A Disruptive Research Playbook for Studying Disruptive Innovations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a research playbook designed to guide the study of disruptive innovations in software engineering, emphasizing socio-technical perspectives and long-term societal impacts, supported by case studies and a specialized GPT model.

Contribution

It presents a novel research playbook for formulating socially relevant questions and strategies to investigate disruptive technologies in software engineering.

Findings

Retrospective analysis of Stack Overflow's impact on software development.

Application of the playbook to AI and AR/VR technologies.

Introduction of a GPT model to assist future research framing.

Abstract

As researchers, we are now witnessing a fundamental change in our technologically-enabled world due to the advent and diffusion of highly disruptive technologies such as generative AI, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). In particular, software engineering has been profoundly affected by the transformative power of disruptive innovations for decades, with a significant impact of technical advancements on social dynamics due to its the socio-technical nature. In this paper, we reflect on the importance of formulating and addressing research in software engineering through a socio-technical lens, thus ensuring a holistic understanding of the complex phenomena in this field. We propose a research playbook with the goal of providing a guide to formulate compelling and socially relevant research questions and to identify the appropriate research strategies for empirical investigations, with an eye on the long-term implications of technologies or their use. We showcase how to apply the research playbook. Firstly, we show how it can be used retrospectively to reflect on a prior disruptive technology, Stack Overflow, and its impact on software development. Secondly, we show it can be used to question the impact of two current disruptive technologies: AI and AR/VR. Finally, we introduce a specialized GPT model to support the researcher in framing future investigations. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of adopting the playbook for both researchers and practitioners in software engineering and beyond.