The Relevancy of Information Systems Research

Abstract

Recently, the subject of research relevancy has received a great deal of attention in the IS academic press. Several leading academic journals, such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Information Resources Management Journal have devoted special issues and/or articles to this topic. Typically, these articles have been opinion pieces from leading IS academics (i.e., Benbasat, Zmud, Robey, Lee, etc.) and have not included significant input from practitioners within the IS area. This chapter tries to capture the IS practitioners' perspective on research relevance through a survey sent to 400 IS practitioners. The results indicate that IS practitioners (1) do not know where academic research is published; (2) find academic research dated; (3) find academic research difficult to read; and/or (4) find the recommendations included in academic research to be of little value.

The relevance of knowledge management and intellectual capital Research

“…Ankers and Brennan (2002) reported that marketing managers knew very little about the state of research and claimed that academics did not understand business realities. Pearson et al (2005) observed that the academic field of information systems did not have much impact on the state of practice. At the same time, Baldridge et al (2004) demonstrated that there is a positive relationship between the academic quality and practical relevance of academic publications which shows the possibility of producing rigorous and highly relevant research output.…”

“…When something works, word gets around. Pearson et al (2005) recommended that future researchers examine these indirect distribution channels when studying relevance. Therefore, the key ''research relevance'' question is not whether academic discoveries are getting disseminated to practitioners.…”

Do stronger links with practice make perfect?

“…Ankers & Brennan 2002;Ottesen & Grønhaug 2004), management (e.g. Armstrong 1980Wilkerson 1999), information systems (Benbasat & Zmud 1999;Pearson et al 2005), finance (Mobley & Kuniansky 1992) and human resources (Terpstra & rozell 1998). While scholars used specific examples particular to their own sub-fields, there was remarkable consistency in the underlying themes and issues of concern within the significant discussion and debate across domains.…”

Investigating Information Systems Research in Canada

“…Since its inception, numerous studies have been conducted to understand the nature and direction of IS research (Benbasat & Weber, ; Benbasat & Zmud, ; Dearden, ; Mason & Mitroff, ). Prior investigations developed frameworks that guide IS research (Ives, Hamilton, & Davis, ), explored IS research diversity issues (Robey, ), created mechanisms to classify IS research topics (Barki, Rivard, & Talbot, ), examined what constitutes the (IT) artifact (Orlikowski & Iacono, ), and explored the employment of IS scholarly output in practical settings (Benbasat & Zmud, ; Pearson, Pearson, & Shim, ). As part of these efforts to understand where we were, where we are, and where we want to be (Holsapple, ), many scientometric investigations were also conducted to understand who the most influential IS researchers and institutions are, how the IS community perceives the quality of its journals, and what inquiry methods are utilized (Lowry, Karuga, & Richardson, ; Lowry, Romans, & Curtis, ; Palvia et al, ).…”