Enid Mumford: a tribute

In this edited article, we look at the many contributions of Enid Mumford: as a worker, teacher, colleague, researcher, but most of all as a human being, written by those who have been influenced by her, many of whom knowing her personally. Andrew Pettigrew first encountered Enid as an undergraduate, later becoming her first Research Fellow and then Enid supervised his PhD. His tribute introduces us to both her work and humanity. Frank Land is often associated with the work of Enid and in his tribute he discusses the roots of Enid's views in socio-technical design, her influence on the National Computing Centre and through her many roles in practice where she acted as facilitator for humanistic as well as successful change using technology. Michael Earl first met Enid as a lecturer at Manchester Business School in 1974. His contribution recognizes her special personal qualities as a teacher as well as her impact on practice. Like many authors of this paper, Gor-don Davis will be well known to readers and it says much for Enid's standing in the field that he writes of her impact on himself and his understanding of information systems (IS) and IS research. In his article, Niels Bjørn-Andersen refers to Enid as the 'Florence Nightingale' of IT and he suggests that 'no other researcher has contributed so much towards influencing the practice of systems design in the direction of giving higher priority to humanistic values and democratization'. This very worthy achievement of Enid is also highlighted by other writers in this article. Trevor Wood-Harper and Bob Wood suggest that Enid, like Frank Sinatra, did it 'my way', but perhaps unlike Frank Sinatra, Enid's way is also a humanistic way to the future. They provide a useful overview of Enid's contribution to the literature. Bob Galliers refers to Enid's vision as well as her humanity, suggesting that her vision was much broader than most, much more heroic. For her, IS had to speak of societal problems as well as organizational and technical ones. David Avison describes how Enid changed his life and reflects on how her friendliness , openness and kindness that she showed in personal relationships are evidenced in her work that remains with us. Heinz K. Klein suggests that Enid was a leader in the 'informal col-lege' of paradigm change and advocates her as a role model for junior faculty. Indeed he shows us how …