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This paper has two purposes. The first purpose is to study how groups and members of an organization use collaborative technology in accomplishing their everyday work. The second purpose is to study how interpretive researchers can use an ethnographic research approach, called the strip resolution process (SRP), to make explicit the process by which they achieve their interpretation, rather than provide just their interpretation leaving the process as a black box.

Interpretive case study using interviews, observation, participant‐observation, and study of documents.

For IS researchers, a key finding is that the SRP facilitates both an understanding of research phenomena from the members’ perspective and a means of explaining how that understanding was achieved. For IS practitioners, a key finding is that organizational work practices and reward structures should be “co‐designed” with the collaborative technology's functionalities to accomplish organizational objectives.

This study used ethnographically informed approaches, including the SRP, to collect and interpret data. However, the duration spent at the organizational site, 25 days spread over eight months, would not qualify this study as an ethnography based on the recommended duration of 12 months of sustained fieldwork.

This study's findings have two implications for IS practice. The first implication is that practitioners planning to deploy collaborative technology in an organization should not focus primarily, or even mainly, on the technology's functionalities. Instead, they should pay most attention to the organization's work practices and reward structures. Work practices and reward structures should be “co‐designed” with the technology's functionalities to accomplish organizational objectives. The second implication is that the SRP could help close the “understanding gap” between IS practitioners and system stakeholders. Hence, a practitioner can use the SRP as a supplement to any systems development methodology for analyzing system requirements.

The value of this paper for IS interpretive researchers is that it explains and illustrates how an ethnographic research approach called the SRP can be used by a researcher to understand research phenomena from the members’ perspective, test and validate his interpretation, and reveal how he reached his interpretation and not just provide his interpretation leaving the process of achieving it a black box. The value of this paper for IS practitioners is that it emphasizes the importance of “co‐designing” work practices and reward structures with a collaborative system's functionalities and provides them specific questions to ask, and reflect upon, before designing and deploying a collaborative system. In addition, practitioners can use the SRP as a tool to supplement any systems development methodology to help reduce the understanding gap between themselves and the system stakeholders.

To begin understanding how best to develop and train Emirati women so they can become more influential in business, government, and the community, research was conducted that explores the backgrounds and experiences of these women in learning environments. The purpose of this paper is to explore how college students are transformed through their learning experiences, and this paper reports on two categories: backgrounds (i.e. confidence, learning environment, lack of previous opportunities, and family support) and personal and professional development (i.e. confidence, personal responsibility for learning, and skills and competency development).

In‐depth qualitative interviews (using the phenomenological methodology) were conducted with Emirati students at a women's college in Abu Dhabi.

This paper presents findings related to four of the ten stages in Mezirow's perspective transformation process: disorienting dilemma, critical assessment of assumptions, acquisition of knowledge and skills, and building competence and self‐confidence in new roles, behaviors, or relationships. This is a portion of the full study that demonstrates that these women have experienced ongoing transformational learning experiences during college.

The exploratory nature of this study and the self‐selection of participants limit the generalizability of this study.

This paper provides helpful insights for educators, scholars, and practitioners to help them more effectively design successful developmental programs for Emirati women in educational and non‐educational settings. Understanding more about their lives and journeys toward and during higher education can provide new perspectives that will be helpful in developing future competency‐building programs for Emirati women.

Researchers argue that much of who we are is developed during childhood. Yet, little exploratory research has been conducted regarding the childhood experiences, activities, personalities, and perceptions of successful leaders. This paper aims to address this issue.

In‐depth, qualitative interviews were conducted with ten women university presidents to investigate perceptions and experiences related to the lifetime development of leadership skills, abilities, and competencies. The lived experiences of these women were investigated using the phenomenological research methodology so that “voices” could be heard and unique insights examined. This paper explores a portion of this research focused on childhood personalities, school and other activities, influential individuals, and significant events and challenges.

Results support the growth‐task model of human development. As children, the presidents were generally obedient, reflective, observant, smart, self‐directed, competitive, and moderately to highly confident. It was important for them to live up to their own expectations and those of significant adults around them. These women were involved in a variety of helpful activities as children and thrived on learning and developing new skills, knowledge, and capabilities. Other than their own parents, influential individuals during childhood included predominantly women (elementary school teachers, aunts, and grandmothers). The most helpful learning experiences involved challenging and difficult situations or events (e.g. illness, relocation, and fear).

By understanding these influences, practitioners can design more effective interventions dependent on an individual's background.

This paper provides valuable information for those interested in individual leadership development efforts centered on working with individuals interested in obtaining positions at the highest levels in higher education.

This collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history”, aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.

The essays are invited and peer‐reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.

The scholars invited to comment on the original article have seen its value, and their contributions ground its content in contemporary issues and debates.

The original article was deemed “original” for its time (1987), anticipating as it did considerable reclamation of ethnographic methods in organizational studies in the decades that followed it. It was also deemed of value for our times and, in particular, for readers of this journal, as an historical document, but also as one view of the unsung role of anthropology in management and organizational studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that socio‐religious context plays in the decision of whether to become and entrepreneur, and what type of new business venture to create.

Interpretivist development from qualitative data obtained by interviews of entrepreneurs in Nepal and Canada.

Conceptions of Right Livelihood play an important role in the evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities and in the day‐to‐day operations of the resultant new businesses.

Links the literatures of social economics and entrepreneurship to explore how entrepreneurs must balance economic, social, and religious objectives when launching and operating new businesses.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources and research and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐first to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1994. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

“Rational planning models” emerged in the early 1970's as a means by which to plan more effectively and efficiently in educational organizations. One of the most well known and widely distributed of these models was developed by Phi Delta Kappa, the educational fraternity. This paper describes a field study conducted in five Vermont schools that were “early users” of the Phi Delta Kappa material. The outcomes reveal many discrepancies between the theory and the reality of planning in public schools. In addition to the Vermont research, other research is cited that supports many of the findings and relates them to planning in schools in general. The article concludes by linking the study outcomes to recent works by other authors on the emerging concepts of loosely coupled systems, garbage can organizations, and organized anarchies and implications these concepts hold for alternative approaches to planning in educational settings.