Is U.S. Economic Growth Over?

(Gordon 2012) made a study analyzing US's economy since 1300s in the light of industrial revolutions. He made some insights, but the fact that he over-focused on the implications of industrial revolution and took other critical factors such as political adjustment and foreign investment for granted, poses some concern about the biased-ness of his view. Following is some points from the paper.

More perspectives & research approaches is always better?

(Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991) is an article that attempts a different approach at looking at the way technology, people & organizations. This article makes the argument that in terms of MIS system research there is an epidemic of conformity among the journals. There is a lack of a multiple paradigm outlook that should be taken. Authors provide no detail about the range and topics of the 155 research articles studied and this makes it difficult for us to resolve and understand the use of different philosophies. Although this paper refers to IS research articles in the late 1980s and the desire is to have successful implementation of IS, after thirty years later the rate of Information system failure is still higher.

The importance of case study research?

There are a numbers of definitions of case study; however, some of them are wrong or misleading. I myself find that this definition of case study is neutral: The case study is a research strategy that focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings. Although case studies are widely used, case study is hardly held as a methodology. Indeed, the research method is poorly understood (Flyvbjerg 2011). The author lists 5 misunderstandings about case study.

Do you pursuit happiness?

(Stearns 2012) takes us to a journey to see the view towards happiness from 18 century? Is happiness a thing desired and pursued by everyone? Not always. View towards happiness are different from person to person. For example, from US and Russian. A modern Russian adage holds that "a person who smiles a lot is either a fool or an American", which illustrates the discrepancy. More interesting, attitude towards happiness don’t just vary (US vs Rusia); they change.

The expert in anything was once a beginner or A thought on Levy2006

(Levy and Ellis 2006) is one of the most useful paper I've read. It is more easily to read if compared with Skill for business inquiry's readings of previous weeks. There are not many complex sentences and jargons in this paper. However, it's hard to give critical thinking for this paper due to the fact that it is not to argue about a specific case but like a synthesis of researches on literature. 

Extreme programming compared with Microsoft-style iterative development - How to describe a vague term (2)

The second paper of week 9’s reading is a comparison of extreme programming with Microsoft-style Iterative Development. Similar to the first paper about “agililty” (Kruchten 2007), the second paper tries to brings some insight of a somewhat vague term “extreme programming”. Rather than giving a definition, (Cusumano 2007) uses another approach: To compare it with a more concrete technique called Microsoft-style Iterative Development.

Voyage in the Agile Memeplex - How to describe a vague term

Week 9’s topic is about agile programming and extreme programming. Normally, when reading about something, the first question to considered is “what” question. What is “agile” or “agility”? What is “extreme programming”? These questions are fair, and hopefully, if there is an obvious answer, reading the paper will become easier. However, it does not happen in every case.