Susan Gasson

My research focuses on boundary-spanning collaboration, especially in groups involved in the co-design of business and IT systems. This is the point just upstream of where business process redesign meets IT systems requirements analysis. The goal is to explore the resolution of "wicked" problems, where multiple stakeholder interests and perspectives need to be integrated into a set of coherent actions for process and IT system change.
My research is theory-based and grounded. I focus on three areas of theory:
* the underlying mechanisms and models of boundary-spanning collaboration and knowledge-sharing (basic research)
* how boundary-spanning collaboration and knowledge-sharing may be facilitated and mediated (processes and methods)
* how we may derive a "common language" for boundary-spanning collaboration, using shared representations and boundary objects (a focus on sociomaterial mediation).