The Unfolding and Resurfacing of Information Systems Knowledge over the Last 25 Years: A Systemic Perspective

Abstract

Currently, there are many perspectives aiming to account for what the field of information systems (IS) is or should be. For some, IS is conceived as a reference and stable discipline with dominant or core knowledge to export to other disciplines. To others, IS still requires a more eclectic/fluid perspective to enable IS to be adaptable to emerging challenges and possibilities. In both types of perspectives, there is a need to appreciate fully how IS knowledge has effectively unfolded through time in broader contexts of social sciences. In line with an emerging research orientation to conceive the IS field as both dominant and eclectic, we propose a systemic framework to account for these stages. We identify key IS knowledge concepts/themes emerging from analysing 4100 abstracts from articles in eight IS journals covering European Union/US regions over the last 25 years. Our findings suggest that such knowledge does not accumulate, but rather, some IS key concepts like systems, information and use resurface over time, leading to draw important implications for IS education, research and practice. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The systemic tenets of the key supply chain social responsibility approaches

“…Finally, the outcomes of the second coding were used to calculate intercoder reliability coefficients to prove this study's generalizability. The following subsections outline the details of the SLR as recommended by Kitchenham et al 48 Cordoba-Pachon and Paucar-Caceres 50 have also used Content Analysis in analyzing a body of literature. They used a software tool called Leximancer to help surface concepts or themes emerging in the literature of information systems.…”

“…Cordoba-Pachon and Paucar-Caceres 50 have also used Content Analysis in analyzing a body of literature. They used a software tool called Leximancer to help surface concepts or themes emerging in the literature of information systems.…”

A Bibliometric Review of Information Systems Research From 1975-2018

“…Unlike traditional disciplines of business research, the scope and topics of IS research are always changing with the advancement and application of information technologies (Grover & Lyytinen, 2015; N. R. Hassan, Mingers, & Stahl, 2018). Although the diversity and adaptability of the research themes in the IS field have make this discipline practically significant, it might threaten the academic rigor (Avison & Elliot, 2006;Bakshi & Krishna, 2007;Banville, 1989;Córdoba & Paucar-Caceres, 2018;Robey, 2003;Taylor et al, 2010;Zmud, 2003), confuse the future research directions, and hinder the development of IS academic studies. Thus, the exploration of IS discipline has become an increasingly concerned issue (Jeyaraj & Zadeh, 2019b) (Jeyaraj & Zadeh, 2019a) [30] .…”

Towards a new generation of climate information systems : information systems and actionable knowledge creation for adaptive decision-making in rice farming systems in Ghana

“…However, recent studies on how science and technology can improve the attainment of sustainability indices have drawn on the concept in connecting knowledge to action, with a predominant contribution by Cash et al (2003) in science and policy studies, and other scholarship purporting to understand the transformational power of information in environmental management (Cross & Sproull, 2004;Evans et al, 2017;Ginige, 2016;Horan & Wells, 2005;McCampbell et al, 2018). The term, actionable knowledge, comprises two key words -knowledge and action -and has been defined differently in science and technology studies in an attempt to elucidate what information systems or knowledge systems have been and could be (Córdoba-Pachón & Paucar-Caceres, 2019;Evans et al, 2017). Evans et al (2017, p. 72) define actionable knowledge as 'knowledge that can be acted upon and applied to solve a real-world problem'.…”