Executive Seminar Series 

The aim of the IMI Seminar Series is to bring top international researhers in Information Systems (IS) to South Africa to share their research findings with local executives. The target audience is the select group of South African executives who are responsibile for IS in their organizations, or who are responsible for business units depending on IS.

The purpose of the Seminar Series is certainly to inform, but also to present research findings in such a manner that executives will be sensitized to important issues and will benefit from the Series not only through its informational content. While the seminars are not presented in the same way that the content would normally be shared at international specialist conferences, they also do not degrade simply to the level of “executive briefings”. A fine balance is maintained between telling executives about things, and making the seminar a learning experience.

Seminars are presented over two full days to a relatively small group of attendees to facilitate audience participation and might contain interactive components such as group discussions. Educational material are provided that the executive takes away from the Seminar, and that goes beyond the simplistic bulleted lists so often presented as the ultimate condensation of some part of reality.

We would like to think of the Seminar Series as contributing to the social construction of knowledge about a particular aspect, and that the presentations would provide ways of making sense of the world rather than tell about discoveries which represent absolute truth.