Posted by Yogesh Malhotra on July 13, 1997 at 15:11:13:

In Reply to: Quality questions posted by Denham on July 11, 1997 at 11:04:03:

WebGrid represents one of the key initiatives that have attempted to move [George Kelly's] repertory grid elicitation and modeling, from personal computers to World-Wide Web servers to make it widely available on a platform-independent basis.

It is one of the adaptations of the original Repertory Grid Technique (RGT). The original grid was devised by Kelly as a tool for elicitation of psychological constructs at the individual level of analysis. George Kelly defined constructs as: "transparent patterns or templets which [the person] creates and then attempts to fit over the realities of which the world is composed..."

The grid has found applications in diverse areas including psychiatry, psychotherapy, artificial intelligence, and a few business disciplines. However, the caveat stated by Kelly about the philosophy or theory behind the development and application of this grid needs to be given due consideration. Kelly had observed that in their rush to use the tools for the quantitative analysis, scientists should not forget the philosophy underlying the tools. More on the personal construction theory (PCT) underlying the grid can be found on the following web page:

http://www.brint.com/PCT.htm

Some basics of the theory and its application to the organizational control framework within the context of information technology implementation have been discussed in the following conference paper.

Malhotra, Yogesh and Laurie J. Kirsch, "Personal Construct Analysis of Self-Control in IS Adoption: Empirical Evidence from Comparative Case Studies of IS Users & IS Champions," in the Proceedings of the First INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology (Organizational Adoption & Learning Track), Washington D.C., May 5-8, 1996, pp. 105-114.

The theoretical elaboration has been extended in the following conference paper that has been selected for presentation at the forthcoming national Academy of Management meeting (Technology and Innovation Management Division).

Malhotra, Yogesh "Bringing the Adopter Back Into the Adoption Process: A Personal Construction Framework of Information Technology Adoption" in the Academy of Management Meeting (Technology and Innovation Management Division), Boston, MA, August 10-13, 1997.

Those interested in the links to WebGrid (and associated papers) and many other tools that are based on the Theory of Personal Constructs and Kelly's Repertory Grid will find a compilation at:

http://www.brint.com/PCT.htm#grid .

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