Paul Beynon-davies

Biography

Before taking up an academic post, I worked for several years in the Informatics industry in the UK, both in the public and private sectors. I have published widely in my field, having 12 books and over eighty peer-reviewed academic papers to my name. In the past I engaged in a number of government-funded projects related to the impact of ICT on the economic, social and political spheres. I was seconded part-time to the National Assembly for Wales (NAfW) as an evaluator of its Cymru-ar-Lein/Information Age strategy for Wales and was director of the eCommerce Innovation Centre at Cardiff University from 2006-2008. This centre was the home of the Broadband Observatory for Wales. A major component of my more recent research work examines some of the theoretical foundations of Organisational Informatics - a broad area which examines the interplay between information, systems and technology and ways of organising. One stream of this work breaks sense with conventional understandings of the concept of information. Another strand examines the the performativity of data structures - the way in which data structures are important constitutive actors within contemporary institutions. Using elements of this theorisation as critical foundation, I have also started to reconstruct ways of doing business design and analysis. This revolves around making the case for a particular design theory applicable to making sense of ways of organising - which I refer to as a business pattern. I have also developed an approach to visualising business patterns known as a pattern comic. This design theory and design artefact have currently proven useful in unpacking visual management practices within production and healthcare settings. They have also been used in promoting a more coherent account of the notion of a digital business model.

Research Interest

Electronic Business Electronic Government Business Information Systems Theoretical underpinning of Organisational Informatics Theory-driven approaches to Business Analysis