Burton Swanson

E. Burton Swanson is Research Professor and Director of the Information Systems Research Program at UCLA Anderson School of Management. Prior to his retirement and recall, he served as Area Chair for the Information Systems faculty. Professor Swanson began his academic career at UCLA in 1974. Earlier he worked with IBM, primarily in application system development. Since obtaining his doctorate at UC Berkeley, Professor Swanson has held visiting positions in Germany, Belgium and England.

Professor Swanson is a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and also a recipient of its LEO award for exceptional lifetime achievement. He was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Information Systems Research, 1987-92. Earlier, in 1980, he was also a co-founder of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Professor Swanson''s research examines the life cycles of systems in organizations, addressing issues of innovation, implementation, utilization, and maintenance. He has authored more than one hundred scholarly articles. His most recent work addresses organizing visions for innovating with IT, which seeks to explain patterns in the waves of innovation that characterize and sweep across the information systems field. 

Until his retirement, Professor Swanson''s teaching included MBA courses in information systems applications, measurement in information systems, enterprise systems, and web business. Professor Swanson also offered an undergraduate course in electronic commerce. He chaired or co-chaired 29 doctoral dissertations at UCLA Anderson and continues to work with visiting doctoral students from around the world.

Locally, Professor Swanson is a member of the Southern California chapter of the Society of Information Management (SIM), and also works with the UCLA Information Systems Associates, a group of senior practitioners that provides support for the University.

Education

• Ph.D. Business Administration, 1971, UC Berkeley
• MBA 1964, University of Michigan
• B.S. Industrial Engineering, 1962, San Jose State College