research (DSR) methods and aimed at creating an innovative PKM concept and prototype system. Contribution: The affordances presented offer PKM system users the means to retain and build upon knowledge acquired in order to sustain personal growth and facilitate productive collaborations between fellow learners and/or professional acquaintances. Findings: The results call for an extension of Nonaka’s SECI model and ‘ba’ concept and provide arguments for and evidence supporting the claims that the PKM concept and system is able to facilitate better knowledge traceability and KM practices. Recommendations and Impact on Society: Together with the prior publications, the paper points to current KM shortcomings and presents a novel trans-disciplinary approach offering appealing opportunities for stakeholders engaged in the context of curation, education, research, development, business, and entrepreneurship. Its potential to tackle opportunity divides has been addressed via a PKM for Development (PKM4D) Framework. Future DSR Activities: After completing the test phase of the prototype, its transformation into a viable PKM system and cloud-based server based on a rapid development platform and a noSQL-database is estimated to take 12 months.

Aim/Purpose: The authors argue that interdisciplinarity, together with the more recent concept of transdisciplinarity, can be seen as a coherent attempt not so much to reassemble the fragmented structure into a whole, as to create a fruitful collaboration and integration among different disciplines that takes into account their specificity. Background: At the threshold of the Modern Age, a series of paradigm shifts in Western thought caused its fragmentation into a variety of academic subdisciplines. Such diversification can be considered the result of epistemological shifts and changes in the division of intellectual labor. Contribution: Which semantic horizons can this new approach open, and on which theoretical foundations could a dialogue between disciplines be produced? The growing importance of this problem is evidenced by the emergence, during the last decades, of philosophical reflections on the interactions among different research fields. The paper aims to contribute to the contemporary discussion of the need to overcome boundaries between disciplines. Consequently, it has both a methodological and theoretical impact, since all branches of knowledge aspiring to go beyond their traditional theoretical boundaries would benefit from a coherent theoretical perspective which tries to reconceptualize the transfer of knowledge from one field to another. Findings: The possibility of transdisciplinarity in modern science finds its theoretical premise in M. Foucault’s seminal work on the organization of knowledge, The Order of Things, which hinted at the existence of gaps in the grid of knowledge, leading, as a result, to the possibility of creating transdisciplinary connections. Future Research: The authors’ critical discussion of transdisciplinarity aims to revive the French epistemological tradition that in the last decades has often been rejected by researchers as not being rigorous nor analytical. This choice is motivated by the belief that, despite such evident defects, at its bottom lies a genuine theoretical intention that does not take for granted the possibility of transcending the usual division of intellectual work. In addition, the authors offer a brief account of the Russian conception of transdisciplinarity, relatively little studied in the West, which is presumed to integrate and solve the difficulties of other similar models.

Aim/Purpose: In this paper, we discuss how a Transdisciplinary (TD) and a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) initiative was conceptualized, developed, implemented, and sustained at a small academic institution with limited research infrastructure, emphasizing the role of capacity building. Background: Most examples of the implementation of TD research come from large-scale initiatives in research-intensive institutions or centers with multiple resources to establish collaborations among experts from different disciplines. However less is known about the implementation of TD and CBPR initiatives in small academic settings. Methodology: This paper includes a discussion of the challenges and lessons learned of this process in a teaching-intensive Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), which included a research component as part of the institutional priorities when it transitioned to a 4-year college in 2001. Contribution: We hope that our experience helps other researchers in similar institutions to engage in this type of research. Findings: In this case, a collaborative TD and CBPR initiative was successfully implemented despite limited resources for capacity building and research infrastructure, as well as diversity among researchers and community members. Recommendation for Researchers: To sustain institutional collaborative capacity in this type of institution, authors recommend continuous capacity building efforts and the development of modules and/or courses to provide formal TD training for junior faculty while encouraging researchers to interact and collaborate. In addition, the importance of the role of the community liaison is highlighted. Impact on Society: Successful TD and CBPR initiatives may have a positive impact on the reduction or elimination of health disparities which involve complex phenomena that requires a broad view from different perspectives. Future Research: Even though capacity building can facilitate the implementation of TD and CBPR, many challenges arise as an inherent result of community engagement and the integration of different disciplines. Thus, the need of continuous reflection to acknowledge them becomes critical for advancing TD and CBPR efforts.

Aim/Purpose: This paper describes the regulatory affairs discipline as a useful case in the study of both inter- and transdisciplinary science and dynamics related to communication across multiple boundaries. We will 1) outline the process that led to the development of transnational competencies for regulatory affairs graduate education, 2) discuss how the process highlights the transdisciplinary character of regulatory affairs, 3) provide implications for how to communicate the influence of this characterization to future healthcare professionals, and 4) draw conclusions regarding how our lessons-learned might inform other programs of study. Background: In the past few decades, the regulatory affairs profession has become more internationalized. This prompted the need for new competencies grounded in the transnational and cross-disciplinary contexts in which these professionals are required to operate. Methodology: A convenience sample of experienced regulatory affairs professionals from multiple disciplines contributed to the development of transnational competencies for a master’s program in regulatory affairs using a transdisciplinary framework. Contribution: An applied exemplar in which to understand how transdisciplinary characteristics can be communicated and applied in higher education. Recommendations for Practitioners: This paper recommends how competencies developed from a regulatory affairs program can serve as exemplars for other applied transdisciplinary higher education programs. Impact on Society: This framework provides a seldom-used reflective approach to regulatory affairs education that utilizes cross-disciplinary theory to inform competence-based formation of professionals.

Aim/Purpose: This paper introduces a Social Machine for collaborative sensemaking that the developers have configured to the requirements and challenges of transdisciplinary literature reviews. Background: Social Machines represent a promising model for unifying machines and social processes for a wide range of purposes. A development team led by the author is creating a Social Machine for activities that require users to combine pieces of information from multiple online sources and file types for various purposes. Methodology: The development team has applied emergent design processes, usability testing, and formative evaluation in the execution of the product road map. Contribution: A major challenge of the digital information age is how to tap into large volumes of online information and the collective intelligence of diverse groups to generate new knowledge, solve difficult problems, and drive innovation. A Transdisciplinary Social Machine (TDSM) enables new forms of interactions between humans, machines, and online content that have the potential to (a) improve outcomes of sensemaking activities that involve large collections of online documents and diverse groups and (b) make machines more capable of assisting humans in their sensemaking efforts. Findings: Preliminary findings suggest that TDSM promotes learning and the generation of new knowledge. Recommendations for Practitioners: TDSM has the potential to improve outcomes of literature reviews and similar activities that require distilling information from diverse online sources. Recommendation for Researchers: TDSM is an instrument for investigating sensemaking, an environment for studying various forms of human and machine interactions, and a subject for further evaluation. Impact on Society: In complex areas such as sustainability and healthcare research, TDSM has the potential to make decision-making more transparent and evidence-based, facilitate the production of new knowledge, and promote innovation. In education, TDSM has the potential to prepare students for the 21st century information economy. Future Research: Research is required to measure the effects of TDSM on cross-disciplinary communication, human and machine learning, and the outcomes of transdisciplinary research projects. The developers are planning a multiple case study using design-based research methodology to investigate these topics.

Aim/Purpose: The complexity of scientific problems has spurred the development of transdisciplinary science, in which experts are brought together to collaborate across disciplinary and practice boundaries. These knowledge diverse teams can produce novel solutions, but they often fail to achieve their potential. Background: Leaders have a crucial role to play in enabling effective collaboration among these diverse experts. We propose that a critical predictor of whether a newly formed interdisciplinary team will perform well is the leader’s multidisciplinary breadth of experience, which we define as a leader’s possession of significant experience in multiple areas of research and practice. We suggest that these leaders will have the capability to skillfully manage the interactions within the team. Methodology: We test our prediction in a sample of 52 newly formed interdisciplinary medical research teams. We also observe and examine the communication patterns in a subset of these teams. Contribution: There is a lack of systematic study of the impact leaders have on newly formed interdisciplinary science teams whose members have little or no prior collaborative experience with each other, possess specialized knowledge, and have limited overlapping expertise. This study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the effect of leader multidisciplinary experience on team communication patterns and innovation. Findings: Our study finds that teams are more innovative when their leader has a moderate breadth of multidisciplinary expertise. Exploration of team communication patterns suggests that leaders with moderate multidisciplinary breadth of experience actively stimulated information sharing across expert domains by choosing cross-cutting topics and drew individuals’ attention to the knowledge and approaches of others in the team. Recommendations for Practitioners: Insights from this work can have practical implications regarding how to best select and train leaders to facilitate cross-boundary collaboration in transdisciplinary science. This study elucidates a variety of communication strategies that leaders can to enhance the team innovativeness. Recommendation for Researchers: Further investigation into the underlying psychological states that these communication strategies elicit is needed. Future research should investigate psychological mediators such as knowledge consideration, perspective taking, and cognitive flexibility. Impact on Society: Transdisciplinary science is needed to solve society’s most complex problems. The more insight we gather about factors that can help these knowledge diverse teams to be successful, but more society will benefit. Future Research: More research is needed on team formation, leader experience, and team outcomes in transdisciplinary science teams in a variety of contexts.

Aim/Purpose: Given that leadership has been shown to play a key role in knowledge-producing organizations, leaders of transdisciplinary science have received surprisingly little empirical attention. This study addresses the research gap by examining leadership in the context of a new transdisciplinary research organization. Background: Drawing on complexity leadership theory—a framework developed for identifying behaviors that facilitate creativity, learning, and adaptability in complex adaptive systems—this study examines leadership roles and practices that affect the generation of adaptive dynamics in transdisciplinary science. Methodology: The study is based on a longitudinal, qualitative in-depth case study on a newly formed transdisciplinary research center and its leadership team. The data includes ethnographic observations from leadership meetings and interviews with leaders. Contribution: This unique empirical case contributes to the study of transdisciplinary science by shedding light on the actions of academic leaders as they try to support transdisciplinary conversation, learning, and collaboration in a new center. Findings: The analysis shows that the leaders relied on both enabling and administrative leadership practices in a way that made them the focal point of transdisciplinary knowledge integration and thus jeopardized the creation of adaptive dynamics throughout the organization. Recommendations for Practitioners: The study highlights the importance of having knowledge brokers and hybrid scholars in strategic positions at different levels of the transdisciplinary research organization already in its early stages. Recommendation for Researchers: Longitudinal qualitative case studies that rely on different types of data provide rich information on how new leadership conceptualizations are implemented in organizations and the complex ways in which they relate to knowledge creation processes and outcomes. Impact on Society: Transdisciplinary science has the potential to find cures to complex diseases. Understanding leadership in transdisciplinary science can help in maintaining transdisciplinary research activities in the long run and thus make it more impactful. Future Research: The use of leadership roles and practices will be examined at different developmental stages in the transdisciplinary research process.

Aim/Purpose: To understand the process of social change creation in social entrepreneurial ventures (SEVs), specifically emphasizing the role and nature of the communicative process in social change creation. Background: Drawing on data from seven SEVs from India and the US and employing a grounded theory methodology, this research scrutinizes the social change process and uncovers the role and characteristics of dialogue in this process. Methodology: Qualitative data was collected from seven social entrepreneurial organizations over a period of eight months from July 2011 to February 2012. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a wide range of members within these social entrepreneurial organizations (n=27) with additional informal interviews with field workers and volunteers. Data from the semi-structured interviews and notes from observations were integrated with analyses of archival resources. Contribution: There is little scholarship about the process of social change creation and the necessary conditions to promote social change over time. Understanding the process of social change creation and the individual, interpersonal, and organizational conditions that facilitate the process is central to design of effective trans-sector TD problem solving ventures. This paper focuses on the process of social change creation in social entrepreneurial settings, specifically emphasizing the role and nature of the communicative process in social change creation. Findings: The reflections and experiences of the members of SEVs revealed that social entrepreneurship is a collective endeavor and this collective character is essential to its success. Collective organization and synergy, deep intra-organizational communication, and a conducive organizational context are critical for the creation of collective wisdom and knowledge networks for long-term collaborative community capacity building. Dialogue emerged as a central category linking the other categories to explain the process of social change creation. Organic organizational structure enables knowledge creation and integration through the process of organizational learning through deep and continuous social interaction, or dialogue. Recommendations for Practitioners: This research elucidated the key characteristics of the organizational context required to support the creation of social change. It also identified the critical role and characteristics of the communicative process required to generate structural knowledge and collective wisdom at the organizational level. Recommendation for Researchers: For individual and organizational learning, trans-sector transdisciplinary organizations require an appropriate organizational context. Key elements of such an organizational context include (1) understanding the ecology of the social problem; (2) organic organizational structure; (3) continuous and deep social interaction among all levels of the organization; (4) employee and community autonomy and empowerment; and (5) attention to subtle environmental changes in the system. These elements in combination lead to the creation of collective wisdom. Collective wisdom then feeds back into the conception, planning, and action stages of the iterative cycle of organizational knowledge creation to create positive social change. Impact on Society: Same as above Future Research: Future research model theoretically and study empirically the ecology of social entrepreneurship and trans-sector TD problem solving more broadly. For example, the ways in the personal attributes of social entrepreneurs (e.g., their leadership style, networking abilities) combine with circumstances at organizational, institutional, and international levels to influence the effectiveness of their efforts to promote positive social change within local and global communities. Second, the grounded theoretical framework developed here should be further refined and elaborated through the identification of additional key contextual factors that affect SEVs’ capacity to promote positive social change and to achieve sustainability in different socio-environmental contexts. There is also a need to translate the findings from this research to facilitate the creation of more inclusive problem solving contexts and practices.

Aim/Purpose: Collaborative, interdisciplinary research is growing rapidly, but we still have limited and fragmented understanding of what is arguably the heart of such research—collaborative, interdisciplinary reasoning (CIR). Background: This article integrates neo-Pragmatist theories of reasoning with insights from literature on interdisciplinary research to develop a working definition of collaborative, interdisciplinary reasoning. The article then applies this definition to an empirical example to demonstrate its utility. Methodology: The empirical example is an excerpt from a Toolbox workshop transcript. The article reconstructs a cogent, inductive, interdisciplinary argument from the excerpt to show how CIR can proceed in an actual team. Contribution: The study contributes operational definitions of ‘reasoning together’ and ‘collaborative, interdisciplinary reasoning’ to existing literature. It also demonstrates empirical methods for operationalizing these definitions, with the argument reconstruction providing a brief case study in how teams reason together. Findings: 1. Collaborative, interdisciplinary reasoning is the attempted integration of disciplinary contributions to exchange, evaluate, and assert claims that enable shared understanding and eventually action in a local context. 2. Pragma-dialectic argument reconstruction with conversation analysis is a method for observing such reasoning from a transcript. 3. The example team developed a strong inductive argument to integrate their disciplinary contributions about modeling. Recommendations for Practitioners: 1. Interdisciplinary work requires agreeing with teammates about what is assertible and why. 2. To assert something together legitimately requires making a cogent, integrated argument. Recommendation for Researchers: 1. An argument is the basic unit of analysis for interdisciplinary integration. 2. To assess the argument’s cogency, it is helpful to reconstruct it using pragma-dialectic principles and conversation analysis tools. 3. To assess the argument’s interdisciplinary integration and participant roles in the integration, it is helpful to graph the flow of words as a Sankey chart from participant-disciplines to the argument conclusion. Future Research: How does this definition of CIR relate to other interdisciplinary ‘cognition’ or ‘learning’ type theories? How can practitioners and theorists tell the difference between true intersubjectivity and superficial agreeableness in these dialogues? What makes an instance of CIR ‘good’ or ‘bad’? How does collaborative, transdisciplinary reasoning differ from CIR, if at all?

Aim/Purpose: Transdisciplinarity is considered as a framework for understanding knowledge producing teams (KPTs). Features of transdisciplinary knowledge producing teams (TDKPTs) are provided using a complex adaptive systems (CAS) lens. TDKPT features are defined and linked to complexity theory to show how team participants might develop skills that more truly express complex adaptive conditions. Background: TDKPTs are groups of stakeholder participants tasked with producing knowledge across disciplinary, sectoral, and ecological boundaries. TDKPTs reflect components of complex adaptive systems (CAS) and exemplify how CAS behave and function. Methodology: The paper accesses literature from the Science-of-Team-Science (SciTS), complexity theory, and systems theory to construct a typology of the features of TDKPTs. Contribution: This paper provides a list of features developed from a diverse body of literature useful for considering complexity within TDKPTs. Findings: The paper proposes a series of features of transdisciplinary knowledge producing teams. In addition, the authors identify important skill building aspects needed for TDKPTs to be successful. Recommendations for Practitioners: The paper provides a framework by which team functioning can be considered and enhanced within TDKPTs. Recommendation for Researchers: The paper suggests categorical features of transdisciplinary teams for research on the collaborative processes and outcomes of TD teams. Future Research: Knowledge producing team members need to engage in theoretical, episte-mological, and methodological reflections to elucidate the dynamic nature of TD knowledge producing teams. Understanding how conflict, dissonance, and reciprocal interdependencies contribute to knowledge generation are key areas of future research and inquiry.

Aim/Purpose: This is an introductory paper for the Special Series on transdisciplinary communication. It summarizes the various articles in the special series and raises questions for future investigation.

Aim/Purpose: This paper describes an empirical examination of how users’ willingness to disclose personal data is influenced by the amount of information provided on landing pages – standalone web pages created explicitly for marketing or advertising campaigns. Background: Provision of information is a central construct in the IS discipline. Content is a term commonly used to describe the information made available by a website or other electronic medium. A pertinent debate among scholars and practitioners relate to the behavioral impact of content volume: Specifically, does a greater amount of information elicit engagement and compliance, or the other way around? Methodology: A series of large-scale web experiments (n= 535 and n= 27,900) were conducted employing a between-subjects design and A/B testing. Two variants of landing pages, long and short, were created based on relevant behavioral theories. Both variants included an identical form to collect users’ information, but different amounts of provided content. User traffic was generated using Google AdWords and randomized between the page using Unbounce.com. Relevant usage metrics, such as response rate (called “conversion rate”), location, and visit time were recorded. Contribution: This research contributes to the body of knowledge on information provision and its effectiveness and carries practical and theoretical implications to practitioners and scholars in Information Systems, Informing Science, Communications, Digital Marketing, and related fields. Findings: Analyses of results show that the shorter landing pages had significantly higher conversion rates across all locations and times. Findings demonstrate a negative correlation between the content amount and consumer behavior, suggesting that users who had less information were more inclined to provide their data. Recommendations for Practitioners: At a practical level, results can empirically support business practices, design considerations, and content strategy by informing practitioners on the role of content in online commerce. Recommendation for Researchers: Findings suggest that the amount of content plays a significant role in online decision making and effective informing. They also contradict prior research on trust, persuasion, and security. This study advances research on the paradoxical relationship between the increased level of information and online decision-making and indicates that contrary to earlier work, not all persuasion theories‎ are ‎effective online. Impact on Society: Understanding how information drives behavior has implications in many domains (civic engagement, health, education, and more). This has relevance to system design and public communication in both online and offline contexts. Future Research: Using this research as a starting point, future research can examine the impact of content in other contexts, as well as other behavioral drivers (such as demographic data). This can lead to theoretical, methodological, and practical recommendations.