235: Towards a Community of Computational Theory Construction Scholars (16821)

Saturday, August 10, 2024

08:00 – 10:30 CT (GMT-5/UTC-5)

Location: Sheraton: Chicago Ballroom IX

Session Number: 235
PDW (workshop)
Orientation: Theme,Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/Ed4pZm

Organizer(s)

SZ

Sophie Zhai

U. of Oklahoma, United States

Presenter(s)

EV

Emmanuelle Vaast

McGill U., Canada

Panelist(s)

AA

Ahmed Abbasi

U. of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business
MA

Malmi Amadoru

U. Of Sydney, Australia
AL

Aron Lindberg

Stevens Institute of Technology, United States
SM

Shaila Miranda

U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, United States
SM

Semi Min

New York U., United States
BP

Brian T. Pentland

Michigan State U., United States
SS

Stefan Seidel

U. of Cologne, Germany
HS

Hani Safadi

U. of Georgia, United States
EV

Emmanuelle Vaast

McGill U., Canada

Organizer(s)

MA

Malmi Amadoru

U. Of Sydney, Australia

Panelist(s)

TG

Thomas Grisold

HSG U. of St. Gallen, Liechtenstein

Organizer(s)

AL

Aron Lindberg

Stevens Institute of Technology, United States
SM

Shaila Miranda

U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, United States

Presenter(s)

AG

Amir Goldberg

Stanford U., United States
AL

Aron Lindberg

Stevens Institute of Technology, United States
NN

Ning Nan

U. of British Columbia, Canada
SS

Stefan Seidel

U. of Cologne, Germany
AA

Ahmed Abbasi

U. of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business

Computational theory construction (CTC) is a genre of theory development research in which researchers leverage computational tools, such as social network analysis, sequence analysis, text analysis, and agent-based simulations, to identify patterns within social systems and to theorize those patterns. In the organizational and information systems fields, this genre is also known as "computational grounded theory," "interpretive data science," and “computationally intensive theory construction.” Rapid innovations in computational techniques such as the recent uptake of large language models are expanding the opportunities available for CTC. As this research genre evolves, the community of scholars engaging in CTC is growing. This PDW is a follow-up to the previous AOM PDWs on “Towards a Craft of Computational Theory Construction” in 2023, “Computational Methods for Theory Building: Practices & Struggles” in 2022, and “The Rise of Computational Methods for Theory Development” in 2021. In these prior workshops, we focused on establishing the legitimacy for this new genre of research and providing a collaborative forum to help participants. As computational techniques proliferate, in this follow-up workshop, we aim to unify the community of CTC scholars around a core set of CTC practices. Continuing the tradition of the CTC PDWs, we also connect computational and qualitative researchers, share review process insights from published CTC papers, and mentor junior scholars pursuing CTC projects.

Part I of the PDW – the keynotes and panel discussion are open to all AOM registrants. Part II – roundtable discussions are only for participants who would like to receive feedback on their ongoing or planned projects and have been accepted to attend the roundtables. For those who are interested in participating in roundtables, please submit a short vignette on or before July 21 (max 2 pages in PDF format to ctcpdw21@gmail.com). The organizers will send out the notification of acceptance at the end of July. Your vignette should cover the following aspects. • Brief introduction of the research project • How have you combined computational and manual analysis techniques in your research? • What struggles you have faced in understanding, using, or considering using computational methods in your theory development work? Those who have not conducted any such research, but are planning to do so, can submit short descriptions of your intended work, also focusing on your planned combination of manual and computational techniques or related questions. We look forward to seeing you and engaging in fruitful discussions during the PDW!