About Us
IDeaS is an emergent and welcoming community. If you or your institution are interested in engaging with the work we are developing, please contact us.
What is IDeaS?
The emergence of data science and analytics has transformed society at large. To effectively understand this phenomenon, we believe we need an interpretative and cultural approach.
The Interpretive Data Science (IDeaS) Group is an emerging working group that was created to apply interpretive approaches to big data modeling and theorizing in the social sciences. IDeaS is collaborative and informally structured. We strive to approach the field of data science from an interdisciplinary and interstitial perspective by bringing together scholarly communities who do not normally interact with one another.
Our members are trying to push the boundaries of research in interpretative data science by combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies with emergent and more formalistic theorizing.
Through a combination of an analytical lens with a humanist approach, we intend on showcasing the field of data science in a brand new light. Our ultimate goal is to reinvigorate social sciences in a digital age so that foundational theories can continue to matter, as we live within and around AI and algorithms.
We aim to do so through the release of academic papers, blog posts, conferences, courses, and events centered around the subject of interpretative data science.
Research Focus
Our research aims to tackle three interrelated topics…
New Data Analytics Techniques in the Social Sciences
The reflexive and theoretically informed use of new data analytic techniques in the social sciences that leverage sophisticated algorithms such as topic modeling, natural language processing, and other forms of machine learning.
The Everyday Work of Data Analysts in Organizations
The everyday work of data analysts in organizations – how they construct knowledge practices, and the epistemic infrastructures of organizations; both as an interesting ethnographic and qualitative topic in its own right, and as a means of encouraging our own reflexivity.
The Societal Transformation Attending the Rise of Data
The societal, social, and cultural transformations attending the rise of data and analytics including changing forms and interpretations of privacy and governmentality – to which social scientists should be able to speak.
The IDeaS Team
Yunjung Pak, MA, BA
PhD Student, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Yunjung Pak’s research interests include Organizational Theory, Entrepreneurship, Economic Sociology, Hybrid Organization, Network Analysis, Natural Language Processing, and Topic Modeling.
Email: yunjung@ualberta.ca
Vern Glaser, PhD, MBA, BA
Associate Professor, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta.
Vern Glaser primarily studies the question, How do organizations strategically change practices and culture? Most of his research involves understanding how organizations use analytics, arguments, and analogies to change routines and to create new capabilities.
Dr. Glaser primarily use qualitative research methods, and has conducted studies in the predictive analytics and online display advertising industries. He has also conducted ethnographic work with an entrepreneurial start-up in the analytics industry.
Email: vglaser@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: Vern Glaser
Tim Hannigan, DPhil, MSc, BA (Hons)
Assistant Professor, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Timothy R. Hannigan’s research and teaching interests at the Alberta School of Business surround innovation, entrepreneurship and the dynamics of organizational discontinuities. His primary stream focuses on the pragmatic use of provisional knowledge (i.e., rumors and propositions) in sensemaking within contexts characterized by uncertainty such as open innovation, market pre-history, scandal, and early stage entrepreneurial ecosystems. His secondary stream focuses on the interplay between facts and interpretation in determining organizational and reputational outcomes in organizations and social media.
Dr. Hannigan employs a combination of big data/ machine learning computational text analysis techniques and qualitative research methods.
Email: thanniga@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: Tim Hannigan
Rodrigo Valadao, BSc
PhD Student, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Rodrigo Valadao is researching the intertwined relationship between data science and organizational strategies. At a macro level, he seeks to understand the emergence of the fields of data science and artificial intelligence. At a micro level, he focuses on the practices through which information professionals render knowledge to inform organizational decisions. The combination of these perspectives is fundamental to answer his broader question, namely: How is data science reshaping the strategy of organizations?
In his research, Rodrigo use both qualitative methods and big data & machine learning computational techniques, such as topic modeling.
Email: valadao@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: Rodrigo Valadao
Richard Haans, PhD, MSc, BBA
Assistant Professor, Department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Richard Haans’ research centers on the question of how novelty, usefulness, and performance interrelate. In particular, he is interested in studying why some individuals and organizations are able to reap greater rewards from their different, creative, or novel behaviour compared to their peers — with a particular interest in the social and institutional processes at play.
Dr. Haans also writes about methods such as topic modeling and investigating curvilinear relationships.
Email: haans@rsm.nl
LinkedIn: Richard Haans
Milo Wang, MA, BA
PhD Candidate, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Milo Wang's research focuses on how organizations strategically respond to negative social evaluations that arise from ethical misconduct, scandals, and crises. He specifically investigates stigma and crisis management, organizational wrongdoing, and stakeholder governance. Empirically, he researches a variety of diverse contexts, including market transition in China, the emergence of gene therapy in North America, and the diffusion of public health measures during the global pandemic. Methodologically, he employs both qualitative and quantitative methods.
Email: swang7@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: Milo Wang
Mark Kennedy, PhD, MBA, AB
Associate Professor, Strategy and Organisation, Imperial College London
Mark Kennedy has a long-standing interest in categories and categorization processes for their role in the adoption and diffusion of innovations. Within this broader topic, Mark studies how people collectively determine if and when unfamiliar new things become social realities, a topic that has led him to develop and use text mining methods for analyses of social change. Having previously focused on the dynamics of product markets and changes to organisations and business practice, Dr. Kennedy is currently studying what AI-based innovations will mean for the future of organisations, careers, labour markets, and society writ large.
Aside from his role as Assistant Professor, he also serves as the Director of Imperial Business Analytics, a research lab in Imperial College London’s Data Science Institute.
Email: mark.kennedy@imperial.ac.uk
LinkedIn: Mark Kennedy
Marc-David L. Seidel, PhD, MBA, MS, BA
RBC Financial Group Professor of Entrepreneurship, Associate Professor, OBHR Division, University of British Columbia
Marc-David L. Seidel’s research interests range across six topics: Distributed trust technologies (such as blockchain), Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Social networks and organizational decision making, Community Form (C-Form) of organization, Early life factors role in later life workplace outcomes, and discrimination and networks in the employment relationship.
Dr. Seidel serves as the Director of the W. Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Research. He also holds the role of Associate Editor with the Administrative Science Quarterly.
Email: seidel@mail.ubc.ca
LinkedIn: Marc-David L. Seidel
Jennifer Sloan, MBA, BEd
PhD Student, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Jennifer Sloan’s research broadly looks at the social construction of knowledge within organizations. She gravitates toward ethnographic approaches in family firm contexts, and her current projects investigate the role of narratives in values work as well as how data are selected, categorized, and changed over time.
While these two may seem dissimilar, they both ultimately seek to understand how people make sense of their surroundings, and how this sense making becomes applied to social structures.
Email: jsloan@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: Jennifer Sloan
Hovig Tchalian, PhD, MBA, BA
Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship, Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, Claremont University
Hovig Tchalian studies the impact of language and communication processes on organizations and markets. His research focuses especially on framing and sense-making processes as well as language devices such as analogies. When online retailer Amazon was launched in 1994, for example, very few people shopped on the Internet. So Amazon and other retailers compared online shopping to the in-store experience—slowly making people feel comfortable with the idea of browsing, gathering items in a shopping cart, and checking out.
Email: hovig.tchalian@cgu.edu
LinkedIn: Hovig Tchalian
Dev (P. Devereaux) Jennings, PhD, MBA, AB
Professor, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Dev Jennings’ research interests revolve around three topics: The Natural Environment and Institutional Theory, Entrepreneurship and Family Business from an Institutional Theory Standpoint, and The Development of Institutional and Political Theory Fundamentals.
Dr. Jennings also serves as a Director for the Canadian Centre for Corporate Sustainability and Social Entrepreneurship.
Email: dj1@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: Dev (P. Devereaux)Jennings
Christopher Steele, PhD, MSc, MA (Oxon)
Assistant Professor, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Christopher Steele’s research interests revolve around three topics: the production and consumption of knowledge, the emergence and maintenance of identity, and the production of order, meaning, and innovation in everyday life.
Dr. Steele’s research to date has explored the dynamics of identity and innovation within a new physician specialty in the U.S., and the efforts of business analysts and others to design, legitimate, and implement data analytic techniques, as well as a theoretical consideration of the role of history in the formation and dynamics of societal logics.
Email: csteele1@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: Christopher Steele
Maggie Cascadden, MRM (Planning), BA&Sc (Hons)
PhD Student, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Maggie Cascadden is interested in the sustainability question. She has two major research streams. First is exploring cross-sector collaborations from a community perspective, where she explores what about communities helps or inhibits them getting a good deal. Second is exploring the dismantling of institutions and what is left in the vacuum of an organization’s departure form a field. She takes an integrative, mixed methods approach. Some of her current projects include investigating community agreements in Canadian mining and exploring innovation of novel technology for oil sands reclamation.
Email: cascadde@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggie-m-cascadden-85604b65/
Bandita Deka Kalita, MBA, B.E
Ph.D Student, Department of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Alberta
Bandita Deka Kalita's research is driven by a broad interest in organizations and the institutional contexts that influence them. Particularly, she is interested in exploring questions about the processual nature of institutions and the logics that animate the social world. To explore these questions, she seeks to study areas and issues that give rise to contentions within fields. Currently, her empirical area of focus is the oil and gas industry of Alberta, Canada. In this area, one of her most exciting ongoing research projects seeks to understand how Alberta's oil industry went from being a symbol of economic progress to a source of environmental concern. Her research takes a mixed methods approach.
Email: dekakali@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/bandita-deka-kalita-4286108
Joseph Porac, PhD, BS
George Daly Professor of Business Leadership, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University
Joseph Porac studies how social and cognitive processes shape organizational and interorganizational action. Some of his research has addressed the question of how markets stabilize around particular definitions of products such as minivans, motorcycles, and knitwear. Other research has addressed the sociopolitical aspects of corporate governance such as how corporate boards justify C.E.O. compensation to shareholders, whether "star" C.E.O.'s are paid differently than their less reputable peers, and what sorts of firms are most likely to incite activist shareholders to file governance resolutions against them.
Email: jfp5@stern.nyu.edu
Anne L. Washington, PhD, MLIS, BA
Assistant Professor of Data Policy, New York University
Anne L. Washington investigates the ethics, meaning, and management of data. Through the lens of digital record keeping, she studies predictive technologies intended to serve the common good. Her research explores the institutional legitimacy of digital knowledge infrastructures such as algorithms, machine learning, or artificial intelligence. As a computer scientist trained in organizational ethnography and interpretive methods, her research unites inductive qualitative scholarship with data science.
Email: washingtona@acm.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-l-washington-842847
Joel Gehman, PhD, BS
Professor of Strategy, Entrepreneurship & Management, Alberta School of Business Chair in Free Enterprise, and Director of the Canadian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the University of Alberta
Joel Gehman is an organization theorist, focused on studying strategic, technological, and institutional responses to grand challenges related to sustainability and values concerns. In short, how can business be a force for good. As it relates to IDeaS, his work includes CULTR (http://cultrtoolkit.com/) and WellWiki (http://wellwiki.org). More recently he has been using Twitter and other social media platforms to trace the values and emotions at play in conversations related to energy transitions.
Email: jgehman@ualberta.ca
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelgehman/
Deborah A. Anderson, CPA, MTA, DPhil
Assistant Professor, The University of Alabama
Deborah A. Anderson's research explores the intersection of technology, work, and organizations. She is especially interested in how expertise and professional judgment are influenced by and organized during the implementation of both new and simplified technologies. Empirically, she largely focuses on highly regulated contexts, such as accounting and finance and employs qualitative methods to do so, including ethnography, historical methods, and interviews.
Email: daanderson@ua.edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-anderson-phd-cpa-4235672a/
