Thirty Years of IS Research: Core Artifacts and Academic Identity

Abstract

This paper puts forward an academic identity for the IS discipline which emerges out of its displayed academic artifactsnamely, papers published in two of the discipline"s major journals (Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly) between 1977 and 2006. Our study focuses on two specific attributes of these papers: the focal IT Artifact and the IS Theme. An analysis of 1056 papers reveals an academic identity characterized by a relatively persistent focus on a small set of IT Artifacts and a similarly small set of IS Themes. The analysis suggests that our academic identity is indicated by two central and enduring intellectual cores associated with a handful of IT Artifacts and IS Themes, which have captured the attention of IS researchers over three decades. This academic identity may be described as the scientific study of the design, development, and management of information technologies, as well as their use by and impact on individuals, groups, and organizations. Of particular interest are information technologies (and their specific components) that enable communication, collaboration, and decision making. A follow up analysis of the papers published in 2007 and 2008 provides support to the central and enduring nature of our discipline"s intellectual core.

The Concept of Creativity in the Information Systems Discipline: Past, Present, and Prospects

“…However, given the undisputable role of creativity for contemporary organizations [Florida, 2002;Amabile and Khaire, 2008], we argue that relatively few papers investigate creativity-related topics from an IS perspective. This also becomes apparent in studies on the intellectual core of the IS discipline [Sidorova et al, 2008;Nevo et al, 2009]. Nevo et al [2009], for example, identify the focal IT artifacts and IS themes addressed in ISR and MISQ until 2006.…”

“…This also becomes apparent in studies on the intellectual core of the IS discipline [Sidorova et al, 2008;Nevo et al, 2009]. Nevo et al [2009], for example, identify the focal IT artifacts and IS themes addressed in ISR and MISQ until 2006. In addition to twelve explicitly named types of IT artifacts, the authors also cluster several types of IT systems -with only a limited representation within the dataset‖ [Nevo et al, 2009, p. 229].…”

“…Research papers published in a discipline's top-tier journals constitute some of the most prominent and lasting academic artifacts and define the discipline they represent [Nevo et al, 2009]. In order to investigate the role of creativity in IS research, therefore, we included the six plus two top-ranked pure IS journals as proposed by the Association for Information Systems (Senior Scholars' Extended Basket of Journals) [Association for Information Systems, 2007;Lin and Gregor, 2009] into our literature analysis.…”

“…However, it must be noted that the market view did not occur in our analysis and will thus not be further elaborated on. Dimension 3: Role of the IT Artifact Due to its central role in IS research [Benbasat and Zmud, 2003;Weber, 2003;Nevo et al, 2009], our analytical framework also considers the IT artifact and its treatment in the analyzed literature. For this purpose, we adopt a framework proposed by Orlikowski and Iacono [2001] (compare Akhlaghpour et al [2009] for a recent follow-up on the original study).…”

“…Article 14 Understanding the Socio-Technical Contexts in which Creativity Unfolds Our third research theme argues for the need to go beyond a mere fixation with the IT artifact that is both characteristic of [Sidorova et al, 2008;Nevo et al, 2009] and postulated for [Benbasat and Zmud, 2003;Weber, 2003] IS research and that has so much characterized prior IS research on creativity. Our literature analysis reveals that many of the models proposed by IS researchers are typical variance theories embodying an IT artifact.…”