Prof. Dr. Susan P. Williams

Professor (Institute for IS Research)
Contact
williams at uni-koblenz.de
A114

Sue Williams is Professor in the field of Social Informatics in the Institute for IS Research, University of Koblenz-Landau. She is a founder member of the Center for Enterprise Information Research (CEIR) and leads the Enterprise Information Management Research Group and its two research labs, the Information Design Lab and the Enterprise of Things Lab.

She has previously held appointments at the Business School (University of Sydney), Faculty of Information Technology (University of Technology, Sydney), School of Information Systems, Technology & Management  (University of New South Wales) and The Information School, (University of Sheffield). Since 2006 she has held the positions of Visiting Professor in the Centre for Human Centred Technology Design at the University of Technology, Sydney (2006-) and Visiting Professor in the Discipline of Business Information Systems, Sydney University Business School (2018-).

Research

Sue is an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in the areas of social and organisational informatics. Her work focuses on information ecologies and the design of the digital workplace. With an academic background in urban and environmental geography, computer and information science her research examines complex socio-technical change (STC) and the use-centred design of information artefacts. Her long-term research programme examines the challenges associated with understanding how new information infrastructures are shaping work and social environments.

Her current research projects are:

  • Sociotechnical change and the design of the digital workplace
  • Traces of collaborative activity:  trace ethnographies of documentary practices
  • Scale & scaling of IoT: from digital sensor to global information infrastructure
  • Milestories – capturing socio-technical change over time
  • Enterprise of Things - the sustainable design of IoT services in organisations

Her research programme is based on collaborations with practitioners and industry partners with the goal of assisting organisations to understand sociotechnical change and how it is shaping the information artefacts and work practices.  

Sue is co-founder of three industry-university research initiatives:

  • University Competence Center for Collaboration Technologies (UCT powered by IBM)
  • IndustryConnect collaboration technologies and the digital workplace
  • Enterprise of Things Lab, Internet of Things and sustainable business transformation.

Sue is an expert in interactive and reflexive research designs that take into account the situated nature of human activity and encourage the involvement of research participants. She has received funding for her research from a wide range of funding bodies including: the German Research Foundation (DFG), Australian Research Council (ARC), European Union (EU), UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Higher Education Funding Council for England and Wales (HEFCE), IBM Germany, British Telecom (BT), Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), British Library (BLRD) and the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO).

In her teaching Sue is committed to the scholarship of learning and is actively engaged in introducing  design research methods and approaches to responsible research and innovation into her teaching and research projects. 

Research Expertise

  • Information ecologies and socio-technical change
  • Designing for use: use-centred design and the design of the digital workplace
  • Deep information design: from metadata to documentary practices
  • Trace ethnography
  • Information policy & information strategy
  • Qualitative & participatory research & design methods

    Journal Editorial Boards

    • International Journal of Information Management (IJIM) editorial board member (2002- )
    • International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management editorial board member (2015- )
    • Information Research (IR) editorial board member (2010-2014)
    • Information Research Australasian Editor (2008-2010)
    • International Journal of Information Management Asia-Pacific Editor (2004-2009)
    • Teaching in Higher Education editorial board member (1996-2004)

    Advisory Boards

     

    • International Advisory Board Member: Business Environmental Sustainability Research Group (BESRG), University of Sydney

    Recent Publications

    • Nitschke, CS, Williams SP. and Schubert, P. (2019): A Multiorganisational Study of the Drivers and Barriers of Enterprise Collaboration Systems-Enabled Change. Wirtschaftsinformatik WI 2019, Siegen Germany.
    • Williams, SP, Hardy CA, Nitschke, P (2019): Configuring The Internet of Things (IoT): A Review and Implications for Big Data Analytics. Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. January 2019. 5848-5857.
    • Williams, SP.; Schubert, P. (2018): Designs for the Digital Workplace. In: Proceedings of the CENTERIS - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems, Lisbon, Portugal, 21-23 November 2018.
    • Nitschke, CS.; Williams, SP. (2018): Traces of design activity: the design of coordination mechanisms in the shaping of enterprise collaboration systems. In: Proceedings of the CENTERIS - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems, Lisbon, Portugal, 21-23 November 2018.
    • Williams, SP, Hausmann V. (2017): Categorizing the business risks of social media. Proceedings of the CENTERIS - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems,  Barcelona, Spain, 8-10 November 2017.
    • Greeven, Clara S, Williams, Susan P. (2017): Enterprise collaboration systems: Addressing adoption challenges and the shaping of sociotechnical systems. In: International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management. 5(1), 5-23.
    • Williams, SP, Schubert P (2017) Connecting Industry: Building and Sustaining a Practice-based Research Community. Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 5400-5409.
    • Hausmann, V. and Williams, SP (2016)  Issues for the long-term management of Social Business Documents. International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management. Vol. 4, No. 3, 45-61.
    • Schubert, P., Williams, SP (2016) The Case of UniConnect - the shaping of an academic platform. Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik (MKWI) 2016, Ilmenau.
    • Hausmann, V., Williams, SP. (2015) Social business Documents.In: Proceedings of the CENTERIS - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems,  Vilamoura, Portugal, 7-9, October 2015.
    • Williams, SP., Hausmann, V., Hardy, CA, Schubert, P (2014) Managing enterprise information: meeting performance and conformance objectives in a changing information environment. International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2014, 5-36
    • Hausmann, V., Williams, SP, Hardy, CA, Schubert, P (2014): Enterprise Information Management Readiness: A survey of current issues, challenges and strategy. In: Proceedings of the CENTERIS - Conference on ENTERprise Information Systems, Troia, Portugal, 15-17 October 2014.
    • Williams, S.P., Hardy, C.A. and Holgate, J. (2013) Information Security Governance practices in critical infrastructure organizations: A socio-technical and institutional logic perspective. Electronic Markets, 23(40), 341-354.
    • Williams, S.P. (2013) Inquiry for Change: Designing Flexible and Interactive Research. Invited Keynote Presentation IADIS Conference on Information Systems Post-Implementation Change Management. July 2013, Prague, Czech Republic.
    • Williams, S.P., Hausmann, V. Hardy, C.A. and Schubert, P. (2013) Enterprise 2.0 Research: Meeting the Challenges of Practice. 26th Bled eConference, June 2013, Bled, Slovenia.
    • Schubert, P. and Wiliams, S.P (2013) The Concept of Social Business: Oxymoron or Sign of a Changing Work Culture? 26th Bled eConference, June 2013, Bled, Slovenia
    • Schubert, P. and Williams, S.P. (2012) Implementation of Collaborative Software in Enterprises: A Thematic Analysis. it - Information Technology. 54 (2012) 5, 212-219.
    • Holgate, J., Williams S.P. and Hardy, C.A. (2012) Information Security Governance: Investigating Diversity in Critical Infrastructure Organisations. 25th Bled eConference, eDependability, eProcesses and eServices for the Future, June 2012, Bled, Slovenia. (Awarded Best Paper for the Bled Conference Theme 2012)
    • Hausmann, V. Williams, S.P. and Schubert, P. (2012) Developng a framework for web analytics, 25th Bled eConference, eDependability: Reliable and Trustworthy eSctructures, eProcesses and eServices for the Future, June 2012, Bled, Slovenia.
    • Hardy, C.A. and Williams, S.P. (2012) Thinking about identities of information professionals: exploring the concept of intersectionality. European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2012, Barcelona, Spain.
    • Scifleet, P and Williams S.P. (2011) "Understanding documentary practice: lessons learnt from the text encoding initiative" International Conference on Theory and Practice in Digital Libraries 2011. Berlin, September 26-28.
    • Schubert, P., Williams, S.P. & Wölfle, R. (2011) "Sustainable Competitive Advantage in E-Commerce and the Role of the Enterprise System" International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems,  7(2), 1-17.
    • Schubert, P. & Williams, S.P. (2011)  A Framework for Identifying and Understanding Enterprise Systems Benefits. Business Process Management Journal, 17(5).
    • Hardy, C.A & Williams, S.P. (2011) Assembling e-government research designs: a Transdisciplinary View and Interactive Approach. Public Administration Review. 71(3), 405-413.
    • Williams, S. P.; Schubert, P. (2011): An Empirical Study of Enterprise 2.0 in Context. Proceedings of the 24th International Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia, June 12-15, 2011.
    • Williams S.P. and Hardy, C.A. (2011) Information Management Issues and Challenges in an Enterprise 2.0 Era: Imperatives for Action. Proceedings of the 24th Bled eConference, Bled, Slovenia, June 2011.
    • Scifleet, P and Williams, S.P. (2011) Constructing digital documents: emerging themes in documentary practice. 44th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, Kauai, January, 2011.
    • Schubert P. and Williams S.P. (2010) ‘Realising Benefits from current ERP and CRM systems implementations: an empirical study’ Proceedings of the 23rd Bled eConference (eTrust: Implications for the individual, enterprises and society), Bled, Slovenia, June 2010.
    • Hardy, CA. and Williams S.P. (2010) ‘Managing information risks and protecting information assets in a Web 2.0 era’ Proceedings of the 23rd Bled eConference (eTrust: Implications for the individual, enterprises and society), Bled, Slovenia, June 2010.
    • Schubert P and Williams SP (2010) Erwartungen und Nutzen beim Einsatz von ERP-Systemen: Empirische Ergebnisse einer Analyse von Fallstudien, Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik MKWI 2010, Gottingen, Germany, 25th February 2010
    • Williams, S.P. and Schubert, P. (2010) Benefits of Enterprise Systems Use, in: Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, Kauai, January 5-8, 2010.
    • Schubert, P. Williams, S.P. (2009) Identifikation von Nutzen beim Einsatz von ERP-Systemen, in: Wölfle, Ralf; Schubert, Petra (Hrsg.),Dauerhafter Erfolg mit Business Software, S. 33-38, München: Hanser Verlag, 2009.
    • Scifleet P, Williams S.P. and Cole C. (2008) 'The Human Art of Encoding: Markup as Documentary Practice' in Metadata and Semantics , ed. Miguel-Angel; Lytras Sicilia, Miltiadis D, Springer
    • Hardy, C.A & Williams, S.P. (2008) e-Government Policy and Practice: a Theoretical and Empirical Exploration of Public e-Procurement. Government Information Quarterly. 25(2) pp. 155-80.
    • Scifleet, P. and Williams, S.P. (2009) Practice Theory & the Foundations of Digital Document Encoding. Proceedings of the 27th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication, Bloomington, Indiana, October 5-7 2009.
    • Schubert P. and Williams S.P. (2009) ‘An Extended Framework for Comparing Expectations and Realized Benefits of Enterprise Systems Implementations’ Proceedings of the Fifteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, San Francisco, California, August 6th-9th 2009
    • Tolhurst, D. and Williams, S.P. (2009) ‘Competing in the Message Market: A Teaching Case’ Proceedings of the 22nd Bled eConference (eEnablement: Facilitating an Open, Effective and Representative Society), Bled, Slovenia, June 14th-18th 2009
    • Schubert P. and Williams S.P. (2009) ‘Constructing a Framework for Investigating and Visualizing ERP Benefits and Business Change’ Proceedings of the 22nd Bled eConference (eEnablement: Facilitating an Open, Effective and Representative Society), Bled, Slovenia, June 14th-18th 2009
    • Hardy C.A. and Williams S.P. (2008) 'Making e-government research designs visible: reflexivity and collaborative research', Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on e-Government (ICEG 2008), Melbourne, Australia.
    • Dray K and Williams S.P. (2008) 'Centralised Government Telephone Information Services: A Policy Perspective’, Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on e-Government (ICEG 2008), Melbourne, Australia, 23-24 October.
    • Scifleet, P., Williams, S.P. and Cole, C. 2007. ‘The Human Art of Encoding: Markup as Documentary Practice’. 2nd International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research (MTSR07) Corfu, October 2007.
    • Williams S.P. and Hardy C.A. (2007) 'E-Procurement: current issues and future challenges', 15th European Conference on Information Systems, St Gallen, Switzerland.