Research
My research has three themes:
- How to lead technology adaptation.
- How to design technology to enable complex adaptive group usage.
- Research methods and core socio-technical theory for studying themes 1 and 2.
I have developed these themes through field studies with IT consulting and healthcare industry partners and through in-house experiments using students. My papers (sampling including all major publications and not including conference papers) address individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis, and fall under these themes as follows:
Themes | Leaders / Individual | Teams / Group | Organizations |
1. Technology Management in Computer-Mediated Team Collaboration | Vital Signs (MISQ 2010) Intervention Strategies (EJIS 2010) PM Intervention Limits (PMJ 2009) Tech. Facil. (CACM 2007) | Building Trust (ISM 2008) | Healthcare OPM (PM Forum 2009) |
2. Technology Design for Computer-Mediated Group Interaction | Blind Tie Formation (Target ISR 2012) | Tie Antecedents (Decision Sciences 2011) EMR Resistance (Target JAIS 2012) | E-Democracy Design (IJEP 2010) E-Learning Collab. Tech. (Book Chap. 2003) |
3. Socio-Technical Systems Research Methods and Theory | Q-Sorting (CAIS 2001) | Web as Reality (CAIS 2007) AST-Meta theory (JMIS 2009) |
The predominant theory base I use in my work is structuration theory, because I see it as the best way to understand and mitigate IT implementation risk in social systems. Other theories showing up in my work include social network theory, such as the theory of the strength of weak ties, and theories of trust and group dynamics. Even in the second theme, the IS issues for me center on the people involved in the technologies and how the technology designs need to work with people to improve task outcomes. To this end, I have been involved with some of the Microsoft Project development team to improve how their tool works, and I have an interest in developing better project management theories and tools. This project management sub-theme runs through my dissertation work as well as current projects.
Publications (selected)
- Bendoly, Elliot; Dominic Thomas; Monica Capra. 2010. Antecedents of group-member tie development and implications for project performance: A multi-level analysis. Decision Sciences 41(3).
- Thomas, Dominic. 2010. Improving Internet Civic Engagement Web Sites: A design theory based on evidence from existing research. International Journal of E-Politics 1(3): 40-52.
- Thomas, Dominic; Robert Bostrom. 2010. Team Leader Strategies for Enabling Collaboration Technology Adaptation: Team Technology Knowledge to Improve Globally Distributed Systems Development Work. European Journal of Information Systems 19(2): 223-237.
- Thomas, Dominic; Robert Bostrom. 2010. Vital Signs for Virtual Teams: An Empirically Developed Trigger Model for Technology Adaptation Interventions. Management Information Systems Quarterly 34(1): 115-142.
- Bostrom, Robert; Saurabh Gupta; Dominic Thomas. 2009. A Meta-Theory for Understanding IS in Socio-Technical Systems. Journal of Management Information Systems 26(1): 17-47.
- Thomas, Dominic; Elliot Bendoly. 2009. Limits to effective leadership style and tactics in critical incident interventions. Project Management Journal 40(2):70-80.
- Thomas, Dominic; Robert Bostrom, 2008. Building Trust and Cooperation through Technology Adaptation in Virtual Teams: empirical field evidence. Information Systems Management 25(1): 45-56.
- Thomas, Dominic; Robert P. Bostrom; Marianne Gouge. 2007. Making Knowledge Work Successful in Virtual Teams via Technology Facilitation. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 50(11): 85-90.
- Bray, David; Laku Chidambaram; Michael Epstein; Timothy Hill; Dominic Thomas; Shailaja Venkatsubramanyan; Richard Watson, 2006. The Web as a Digital Reflection of Reality Communications of the AIS 18: 578-592.
- Bostrom, Robert; Chris Kadlec; Dominic Thomas. 2003. Implementation and use of collaboration technology in e-Learning: The case of a joint university-corporate MBA. In: Implementing Collaboration Technologies in Industry: Case Examples and Lessons Learned, edited by B.E. Munkvold. New York: Springer. 211-245.
- Thomas, Dominic; Richard T. Watson. 2002. Q-sorting for Exploring Attitudes in MIS Research. Communications of the AIS 8(9): 141-156.
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