Charles West Churchman was a philosopher, systems scientist, and a visionary in systems design. His writings emphasize the importance of attention to nature in our design efforts; thus, our design of systems should be cognizant of an ultimate Creator (see The Design of Inquiring Systems, Basic Concepts of Systems and Organizations, Basic Books, New York (1971). Before she died in 2009, Churchman’s wife made this comment about her husband:
“Academic philosophy wasn’t satisfying to him. He demanded that philosophy have meaning in the world. He wanted to insert an ethical dimension into science. And he really made it his job to remind all these CEOs that they had ethical responsibilities.”
Before his death in 2004, Churchman received the 1999 LEO Award for Lifetime Exceptional Achievement in Information Systems. This award is presented by AIS, a student chapter of which resides at ACU, for which I am an advisor.
With Churchman’s vision in mind, I have sought to direct my research towards improving the design and use of information systems for the good of business and the individuals they serve. Links to representative samples of this research are included in the following narrative:
Raghu, T.S., Sinha, R., Vinze, A., Burton, O. (2009). Willingness to Pay in an Open Source Software Environment. Information Systems Research, Jun2009, Vol. 20 Issue 2, p218-236, 19p. (H-Index of 135)
This paper was part of a five year effort with researchers at Arizona State University. Although originally part of my dissertation, I moved into a different area to support the development of a system to address bioterrorism detection for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health, based in Phoenix, AZ. This work also produced two conference papers which I presented at the Americas Conference for Information Systems AMCIS) in 2003, which is the national conference for AIS. Information Systems Research (ISR) is regarded as a Tier 1 Research 1 level publication in the IS academic community.
Challenges for Bioterrorism Preparedness in Public Health Decision Processes and Resources (2008), in Hsinchun Chen, T.S. Raghu, Ram Ramesh, Ajay Vinze & Daniel Zeng (Eds.), Chapter III.2, Article 2012, Handbooks in Information Systems (HIS-V002), National Security, London, UK: Elsevier Science, with M. Ipe. The link is to the publisher’s announcement. I can provide direct access to the article, given more time, if needed.
I led the development of this book chapter with an ASU assistant professor in human resources. The link provides access to the Table of Contents for the text offered through Elsevier Science Publications. This contribution is Chapter 12 of the text as shown on the tab. This work resulted from my involvement as a clinical researcher for the Center for the Advancement of Business through Information Technology (CABIT) in our support of Maricopa County bioterrorism preparedness.
Assessing the Structural Development & Propagation of Information In Natural Communication Processes, Christian Business Faculty Conference, October 2007, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA.
This work was one of the first extensions to my research at ASU that was developed after I joined ACU in 2007. This paper serves to integrate natural design principles in the analysis of communication processes in the design of surveillance systems.
I’ve also began a research stream on Network theory and how design characteristics impact social structures. This work has been presented at the Christian Scholars Conference in 2017 and 2018. Links to each presentation have been included in the appropriate conference date.