Börje Langefors Best Doctoral Dissertation Award

The Börje Langefors Award (‘Börje Langeforspriset’ in Swedish) is an academic prize awarded each year by the Swedish Information Systems Academy (Svenska informationssystemakademin or SISA) for the best doctoral dissertation in Sweden in the subject areas - informatics, information systems, data and information science or equivalent. The prize aims to reward and encourage development of high standard research in Sweden, and to demonstrate exemplary research in informatics.

Origin

The award has been named after Professor Börje Langefors (1915–2009), one of those who made systems development a science. professor Börje was a Swedish engineer and computer scientist, and emeritus professor of business information systems at the Department of Computer and Systems Science, Stockholm University and Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Börje Langefors was a pioneer of IT and one of the initiators of "informatics" as an academic area of study. He was the first IT professor in Sweden and one of the first in the world. Börje contributed strongly to put Sweden on the international IT map and brought into a focus in particular to the user's role in data processing. Börje Langefors brought more than 20 graduate students to degree most of which today are professors who in turn have brought their students to graduates.

Award criteria

The following quality criteria are applied for the evaluation of individual doctoral thesis:

• Relevance: Articulate, well-defined and well-motivated research question(s)
• Articulate and well-reflected research design
• Comprehensiveness: Chosen and used well described theory base
• Well described empirical base
• Validity of knowledge (empirically and theoretically well-grounded)
• Contribution validity and durability (abstraction) to further research
• Innovative value in knowledge contributions
• Independence (of author's own contribution)
• Communicability: Clarity, transparency and conceptual clarity
• Internal coherence: holistic and coherent argument
• Subject (IS field) congruency
• Ability to serve as a "Role model"
• International exposure /review

Prize committee

Every year in spring (usually in May), a prize committee assesses the theses submitted by the universities/institutions in Sweden and nominates the best dissertation, which is finally announced in connection with SISA's annual conference. Information about this conference can be found here. The members of Committee for Börje Langefors Award in 2016 are:

• Professor Karin Hedström [1], Örebro University
• Professor Tero Päivärinta, Luleå University
• Professor Jan Ljungberg, University of Gothenburg
• Professor Jeremy Rose, University of Skövde
• Professor Vivian Vimarlund, Linköping University

Börje Langefors Awards during the period 2011-2015 was sponsored by Nethouse and Sitevision

The recipients

2015

First prize

Johan Sandberg, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Umeå University awarded the first best for his doctoral dissertation entitled "Digital Capability: Investigating Coevolution of IT and Business Strategies"

2014

First prize

Mathias Hatakka, Senior Lecturer at the Örebro University awarded the first best for his doctoral dissertation entitled "The capability approach in ict4d research".

2013

First prize

Anders Olof Larsson at the Department of Informatics and Media of Uppsala University for his thesis "Doing Things in Relation to Machines – Studies on Online Interactivity". The motivation for the award as described by the SISA Börje Langefors Prize Committee : "The thesis is based on a socially relevant contemporary topic, well-designed and well-defined subject area with contrasting perspectives based on exceptional and interesting empirical material. The thesis is easy to read and well structured with well linked articles. It has a very good international exposure". Thesis download link is here.

2012

First best

Henrik Wimelius, Assistant professor at the Umeå University awarded the first best for his doctoral dissertation entitled “Duplicate Systems: Investigating Unintended Consequences of Information Technology in Organizations”. The motivation for selected him as the first is, as stated by SISA is “Henrik Wimelius dissertation is well written and clearly positioned against existing literature. The question that is addressed both theoretically and practically interesting. Methodologically the research is based on a rigorous process, presented in a reflexive manner. Furthermore, logic and structure of the thesis is well thought. The existence of parallel, competing IT systems in organizations and activities tend to help Henrik with valuable insights and lessons learned. His thesis is an excellent knowledge base which can advantageously be further exploited.” Thesis download link is here.

Second best

M. Sirajul Islam, Assistant Professor at the School of Business (Informatics) of Örebro University received the second best award for his dissertation – “Creating Opportunity by Connecting the Unconnected: Deploying Mobile Phone based Agriculture Market Information Service for Farmers in Bangladesh” . The motivation for the award conferred to Sirajul as stated: “Sirajul Islam‘s dissertation reports a design-oriented action research project that sought to create sustainable societal effects by facilitating mobile technology adoption. One interesting aspect of this change effort is that it nicely illustrates how informatics research can help underprivileged groups to strengthen their positions through innovative IT use. The research project was executed through a well-designed process that is presented in a comprehensive yet detailed way. In particular, it reveals how and why certain practical and theoretical issues were tackled to push the project forward. Constituting the core of the thesis, the set of articles suggests that the result produced were not only locally relevant but also globally impactful.” Thesis download link is here. A brief interview with Sirajul about this Award is available here (in Swedish).

2011

First prize

Annika Andersson at the Informatics department of Örebro University for her thesis " Learning to learn in e-Learning: constructive practices for development ". The motivation for the award as described by the SISA Börje Langefors Prize Committee : "Annika Andersson is awarded the prize for best dissertation for the following reasons: socially relevant subject matter, well formulated and relevant theoretical basis, proper research design with appropriate method triangulation and sequencing of sub-studies, comprehensive and interesting empirical work, good incremental cumulative knowledge, clear and well-structured presentation, good design of compilation thesis with a well-developed cover paper, a good international exposure.". Thesis download link is here.

Runner-up

Jonas Sjöström, Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University stood runner-up for the Börje Langefors Award for best Information Systems (IS) thesis in Sweden 2009-2010. The title of his thesis is Designing Information Systems - A Pragmatic Account. The motivation was : “ Topical subject, well grounded in an interesting and well-reflected theoretical perspective that integrate essential national and international theory within as well as outside of the IS discipline, important contributions to the theorization of the IT artifact, solid knowledge contributions as a foundation for future research, and a good international exposure.” Thesis download link is here.