Questions from the public defense of Yue Dai. Prof. Heikki Topi, Bentley University.

1. Public Defense of
Ms. Yue Dai’s Doctoral
Dissertation
Questions and Observations
Opponent: Dr. Heikki Topi, Bentley University
September 13, 2013
University of Eastern Finland

2. Research Context
— What do you consider to be the most important
scientific disciplines to which your work
contributes?

3. Research Context
— What do you consider to be the most important
scientific disciplines to which your work
contributes?
— What were the key challenges you faced because of
the multidisciplinary nature of your research?

4. Research Context
— What do you consider to be the most important
scientific disciplines to which your work
contributes?
— What were the key challenges you faced because of
the multidisciplinary nature of your research?
— Please discuss the relationship between your work
and the rest of the e-leadership project

5. Goals
— You have specified four goals for your research on
p. 6 and related research questions on p. 7. In
Table 1.1 you discuss the mapping between the
goals and the research questions. Please elaborate
briefly on this table and discuss the mechanism
through which each of these goals was addressed.
— Also, discuss the relationship between “the main
questions for this research” on p. 3 and the RQs on
p. 7

6. Table 1.1

7. Epistemology
— What is your fundamental position regarding what
knowledge is and how it can be acquired?
— How are these beliefs reflected in your dissertation
research?

8. Design Science Research
— Describe the impact of the classics in design
science research on the research approach and
methodology of your work
— Which author(s) has/have had the strongest impact
on your work?
— How have you adapted the models for the purposes of
your research

9. Hevner et al., 2004 (MISQ)

10. Nunamaker et al., 1991

11. Design Science Research
— Describe the impact of the classics in design
science research on the research approach and
methodology of your work
— Which author(s) has/have had the strongest impact
on your work?
— How have you adapted the models for the purposes of
your research
— Did your research produce any methodological
innovations that you consider to be a significant
contribution?

12. Validity of Results
— Discuss the reasons why you believe that your
research results are valid?

13. Validity of Results
— Discuss the reasons why you believe that your
research results are valid?
— What factors have had a negative impact on the
validity of the outcomes of your research?

14. Validity of Results
— Discuss the reasons why you believe that your
research results are valid?
— What factors have had a negative impact on the
validity of the outcomes of your research?
— What are the aspects of validity that you consider
most important for your work?

15. Validity of Results
— Discuss the reasons why you believe that your
research results are valid?
— What factors have had a negative impact on the
validity of the outcomes of your research?
— What are the aspects of validity that you consider
most important for your work?
— Did the use of surveys that had very few
respondents create any concerns for you?

16. Validity of Results
— Discuss the reasons why you believe that your research
results are valid?
— What factors have had a negative impact on the validity
of the outcomes of your research?
— What are the aspects of validity that you consider most
important for your work?
— Did the use of surveys that had very few respondents
create any concerns for you?
— Please comment on the size of BEECON and its impact
on your ability to evaluate your model

17. Evaluation
— How did you evaluate the quality of the models you
had developed?

18. Evaluation
— How did you evaluate the quality of the models you
had developed?
— What mechanisms did you use to ensure that the
lessons learned from each model generation were
appropriately transferred to the next model?

19. Evaluation
— How did you evaluate the quality of the models you
had developed?
— What mechanisms did you use to ensure that the
lessons learned from each model generation were
appropriately transferred to the next model?
— Discuss the role of the surveys you conducted in
the research process.

20. Evaluation
— How did you evaluate the quality of the models you had
developed?
— What mechanisms did you use to ensure that the
lessons learned from each model generation were
appropriately transferred to the next model?
— Discuss the role of the surveys you conducted in the
research process?
— Chapter 5 ends with “After creating the evaluation
model, an evaluation of the TMCIS will be performed in
the next step” (p. 92). Please clarify what you mean by
this.

21. Quality of Data Sources
— What is the impact of the quality of the data on the
usefulness and usability of the proposed models?

22. Quality of Data Sources
— What is the impact of the quality of the data on the
usefulness and usability of the proposed models?
— It appears that the models do not incorporate the
need to validate the input data. Is this correct?
Could it potentially be important?

23. Usability
— Describe the approach for evaluating the usability
of the models and their implementations (Chapter
5).

24. Usability
— Describe the approach for evaluating the usability
of the models and their implementations (Chapter
5).
— Discuss the reasons why you decided to include
this dimension in your integrative work.

25. Contributions to Theory
— What theoretical contributions were you hoping to
achieve before you started your research?

26. Contributions to Theory
— What theoretical contributions were you hoping to
achieve before you started your research?
— Where those expectations realized? What did you
achieve? What might be doable in the future?

27. Contributions to Theory
— What theoretical contributions were you hoping to
achieve before you started your research?
— Where those expectations realized? What did you
achieve? What might be doable in the future?
— What do you expect to be the most lasting impact
of your work?

28. Link Between the Models and
Working Systems?
— Discuss at a detailed level which ones of your
models have been implemented in a way that
makes it possible to test them in practice.

29. Link Between the Models and
Working Systems?
— Discuss at a detailed level which ones of your
models have been implemented in a way that
makes it possible to test them in practice
— Do you have plans for further implementation work
in the future? What would next steps and their
expected outcomes be?

30. Link Between the Models and
Working Systems?
— Discuss at a detailed level which ones of your
models have been implemented in a way that
makes it possible to test them in practice
— Do you have plans for further implementation work
in the future? What would next steps and their
expected outcomes be?
— How do you expect the models to contribute to the
practice of building working systems?

31. Research Outcomes
— Please review the key contributions of your
dissertation to both theory and practice.

32. Research Outcomes
— Please review the key contributions of your
dissertation to both theory and practice.
— How well do you believe you were able to address
the three questions you identified on p. 3 of the
dissertation or the four formal RQs specified on p.
7?

33. Relevant Literature?
— Zheng, Z, P Fader, and B Padmanabhan. 2012. “From Business
Intelligence to Competitive Intelligence: Inferring Competitive
Measures Using Augmented Site-Centric Data.” Information Systems
Research 23 (3) (September 14): 698–720. doi:10.1287/isre.
1110.0385.
— Chen, Hsinchun, Michael Chau, and Daniel Zeng. 2002. “CI Spider: a
Tool for Competitive Intelligence on the Web.” Decision Support
Systems 34 (1): 1–17.
— Gupta, Vishal, and Gurpreet S Lehal. 2009. “A Survey of Text Mining
Techniques and Applications.” Journal of Emerging Technologies in
Web Intelligence 1 (1) (August 1). doi:10.4304/jetwi.1.1.60-76.