Dr Mary Darking
Senior Lecturer
contact:
Applied Social Science
Falmer
Brighton
BN1 9PH
Telephone: +44 (0)1273 644717
Email: M.L.Darking@brighton.ac.uk
Research interests
- Innovation and management in partnership working
- Flexible, distributed systems and technology infrastructure
- Governance, information systems management and digital commons
- Learning and knowledge sharing in collaborative online environments
- Distributed cognition and ontological relativism
Teaching
- Organisation and management
- Strategy and planning
- Social policy
- Health and social care
Course Leader - Masters in Public Administration
Module coordinator:
- SS127 Understanding Health and Social Care
- SS257 Care, Interdependence and Well-being
- SS315 Organisation and Management in Health and Social Care
- SSM47 Managing in Public and Voluntary Sectors
- SSM23 Strategy and Planning
Research
My research focuses primarily on organisation, innovation and management in complex, policy-related environments. I am interested in the use of technologies within these environments and in what technologies reveal to us about the way we work and think. I have an interest in theoretical ideas associated with ontological relativism according to which traditional divisions between the mind, the body and the material world are temporarily placed to one side. I use grounded research methods to develop new analytical tools based on the practice-based knowledge, expertise and understanding of those who live and work within a situation.
Profile
I carried out my PhD research in the Information Systems and Innovation Group in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics (LSE). For my PhD I conducted research into e-learning technologies in the context of higher education, looking at: cross sector contract negotiation; cross domain collaboration; and the significance of reasoning and values to these processes.
Postdoctorally I worked on two European Union funded research networks at the LSE. The first of these Digital Business Ecosystem (€10.5M) was a European wide research network which included large private sector technology partners, research institutions and small and medium-sized companies (SMEs). My research focused on governance, SME engagement and building public infrastructure from digital commons. I co-wrote a proposal for a Network of Excellence entitled Open Associative Autopoietic Digital Ecosystems which was successfully funded (€9.4M). I led a workpackage on community building (€1.7M) and managed an international team of researchers in the development of an open knowledge space based on open source and creative commons principles. I provided research leadership on governance and innovation.
I am currently Course Leader for the Masters in Public Administration at the University of Brighton. I have two children and live in central Brighton.
Additional roles
I am a reviewer for Organization Science, IT and People and the Information Systems Journal.
Publications
Whitley, Edgar A and Darking, Mary (2009) Object lessons and invisible technologies In: Avgerou, Chrisanthi, Lanzarra, Giovan Francesco and Willcocks, Leslie P, eds. Bricolage, care and information: Claudio Ciborra's Legacy in Information Systems Research. Palgrave MacMillan, London, pp. 348-366. ISBN 13: 978-0-230-22073-7, 10: 0-230-22073-8
DARKING, MARY (2008) Governing diversity in the digital ecosystem Communications Of The Acm, 51 (10). pp. 137-140. ISSN 0001-0782
Darking, Mary and Whitley, Edgar A. (2007) Towards an understanding of FLOSS: infrastructures, materiality and the digital business ecosystem Science Studies, 20 (2). pp. 13-33. ISSN 0786-3012
Darking, Mary (2007) Understanding the role of governance in the context of digital ecosystems European Commission, Brussels.
Darking, Mary and Liebenau, J. (2006) Building infrastructure from digital commons: the case of the digital business ecosystem In: Proceedings of Economics of Exchange Commons: The Status, Functions and Utility of Infrastructure, November 3rd 2006, Columbia University.
Darking, Mary, Whitley, E.A. and Dini, P. (2006) The challenge of building public technology infrastructure: issues of governance and sustainability in a digital business ecosystem In: The proceedings of the 14th European conference on information systems, May 2006, Regensburg, Germany.
Whitley, E.A. and Darking, Mary (2006) Object lessons and invisible technologies In: Sixth Social Study of IT Workshop: Knowledge and Organizing, April 2003, London.
Whitley, E.A., Sieber, S., Caliz, C., Darking, Mary, Frigerio, C., Jacucci, E., Noteberg, A. and Rill, M. (2004) What is it like to do an information systems PhD in Europe? Diversity in the practice of IS research Communications of the AIS, 13 . pp. 317-335.
Darking, Mary (2002) Integrating pedagogical technologies into UK higher education: conceptual foundations In: The proceedings of the 10th European conference on Information Systems, 2002, Gdansk, Poland.
