information systems - the state of the field

Wiley Series in Information SystemsCURRENT VOLUMES IN THE SERIES Currie: The Global Information Society Elliot: Electronic Commerce—BC2 Strategies and Models Galliers and Baets: Inform

Information Systems

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Information systems : the state of the field / edited by John Leslie King, Kalle Lyytinen

p cm

ISBN-13 978-0-470-01777-7 (alk paper)

ISBN-10 0-470-01777-5 (alk paper)

1 Management information systems 2 Information technology I King, John

Leslie II Lyytinen, Kalle, 1953–

T58.6.I487 2006

658.4′038′011—dc22 2005030101

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN-13 978-0-470-01777-7

ISBN-10 0-470-01777-5

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Wiley Series in Information Systems

CURRENT VOLUMES IN THE SERIES

Currie: The Global Information Society

Elliot: Electronic Commerce—BC2 Strategies and Models

Galliers and Baets: Information Technology & Organizational Transformation—Innovation for the

21st Century Organization

Groth: Future Organizational Design—The Scope for the IT-Based Enterprise

Knights and Murray: Managers Divided: Organizational Politics and Information Technology

Management

Krcmar, Bjørn-Andersen & O’Callaghan: EDI in Europe: How It Works in Practice

McKeen & Smith: Making IT Happen—Critical Issues in IT Management

McKeen & Smith: Management Changes in IS—Successful Strategies and Appropriate Action Mingers & Willcocks: Social Theory and Philosophy for Information Systems

Remenyi, Sherwood-Smith with White: Achieving Maximum Value from Information Systems—A

Process Approach

Renkema: The IT Value Quest—How to Capture the Business Value of IT-Based Infrastructure Silver: Systems that Support Decision Makers—Description and Analysis

Timmers: Electronic Commerce—Strategies and Models for Business-to-Business Trading

Walsham: Making a World of Difference—IT in a Global Context

Ward & Daniel: Benefits Management: Delivering Value from IT & IS Investment

Ward & Peppard: Strategic Planning for Information Systems, 3rd edition

Wigand, Picot & Reichwald: Information, Organization & Management—Expanding Markets and

Corporate Boundaries

Willcocks & Lacity: Strategic Sourcing of Information Systems—Perspectives and Practices Willcocks & Lester: Beyond the IT Productivity Paradox

Wiley Series in Information Systems

Editors

Richard Boland Department of Management Information and Decision

Systems, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7235, USA

Rudy Hirschheim Department of Information Systems and Decision

Sciences, Ourso College of Business Administration, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA Advisory Board

Niels Bjørn-Andersen Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

D Ross Jeffery University of New South Wales, Australia

Heinz K Klein Binghamton University, USA

Frank F Land London School of Economics, UK

Enid Mumford Manchester Business School, UK

Mike Newman University of Manchester, UK

Daniel Robey Georgia State University, USA

E Burton Swanson University of California, USA

Geoff Walsham University of Cambridge, UK

Robert W Zmud University of Oklahoma, USA

To Gerry, who always looked up

Contents

List of Contributors xi Foreword—Gordon B Davis xvii Series Preface—Rudy Hirschheim xxii Introduction—John Leslie King and Kalle Lyytinen xxiii

1 Scoping the Discipline of Information Systems—David

2 Desperately Seeking the ‘IT’ in IT Research: A Call to

Theorizing the IT Artifact—Wanda J Orlikowski and

3 Still Desperately Seeking the IT Artifact—Ron Weber 43

4 The Identity Crisis within the IS Discipline: Defining

and Communicating the Discipline’s Core

5 Crisis in the IS Field? A Critical Reflection on the State

of the Discipline—Rudy A Hirschheim and Heinz K Klein 71

6 Change as Crisis or Growth? Toward a Trans-disciplinary

View of Information Systems as a Field of Study:

A Response to Benbasat and Zmud’s Call for Returning

7 The Social Life of Information Systems Research:

A Response to Benbasat and Zmud’s Call for Returning

x Contents

8 Identity, Legitimacy and the Dominant Research

Paradigm: An Alternative Prescription for the IS

9 Design Science in Information Systems Research—Alan R

Hevner, Salvatore T March, Jinsoo Park and Sudha Ram 191

10 Nothing at the Center?: Academic Legitimacy in

the Information Systems Field—Kalle Lyytinen and

11 Reach and Grasp—John Leslie King and Kalle Lyytinen 267

12 The Artifact Redux: Further Reflections on the ‘IT’

in IT Research—Wanda J Orlikowski and

13 Like Ships Passing in the Night: The Debate on

the Core of the Information Systems Discipline—

14 Further Reflections on the Identity Crisis—Izak Benbasat

15 Further Reflections on the IS Discipline:

Climbing the Tower of Babel—Heinz K Klein

16 ‘Don’t Worry, be Happy ’ A Post-Modernist

Perspective on the Information Systems Domain—

17 Cleaning the Mirror: Desperately Seeking Identity

in the Information Systems Field—Daniel Robey 332

18 Designing Design Science—Salvatore T March 338

19 The Future of the IS Field: Drawing Directions

from Multiple Maps—John Leslie King and

List of Contributors

David Avison is Distinguished Professor of Information and sion Systems at the ESSEC Business School in Paris, France He hasserved previously on faculties at the University of Technology inSydney, Australia, Brunel University in London, and the University

Deci-of Southampton His research on information systems has appeared

in more than a dozen books and many academic journal articles He

has served as Co-editor of the Information Systems Journal as well as

Co-editor of the Butterworth-Heinemann series in InformationSystems, as well as in key editorial positions for journals such as

Information Technology and People, the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Information Technology and Human Interaction, the Interna- tional Journal of Business Research Methods, and Systèmes d’Information

et Management He has served as President of the UK Academy of

Information Systems, and Chair of IFIP 8.2 He holds an MSc from thePolytechnic of North London and a PhD from Aston University, and

is a Fellow of the British Computer Society

Izak Benbasat is CANADA Research Chair in Information nology Management at the Sauder School of Business, University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and a Fellow of the RoyalSociety of Canada His current research interests include evaluatinguser interfaces and web-based recommendation agents to facilitatebusiness-to-consumer electronic commerce He is the past editor-in-chief

Tech-of Information Systems Research and currently is a Senior Editor Tech-of the

Journal of the Association for Information Systems He received his PhD

(1974) in Management Information Systems from the University ofMinnesota

Gerardine DeSanctis was a Thomas F Keller Professor of BusinessAdministration, Duke University She previously served on thefaculty of the University of Minnesota Her research focused oncomputer-mediated work and management of information technology,including the impacts of electronic communication systems on teams

xii List of Contributors

and organizations She served in key editorial roles for Management

Science, Information Systems Research, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Organization Science and MIS Quarterly She held a PhD from

Texas Tech University

Steve Elliot is Professor and Chair of Business InformationSystems at the University of Sydney in Australia He previouslyserved as Professor of Business and Head of the Central Coast School

of eBusiness and Management at the University of Newcastle and onthe Faculty of Commerce and Economics at the University of New SouthWales His research work has been directed toward the development

of theory in the strategic management of information systems-enabledinnovation, particularly in electronic commerce, and has beenpublished in books, international journals and refereed conferenceproceedings He chairs the IFIP 8.4, and is a Fellow of the AustralianComputer Society He holds a PhD from the University of Warwick

Robert D Galliers is Professor and Provost of Bentley College Hehas previously held faculty positions at the London School ofEconomics, Warwick Business School and Curtin University inAustralia He has published widely in many of the leading internationaljournals on information systems and has also authored a number ofbooks on information systems strategy and the management ofchange associated with the adoption and appropriation of ICT-basedsystems within and between organizations He is editor-in-chief of

the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and has served as president of

the Association for Information Systems He holds a PhD in tion Systems from the London School of Economics, and has beenawarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree by Turku University

Informa-of Economics and Business Administration, Finland

Alan R Hevner is an Eminent Scholar and Salomon Brothers/Hidden River Corporate Park Chair of Distributed TechnologyProfessor in the College of Business Administration at the University

of South Florida He served previously on the faculties at the University

of Maryland at College Park and the University of Minnesota He haspublished numerous research papers on information systemsdevelopment, software engineering, distributed database systemsand healthcare information systems He holds a PhD in ComputerScience from Purdue University

Rudy A Hirschheim is Ourso Family Distinguished Professor ofInformation Systems in the Information Systems and Decision SciencesDepartment of the E J Ourso College of Business Administration at

List of Contributors xiii

Louisiana State University He served previously on the faculties atthe University of Houston, McMaster University, the London School

of Economics and Political Science, and Templeton College, Oxford.His research on the managerial and organizational aspects of newinformation technology has appeared in his books and in manyacademic journal articles He currently serves as Consulting Editor ofthe Wiley Series in Information Systems, and has served on the editorial

boards of many journals including the Journal of the Association for

Information Systems, Information and Organization, Information Systems Journal, the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, the Journal of Information Technology, the European Journal of Information Systems and MIS Quarterly He received his PhD in Information Systems from the

University of London

C Suzanne Iacono is Program Director in the Division of tion and Intelligent Systems in the Directorate for Computer andInformation Science and Engineering (CISE) at the US NationalScience Foundation (NSF) She previously served on the faculty inInformation Systems at Boston University and as Visiting Scholar atthe Sloan School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Her researchhas focused on the social and economic implications of informationtechnology, and has appeared in academic journal articles, bookchapters and conference papers She holds a PhD in InformationSystems from the University of Arizona

Informa-John Leslie King is Dean and Professor in the School of Information atthe University of Michigan He previously served on the faculty ofthe University of California, Irvine He has published many articlesand five books on the relationship between technical and socialchange, and has served in key editorial positions for many academic

journals, including Information Systems Research, Information Infrastructure

and Policy, Information Polity, Organization Science, Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, Information Systems Frontiers, ACM Computing Surveys, the Journal of Strategic IT, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, and the Journal of Information Systems Management.

He is currently a member of the National Science Foundation’sAdvisory Committees for the directorates of Computer and Informa-tion Science and Engineering and Social, Behavioral and EconomicSciences, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ComputingResearch Association He holds a PhD in Administration from theUniversity of California, Irvine

Heinz K Klein is Invited Chair at Salford University in greaterManchester (UK) and Adjunct Professor at the School of Management

xiv List of Contributors

of the State University of New York at Binghamton He has heldteaching and research positions at Temple University in Philadelphia

as well as in universities in Germany, Canada, Finland, Denmark,New Zealand and South Africa His research on the philosophy of ISresearch, foundations of IS theory and methodologies of information

systems development have appeared in MISQ, ISR, Information and

Organization, ISJ, CACM, JMIS, Decision Sciences and other journals, as

well as in research monographs and international conferenceproceedings He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarlyjournals and the Wiley Series in Information Systems He holds a PhDfrom the Faculty of Business Administration of the University of Munich,and has received an honorary doctorate by the University of Oulu

Kalle Lyytinen is Iris S Wolstein Professor at Case Western ReserveUniversity He has published books, articles and conference papers

on his research, which includes system design, method engineering,implementation, software risk assessment, computer-supported cooper-ative work, standardization, ubiquitous computing, IT-inducedinnovation in architecture and the construction industry, design anduse of ubiquitous applications in health care, high level requirementsmodel for large scale systems, and the development and adoption ofbroadband wireless standards and services He serves currently onthe editorial boards of several leading IS journals including the

Journal of AIS (Senior Editor), Information Systems Research, the Journal

of Strategic Information Systems, Information and Organization, ments Engineering Journal and Information Systems Journal among

Require-others He holds a PhD from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Salvatore T March is the David K Wilson Professor of Management

at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University.His research interests are in information system development,distributed database design and electronic commerce His research

has appeared in journals such as Communications of the ACM, IEEE

Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, and Information Systems Research He served as the Editor-in-Chief of ACM Computing Surveys and as an Associate Editor for MIS Quarterly He is currently

a Senior Editor for Information Systems Research and an associate editor for Decision Sciences Journal He holds a PhD in Operations

Research from Cornell University

Wanda J Orlikowski is Professor of Information Technologies andOrganization Studies at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and theEaton-Peabody Chair of Communication Sciences at MIT Herresearch focuses on the relationship between information technologies

List of Contributors xv

and organizing structures, work practices, communication, culture,and control mechanisms, and has appeared in many academic journalsand books She is currently leading a major project on the social andeconomic implications of Internet technology use in organizations

She has served as a senior editor for Organization Science, and on the editorial boards of Information and Organization, Information Technology

and People, and the SoL Journal, and is a Research Fellow of the Society

of Organizational Learning She holds a PhD from the Stern School ofBusiness at New York University

Jinsoo Park is an assistant professor of information systems in theCollege of Business Administration at Korea University He wasformerly on the faculty of the Carlson School of Management at theUniversity of Minnesota His research interests are in the areas ofsemantic interoperability and metadata management in inter-organi-zational information systems, heterogeneous information resourcemanagement and integration, knowledge sharing and coordination,

and data modeling His published research articles appear in IEEE

Computer, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering and Information Systems Frontiers He currently serves on the editorial

board of the Journal of Database Management He holds a PhD in MIS

from the University of Arizona

Sudha Ram is the Eller Professor of MIS at the University ofArizona Her research focuses on interoperability in heterogeneousdatabases, semantic modeling, data allocation, and intelligent agentsfor data management, and has been published in such journals as

Communications of the ACM, IEEE TKDE, ISR and Management Science She

holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Daniel Robey is John B Zellars Professor of Computer InformationSystems at Georgia State University, with a joint appointment in theDepartment of Management He previously served on the faculties

of Marquette University, the University of Pittsburgh and FloridaInternational University His research deals with the consequences

of information systems in organizations and the processes of systemdevelopment and implementation, and his publications haveappeared in many academic journals and conferences Professor

Robey is Editor-in-Chief of Information and Organization, and serves

on the editorial boards of Organization Science, Information

Tech-nology and Management, and Information TechTech-nology and People He

holds a doctorate in Administrative Science (1973) from Kent StateUniversity

xvi List of Contributors

Ron Weber is Professor and Dean in the Faculty of Information nology at Monash University He previously served on the faculty ofInformation Systems in the School of Business and at the University ofQueensland, as well as visiting appointments in Canada, Hong Kong,Singapore and the USA His main research interests are in ontology,modeling, and information systems management, audit and control

Tech-He has published extensively in both Australian and international

journals, and is the author of the widely used textbook, Information

Systems Control and Audit He served as Editor-in-Chief of MIS Quarterly, and has held many other editorial positions on key journals in

the field He is a fellow of the Australian Computer Society and theAustralian Academy of the Social Sciences, and a life-member of theAccounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand

He holds a PhD in Management Information Systems from theUniversity of Minnesota

Robert W Zmud is Professor, Michael F Price Chair in MIS andDirector, Division of MIS at the Michael F Price College of Business,University of Oklahoma He served previously on the faculties ofClarkson University, Auburn University, Georgia State University,University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Florida StateUniversity His research interests focus on the organizational impacts

of information technology and on the management, implementationand diffusion of information technology He is a Senior Editor with

Information Systems Research and with the Journal of AIS, and he

currently sits on the editorial boards of Management Science, Academy

of Management Review and Information and Organization He also serves

as the Research Director for the Advanced Practices Council of SIM,International He holds a PhD from the University of Arizona

Foreword

I am honored to write the foreword to this book, both because of myinterest in the collection of articles and essays but also because thisbook is dedicated to Gerardine DeSanctis She spent much of heracademic career at Minnesota, and I watched her development as ascholar and her unique contributions as a researcher She was avalued colleague, a nice person, and an unusually fine mentor ofdoctoral students

What does one write in a foreword to an interesting and importantbook of articles and essays? My approach to this book is to writeabout my reactions when reading it Not everyone will have the sameresponse, but I hope some of the thoughts I have with respect to theset of articles may assist readers in finding insights that they mightotherwise overlook Keeping in mind the way the field developed ishelpful in understanding the discussion of the search for conceptualdefinition and identity I therefore begin by giving my view of thedevelopment of computer-based information systems in organiza-tions and the related academic field

Information systems as an academic field did not spring forth fullgrown It emerged slowly from the mid-1950s and through the 1960s.During this period, a relatively small number of professors at univer-sities in different countries explored the use of computers forprocessing and storing data in organizations These professors had avariety of academic backgrounds such as accounting, organizationalbehavior, management, operations, management science andeconomics These diverse backgrounds, when focused on informa-tion systems in organizations, were brought together in forming afield of study in information systems (under a variety of names).Using the late 1960s as the starting point for the field, it is less than 40years old Among the organization disciplines, we are the youngest Technology for data processing was not new with computers.Punched cards for use in data processing were introduced in the1890s This technology was limited by the 80-character capacity of apunched card and the simple capabilities of punched-card sorting,

xviii Foreword

calculating, and printing devices Because of these limits and simplerange of uses, punched-card processing did not generate academicresearch interest or academic coursework

Computers removed punched-card data processing constraintsand improved upon existing data processing methods Very quickly,innovative organizations used computers to improve data analysisand increase the quality and value of information for managing orga-nizations With rapid advances in technology, not only the reportingand management support systems but most of the work systems inorganizations began to be redesigned These activities requiredspecialized skills, new methods and new analysis A new organizationfunction emerged to manage the technology and perform the analysis,design and implementation of new computer-based systems Almostevery work system in an organization proved to be amenable toimproved performance and new capabilities through the affordances

of information and communications technology The activities excitedacademic interest both because of the need to teach students aboutthem and because of the opportunity to understand the affordancesand the processes of design, implementation and use

As an academic field, we started by focusing on the emerging uses

of computers for data processing and improving managementinformation Early research emphasized the support for analysis anddecision making We soon began also to study the organization functionthat plans, develops, implements and manages the informationsystem resources (hardware, software, databases, personnel, etc.) Westudied processes and methods for obtaining requirements, developingapplications and implementing systems We researched the strategicimpact organizational impact and economic value of informationsystems

These academic teaching and research activities were conducted in

a context of an incredible rate of change in computer and cations technology If it seems as if we are always studying newapplications of IT in organizations, it is because it is true New orimproved technologies provide new affordances that lead to new orredesigned work systems and to new research issues

communi-The field of information systems has been fortunate to attract alarge number of intellectual entrepreneurs A variety of ideas, concepts,paradigms and philosophies have flourished New technologies, newaffordances and new applications are quickly studied for insightsinto productivity, necessary revisions to organization forms, andevidence of the impact of the new technology-enabled work systems

on workers at all levels, from senior executives to clerks Traditionalassumptions are routinely questioned For example, some researchersassume that increased productivity is beneficial; other researchers

Foreword xix

challenge that view and find unsatisfactory consequences, bothintended and unintended The teaching and research boundaries ofthe field have been fluid To an outsider, there may be a perceptionthat we are ‘application chasers’ with no boundaries on what weinclude in the field While some in the field may share this view,others view the shifting, expanding boundaries as a good sign ofintellectual vigor Related to discussion of issues of applications andtheir effects is an ongoing debate about research methods

This ferment of ideas about the field produced much discussion Ihave followed the ‘debate’ not only because I know and value theparticipants as scholars and friends but also because I believe weneed to understand ourselves and how we fit into a dynamic, inter-esting field One of the central issues in the discussion began to be theboundary (what is part of the field and what is not) and if there is acore of the field that defines it as a separate academic discipline RonWeber initiated much of the discussion about the core, but it tooksome time for ‘the core’ to become a major topic of discussion Twoarticles in this book sparked increased academic discourse aboutdefinition and boundary:

• ‘Desperately Seeking the “IT” in IT Research: A Call to Theorizingthe IT Artifact,’ by Wanda J Orlikowski and C Suzanne Iacono,was published in 2001 The article created much discussion because

it proposed that the essential condition for information systemsresearch was that the object of study included an IT artifact Theirargument was often simplified to focus only on the computer andinformation technology (IT), but this seems to be too narrow In myterms, they are saying that information systems as an academic,research community has a central focus of IT-enabled systems inorganizations Any system is an artifact, but only systems thatdepend on IT can be characterized as IT artifacts In other words, if

a manager designs a system that does not employ IT, it is not part

of the field; if IT enables the system, it is part of the IS field This is

an important distinction IT-enabled systems tend to be complexbecause they involve the intersection of individual preferences,organization issues, work system design and technology The work

of designing and building such systems (artifacts) requires a broadrange of expertise involving technology, individual human behaviorsand social behaviors

• ‘The Identity Crisis within the IS Discipline: Defining andCommunicating the Discipline’s Core Properties’ by Izak Benbasatand Robert W Zmud was published in 2003 This article can beviewed as a broader view of the field than just the IT artifact Theypresent a nomological net for the information system discipline as a

xx Foreword

useful way to define the field It includes the IS function and ISmanagement as well as IT artifacts The article provides a basis fordiscourse about the field, and it did generate discussion It wasfollowed by a number of articles and commentaries, some thatsupported their ideas and some that did not

The collection of articles in this book includes some of the articles thatsparked new interest in the issues related to the identity of the field.There are also new articles written especially for the book Theauthors of the original articles explain their ideas further and respond

to comments The articles selected for this book do not merely talkabout the original articles; they also point to new ways of thinkingabout the issue of identity and boundary For example, the article byGerardine DeSanctis suggests the lens of community of practice as auseful, different way of looking at the development of the IS field.Her untimely death prevented her from amplifying her ideas

There has been vigorous debate in the field about researchmethods My own development as a scholar was influenced by thedebate, because my view from my training was positivist The debate

in the field began with discussion of positivist versus post-positivistinterpretive research That debate has largely been resolved withsubstantial acceptance of either method if the method is most appro-priate and done well The exploration of appropriate research hascontinued One very important emerging issue is the place ofresearch that designs, builds and tests system ideas, often termeddesign science This type of research is common in computer scienceand engineering, but there has been some lack of clarity as to how itfits research concepts for systems in organizations A classic article bySal March and Gerald Smith, written while they were at Minnesota,changed my thinking about design science A more recent article onthe subject and a new essay are included in the book To be able tojustify design science research in a community of scholars is vital,and the two articles in the book are important to all IS scholars The discussion of the core of the field (those concepts, propertiesand processes that are unique or for which the field provides uniqueunderstanding) is very useful While not yet resolved in a nice, tidyway, the articles will help the process of articulating the importantelements of the field Why does an organization need informationsystem specialists? The same question can be applied to all organiza-tion functions Why do organizations have accounting or marketing

or finance functions? Every person in the organization needs to knowsomething about these functions but, for example, it would be chaos

to have end-user accounting and no accounting function Likewise,the information systems function has unique roles and unique

Foreword xxi

capabilities that are necessary for organizations Some of these may

be defined as core properties of the field, some are associated with theactivities of the function, and some are associated with the applications

of information and communications technology in work systems.Framed in this way, the boundaries of the field will always be fluidbecause IT-enabled systems are changing and expanding in scope.Each new application system presents a shared research space Thefunction employing the system is interested in the value and use ofthe application, but information systems is also interested becausethe design properties, operational properties, value obtained andimpact on jobs and people are important to the design knowledge ofthe IS function and important to the operations and maintenanceknowledge needed to support the systems This view may beextended As Galliers points out in his trans-disciplinary view of thefield, the central role of technology-enabled systems offers an oppor-tunity for IS to incorporate a broad, societal perspective in the design

of systems and not be bounded by narrow, technology perspectives The discussion about the IS field has a full range of expectationsfrom optimistic to pessimistic The selection of articles contains thefull range I tend to be an optimist I believe we are part of an incrediblyimportant field that is at the center of some of the most significantpast changes in organizations and that similar changes will continueinto the future In their Introduction, King and Lyytinen pose a questionabout the future in a somewhat awkward way They ask ‘will the ISfield not be okay?’ and give their answer as ‘perhaps’; in other words,they express a cautionary view that perhaps the IS field will not beokay My own view is more positive and optimistic; I believe thatmost probably the IS field will be okay

In summary, this book of reprinted articles and original pieces is asignificant contribution to the field It brings together material tofocus the discussions of the field on essential issues There is much to

be done to improve our understanding and sharpen our tions, and all this is likely to be challenging and interesting Claritywill not come in a moment; it takes time and effort This set of papershelped me, and I believe it will help others

explana-Gordon B DavisHoneywell Professor of ManagementInformation Systems (Emeritus)

University of Minnesota

Series Preface

The information systems community has grown considerably in thetwenty years that we have been publishing the Wiley Series in Infor-mation Systems We are pleased to be a part of the growth of thefield, and believe that this series has played, and continues to play, animportant role in the intellectual development of the discipline Theprimary objective of the series is to publish intellectually insightfulworks which reflect the best of the research in the informationsystems community Books in the Series should help advancedstudents—particularly those at the graduate level—understand themyriad issues surrounding the broad area of management of IS.Additionally, these works should help guide the IS practitionercommunity regarding what strategies it ought to adopt to besuccessful in the future

To this end, the current volume—Information Systems: The State of

the Field, edited by John King and Kalle Lyytinen—is an especially

welcome addition This volume brings together a number of the mostwell-known researchers in the field expressing their views about thenature and future of the IS discipline The book is based on a collection

of seminal articles discussing the underlying assumptions of the ISdiscipline The collection provides a fascinating view of the diversitypresent among the most senior scholars in the field What makes thebook especially interesting is that the editors asked the authors of thesearticles to write new papers based on what they learned after theirearlier articles were published In effect, the book offers a uniqueopportunity to see how these authors’ thinking about the IS fieldchanged over time These commentary pieces present a diverse set ofopinions and beliefs which should help the field grow and evolve in thefuture It is refreshingly well-argued and insightful There is no questionthat this book, with its impressive collection of readings, should be onthe bookshelves of every serious student of the field We are delighted tohave it as part of our Wiley Series in Information Systems

Rudy Hirschheim

Introduction

John Leslie King and Kalle Lyytinen

This book is a harvest of perspectives on the growth of the informationsystems field over the past quarter-century At first glance, thatseems like a straightforward description of how the book was createdand what it contains, but appearances can be deceiving: the story ismore complicated than that This effort is not the first to describe thestate of the information systems field, but it is the first to do sothrough the diverse views of authors who disagree with each other asoften as they agree The reader seeking a coherent and consistentdescription of the state of the IS field will be baffled: that is not to befound in this book This collection of perspectives reveals theplurality of the field at present It might have been more honest tosubtitle the book, ‘The States of the Field’, but that seemed like over-reaching, even for the editors

The plurality of the IS field is a central theme in much of thecommentary in this collection Some authors feel there is a trade-offbetween plurality and intellectual focus, and that a willingness toincorporate too many different interests in the center of the fielddilutes the field’s focus and effect Others feel that the plurality of thefield is what makes it exciting and strong, and that the field is, ifanything, insufficiently diverse in intellectual perspectives, methodsand intentions Yet, most of those whose opinions align with these

caricatures would object that their views are not exactly as stated, and

that they, in fact, understand and respect the views of those on theother side The discussion is appropriately heated, but the effort is tocreate more light than heat

The general design of the book is a set of original papers, presented

in chronological order of appearance, followed by a set of taries by most of the authors of those original papers updating theirviews for the purposes of this collection The decision to present thepapers in chronological order of appearance was primarily a matter

commen-of convenience, but it was also a consequence commen-of the fact that we were

xxiv Introduction

unable to devise a suitable alternative order This does not imply thatthere is no order to the discussion: on the contrary, the authors makeclear in all these papers that they see an intellectual tradition ofdiscussion about these topics dating from the earliest days of thefield The problem in coming up with a sensible order other thanchronological is that any such order would impose on the papers aprecedence entirely of the editors’ choosing, and one that wouldalmost certainly receive no greater agreement among the authorsthan the perspectives expressed Moreover, the chronological order

of the original papers does demonstrate that the discussion has beenevolving in the literature, even if not in a completely coordinatedmanner Many of these papers were being written contemporane-ously, and the latency inherent in review and publication disruptedthe ability of the authors to discuss the issues with each other in themanner of a normal conversation The original readings presentedhere are an approximate trace of the key issues, over time, as seenfrom the personal perspectives of authors who read and think abouteach other’s work when they get a chance to see it

The order of the commentaries could not be chronological—theyall came to the editors at about the same time It would have beeneasy to assemble the commentaries in order of the appearance of theoriginal papers, but the content of the commentaries suggested anordering that could be used to package the material This order is that

of the editors, of course, but it is built less from the views of theauthors than from the nature of the conversation among the authorsduring the commentary phase The editors synthesize the papers andcommentaries into a brief conclusion at the end of the book, which isthe closest the book comes to describing the state of the field

We greatly appreciate the help of all the authors who participated

in this endeavor This book has been a community effort, in which theeditors were merely the coordinators of assembly and production.(That said, the admonition that the editors are responsible for errorsand omissions still applies.) In addition, a debt of gratitude is due tomany people in the IS field and in related fields whose thoughts andinsights have guided the authors whose work appears in this volume.None of the authors represented here claims to have an exhaustiveunderstanding of this complicated topic, and there is a great dealmore that might have been included in this volume with good effect.The choice of what to include in no way marginalizes otherimportant contributions, and the editors stand ready to nod sympa-thetically at claims that other works should have been included Itshould also be said that some of the brightest lights in the IS fieldspend all their time making direct research contributions, and nonediscussing the work of the field itself In any case, as this set of

Introduction xxv

readings makes clear, the discussion is far from finished Even if allthe authors represented here retire from the discussion, recenthistory suggests that a similar book of entirely new papers cannot belong in coming

We also thank the editors of this book series, Dick Boland and RudiHirscheim, for being assertive and brave; Anneli Anderson, SarahBooth, Sarah Corney, Matt Duncan, and Rachel Goodyear from JohnWiley & Sons for their support and guidance; Gordon Davis for hisleadership in our field and his willingness to write a preface for thisbook; Nikhil Srinivasan for helping to pull the pieces together andmanaging the nightmare of normalizing n+ 1 different formats ofsource text; Kathleen King for her editorial assistance and indexing;and finally, but with most affection, our families for patience as wedealt with yet another of our seemingly interminable projects

At this point, we shift to the personal voice This book is dedicated

to our dear colleague Gerardine DeSanctis, who died on 16 August

2005, as this book was being finished To those who knew Gerry, thesimple language of the dedication page contains all there is to say Butmany who see this book will not have had the privilege of knowingher, so we take this opportunity to address the legacy she left us Gerrywas a prolific and influential scholar and teacher As part of herlegacy, she wrote one of the papers that appears in this volume Aswith the other authors of papers that appear in this volume, Gerry wasasked to write a commentary However, unlike our practice with theother original paper authors, we sent Gerry all of the commentaries wehad received, and asked her to write a master commentary that inte-grated the key concepts contained in the commentaries, and by exten-sion, the original papers on which those commentaries were based

We did this because of our deep respect for her insight and judgment.Gerry agreed to do this, and we eagerly awaited her insights After ashort time, she notified us that she could not complete the assignmentdue to her health problems Her notification was exactly one weekbefore she passed away What can we say in response to this?

As a modest beginning, we say that Gerry was willing, quite ally on her deathbed, to contribute to our field She knew the import-ance of place, and she was willing to take her place in the vanguard

liter-of the field’s thinking, irrespective liter-of her physical condition She lostthat bet, but it was a bet worth making This is not a tale of nạveheroics Gerry battled the disease that eventually took her for manyyears, and she knew well its crooked course She was an idealist, butabove all, she was a pragmatic idealist In her effort to provide ameta-commentary for this book, she hoped to help us make sense out

of a dilemma that is central to our sense of ourselves She did nothave the time to do that, but we do We cannot offer in this book what

a little while (James 4:14) The glory of our mission, if we see it right,must transcend us It is not about us It is about the idea of what wemight be.

Original Papers

An earlier version of this chapter appears in Avison, D E and Pries-Heje, J (eds) (2005), Research in Information Systems: A Handbook for Research Supervisors and Their Students Copyright 2005, reproduced with permission

In reflecting on the academic discipline of information systems (IS)

we might first look at what we mean by ‘discipline’ Here we mean ‘abranch of instruction or learning’ though we do not wish to imply thedesirability of, nor actual, agreement on a limited field of study nortotal ‘control’, ‘obedience’ nor too much ‘order’ about what we research.This would give grounds for concern, for information systems is apluralistic field, founded on knowledge from other, more established,source disciplines and frequently borrowing from these disciplines

On the other hand, a lack of ‘discipline’—for example, not having anagreed general area for teaching, research and practice—is also aconcern, as it leads to a perceived lack of coherence in the disciplineand a low status as a consequence It is this balancing act, betweentoo much control about limiting the issues relevant to the discipline

on the one side and the danger of incoherence on the other, which is acentral theme of this chapter This balancing act might be considered

to be only of academic interest except for the importance of tion systems to industry and to society

informa-Since the 1990s, applications of information and communicationtechnology (ICT) have been fundamentally changing the way organi-zations conduct business These changes create opportunities for

4 Scoping the Discipline of Information Systems

researchers to make significant contributions to knowledge whilethey assist organizations to manage this change better The Organizationfor Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) acknowledgesthe structural impact of these technology-enabled innovations: The Internet and related advances in information and communicationtechnology (ICT) are transforming economic activity, much as thesteam engine, railways and electricity did in the past (OECD, 2001) But we have reservations about the above as a basis for understandingthe discipline of information systems in its concentration on economicactivity with technology, rather than the broader activity betweenpeople and organizations and technology, and also in its comparisonbetween ICT and the more static technologies mentioned Majordevelopments in ICT seem to occur every day and there are so manydifferent strands and applications Further, there can be no doubtthat it is transforming society, at least in the developed world andsome regions in the developing world

IS is a relatively new discipline We consider the start of the pline to be the widespread use of computers to process data in the1950s Of course they existed well before the advent of computers.There can today be IS without computers The grapevine is apowerful information system Further, if technology is used, it doesnot have to be sophisticated But in practice, information systemsare now almost invariably computerized, and can be very sophisti-cated in their use of technology The rejoinder is that the organiza-tional context is key, that people will be involved as much ascomputers, and that not all parts of the information system will beautomated

disci-IS as a field of study developed in response to the increasing sity of organizations to improve their capabilities to process and tomanage data Reflecting this origin, an information system wasinitially seen to be an application of computers to help organizationsprocess their data so they could improve their management ofinformation Indeed, information systems used to be referred to asdata processing systems

neces-While the types of computer technologies developed and potentialareas of their application increased, so too did the role of an informationsystem and the scope of the discipline Information and communicationtechnologies are now ubiquitous in industrialized nations and wide-spread in much of the rest of the world Their impact extends frombusiness, across a broad range of application areas, including healthand government, to the community at large and into many privatehomes

Introduction 5

By looking at some potential definitions for the discipline, we willset the scene for our discussion on its scope Our starting point for adefinition of information systems is that of Avison and Fitzgerald(2003, p xi): ‘The effective design, delivery, use and impact ofinformation [and communication] technologies in organizations andsociety.’ This definition captures an important part of IS, that is thedevelopment of IT applications, and it recognizes that successfulapplications of ICT require broader attention than just that on thetechnology The IS discipline has steadily developed from its initial

‘techno-centric’ focus to a more integrated technology, management,organizational and social focus

But this definition does not capture the excitement of the discipline

We are now in a period of great transformation, as organizationschange to address their challenges or achieve their goals It is also aperiod of structural transformation of the global economy ICT supportsand enables most of these changes, and IS is the only discipline with aprimary focus to study the applications of technology by organizationsand society It is therefore particularly relevant during this period ofgreat change

The following definition suggested by the UK Academy for mation Systems is somewhat broader than the definition looked atpreviously:

Infor-The study of information systems and their development is a disciplinary subject and addresses the range of strategic, managerialand operational activities involved in the gathering, processing, storing,distributing and use of information, and its associated technologies, insociety and organizations

multi-The above definition is, however, somewhat passive about IS as itdoes not give a sense of the creativity and innovative effort that ispart of the potential contribution of IS The definition might alsoinclude some scholars from other disciplines, such as the computingdisciplines or some management and social science ones, such associology or psychology In his definition, Allen Lee tries to distin-guish information systems from other disciplines without presentingtoo narrow a view He argues that the IS discipline is distinct in that it: examines more than just the technological system, or just the socialsystem, or even the two side by side; in addition it investigates thephenomena that emerge when the two interact (Lee, 2001, p iii)

As Lee points out: ‘This embodies both a research perspective and asubject matter that differentiate the academic field of information

6 Scoping the Discipline of Information Systems

systems from other disciplines’ (Lee, 2001, p iii) However, although

it provides a focus, it lacks a sense of the richness of the disciplineand its possible contribution

The above discussion has set the scene on our perspective on thescope of the discipline and, having suggested a fairly broad scope, weturn to differentiating between IS and other related disciplines, both

on the technology side and the social side, using Lee’s definitionabove

DIFFERENTIATING IS FROM RELATED

DISCIPLINES

On the technology side of information systems, it is differentiatedfrom computer and IT disciplines by its focus In a controversial

article in the Harvard Business Review of May 2003, Nicholas Carr

argues that IT doesn’t matter He compares IT to the electricity ortelephone infrastructure: the early mover advantage has gone,everyone has it and organizations cannot gain competitive advantagebecause of it (Carr, 2003) In some respects this is similar to the OECDperspective given at the beginning of the chapter

But IS is different from IT As illustrated graphically in Figure 1.1,compared with two other IT-related disciplines, computer scienceand computer systems engineering, IS emphasizes the applications oftechnology rather than a focus on fundamental technologies and theo-ries It focuses more on interactions between people and organizations

Fundamental

Applied

Information systems

Computer science Computer

systems engineering

Figure 1.1 Differentiating IS from other IT-related disciplines (adapted from ACS, 1992)

Differentiating IS from Related Disciplines 7

(the ‘soft’ issues) and technology rather than on the technologies (the

‘hard’ issues) themselves (It should be noted that Figures 1.1 and 1.2represent the focus of the different disciplines, not the quantum ofwork conducted in or contributed by any of the disciplines.)

Figure 1.3 is a comic-strip representation of the different points of the computer scientist and the IS researcher vis-à-vis thecomputer Whereas the computer scientist and systems engineer will

view-be looking at the technology, interested in technology itself, the

Figure 1.2 Differentiating IS from other social science disciplines

Fundamental

Applied

Anthropology Sociology

Information systems

Psychology

Figure 1.3 The computer scientist and the IS researcher (or the software developer and the systems analyst)

8 Scoping the Discipline of Information Systems

information systems researcher is looking away from the computer toits impacts on people and organizations In the same way, in practice,the software developer is focused on the technology, whereas thesystems analyst is focused on the business

This emphasis on soft, or human and organizational, issues maysuggest that IS should be seen more as a social science disciplinerather than science or engineering But as shown in Figure 1.2, soci-ology, psychology, anthropology and other social sciences do notshare our emphasis on the applications of technology to organiza-tions and society

Like computer science, these other disciplines can be seen as bothrelated disciplines and foundation disciplines of IS But, while theremay be considerable overlap of the disciplines at the boundaries, thedisciplines are still differentiated by the focus, purpose and orienta-tion of their activities

FOUNDATIONS OF IS

We now turn to some of the foundations that support the discipline,beginning with the theoretical foundations We have seen that the ISdiscipline is in essence an applied social science pertaining to the useand impact of technology As researchers were drawn to the disci-pline, they began by applying the theories, methods and researchpractices from their original disciplines, primarily computer science

on the one side and social sciences and management on the other Adiversity of theory from reference disciplines, including economics,mathematics, linguistics, semiotics, ethics, political science, psychology,sociology and statistics, along with computer science, was applied For example, we can see how economic theories might be used tocost-justify an information system to the organization’s management;how psychology might be used to assess the impact of the system onindividual users; how sociology might be used to assess the impact ofthe system on organizations and society; and semiotics to study themeaning of signs, how people and computers can communicate, aswell as computer science to study the efficiency of software

One potential problem is that, within these disciplines, differenttheories exist and these may be mutually inconsistent As Orlikowskiand Baroudi (1991) argue, the social sciences are ‘marked by aplethora of “schools of thought,” each with its own metatheoreticassumptions, research methodologies, and adherents’

The theories include systems theory, information theory, designtheory, the theory of science and scientific method It is true that

The interdisciplinary nature of the subject is no excuse for a lack ofrigor One of the problems with the use of concepts from anotherdiscipline is that they may be used uncritically Avison and Myers(1995) give an example of the uncritical use of a concept withininformation systems with the use of the term ‘culture’ Researchers ininformation systems may be unaware of their historical developmentwithin the source discipline, and may gloss over the fact that theremay be a range of perspectives that operate concurrently

The way that IS seems to take on board major theoretical nings of other disciplines has been lax at times In attacking theonce-prevalent view that systems theory can be used to underpin IS,Checkland (1999) argues that this should be dispelled as ‘nạveoptimism there is no simple link between systems theory andinformation systems’ Similarly, information theory (Shannon andWeaver, 1949) is a very technical, indeed mathematical, way to perceivecommunication between humans and organizations that is the essence

underpin-of IS It is not mathematical complexity that underpins IS Stamper(1997) argues the case for the related theory of semiotics (and alsolinguistics) to be fundamental to IS The unifying work of Simon (1981)continues to be influential in branches of economics, sociology,psychology, computer science and elsewhere, as well as in IS Thetheory of communicative action (Habermas, 1979), structuration theory(Giddens, 1987), and actor-network theory (Latour, 1987) have alsobecome popular in some IS academic circles As an emerging discipline,

IS has also been influenced by writers giving a sociological perspectivefrom within and outside the discipline (for example, the socio-technicaltheory expressed in Mumford, 1995, and also by Kling, 1996)

Even well-established concepts in IS research such as ‘users’ havebeen found simplistic and unrepresentative of the multitude of rolesundertaken by users in their interactions with a diversity of applica-tions and people within varying social contexts (Lamb and Kling,2003) The authors consider earlier research approaches based on theconcept of an individualistic user to be limited, leading to an inade-quate understanding of information selection, manipulation, commu-nication and exchange in a variety of social contexts

New insights into the strategic role of IT have also been sought, forexample by Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj and Grover (2003), by drawing

10 Scoping the Discipline of Information Systems

on recent thinking in strategy, entrepreneurship and IT management.Stressing the critical impact on organizational performance related toits capabilities (agility, digital options and entrepreneurial alertness)and strategic processes (capability-building, entrepreneurial actionand co-evolutionary adaptation) these authors consider their ante-cedents to be research into IT investments and capabilities

Thus IS has been reliant on the theories espoused in other disciplines.Interestingly, the view that IS serves as a reference for emergingdisciplines in a discourse with other reference disciplines has alsobeen promoted recently Baskerville and Myers (2002) note the devel-opment of new fields of study that refer to IS theory for explanations;for example, biotechnology They also note the increasing influence

of IS on disciplines, including accounting, banking and marketing,experiencing structural transformation resulting from application ofICT As illustrated in Figure 1.4, they present an argument that nosingle discipline is able to completely address today’s multi-facetedresearch issues so well as IS A more viable reference model is anetwork of disciplines in continuous dialogue and exchange, with IS

at the center of the network

These diverse perspectives on the focus of IS theory development,with compelling arguments on all sides, should be recognized asbeing complementary The discussion is beneficial to the discipline.The dynamic IS domain requires both excitement and enthusiasm inits research as well as reflective consideration on how dynamicallydeveloping research may contribute to, and be consistent with, the

Figure 1.4 IS as a reference discipline in discourse with other reference disciplines (adapted from Baskerville and Myers, 2002)

Psychology

Other disciplines

Computer science Engineering

Banking

Communications

Accounting

Other disciplines

Unity and Diversity 11

discipline’s overall development The diversity of perspectives meansthat IS is vibrant both as a discipline and as an area of research But the discipline does not rest on its theoretical foundations alone,there need to be practical foundations as well Major landmarks inthe development of the IS discipline were the publication of the first

research-oriented IS journal, Management Information Systems

Quar-terly (MISQ), published in 1977 and the first International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS) held in 1980 It is interesting that, at that

first conference, Dickson et al (1980) suggest that IS has an imageproblem due to an identity crisis, definitional uncertainty, movingtarget, communication and integration, practitioners vs academics,research quality and fragmentation, and being the new kid on theblock As we have seen, some of these are still concerns, althoughmuch has been achieved since that time

More recently, the Association for Information Systems (AIS) was

formed in 1994 as the international organization for IS academics, toadd to the many national organizations already existing Reference tothe AIS website at http://isworld.org/ is time well spent and itreveals a very exciting but diverse discipline To give only two exam-ples, at the time of writing (in 2005) 60 conferences were listed thathave taken place or would take place in the first six months of theyear, with over 200 journals listed as relevant to the IS researcher

UNITY AND DIVERSITY

Since the range of ICT is rapidly developing, applications of ICT arealso developing rapidly In consequence, IS research, teaching andpractice are characterized by diversity, flexibility and dynamic devel-opment As we have seen, these characteristics may be seen toprovide the discipline with both strengths and weaknesses

The IS discipline’s strength lies in its ability to support researchinto applications of ICT that are structurally transforming traditionalbusiness practice and the global economy The weakness is that thediscipline may focus on such a diversity of phenomena that it mayappear to lack a central core

This potential weakness is examined in Benbasat and Zmud’s (2003)paper where the authors express concern that the IS research community

is contributing to an identity crisis by under-investigating what theycall core issues in IS and over-investigating non-core issues Theyscope the IS field narrowly and, while acknowledging its multi-disciplinary principles, seek to limit multi-disciplinary practice in ISresearch The authors also challenge the current approach discussed

12 Scoping the Discipline of Information Systems

above of borrowing and adapting theories from other disciplines toexplain IS phenomena better and suggest that focus would beapplied more beneficially to original contributions to the IS field Onthe other hand, this view has been challenged widely by the IScommunity

The narrowness of their proposed scope for IS appears to be toorestrictive It excludes the ‘information’ aspects of informationsystems and the rich tradition of diversity in IS Instead it promotes anarrow focus in research approaches (there is a strongly positivistflavor in their research examples) It omits the major role played by IS

in the transformation of organizations, industries and the communitywhich have occurred particularly recently as a result of e-businessapplications; and much of the excitement and the energy that is asso-ciated with assisting to address major issues confronting organiza-tions and the community

Ironically, in the same MISQ issue that Benbasat and Zmud

propose limiting the application of reference disciplines to IS theory,two essential concepts of IS theory (both mentioned previously),

‘users’ and the ‘role of IT in firm performance’ have been reviewedand substantially revised through exactly this process (Lamb andKling, 2003; Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj and Grover, 2003)

While Benbasat and Zmud (2003) raises many contentious issues, itdoes serve as a timely reminder to IS researchers that while aplethora of research opportunities constantly confront us, we need toensure our focus remains distinctly IS in order to develop our disci-pline We turn now, therefore, to suggesting categories of IS researchand key concepts in IS from an academic and practice perspective

Major Categories in IS Research

In June 1988, MISQ published a classification scheme of IS keywords

‘to provide a description of the discipline, introduce a commonlanguage, and enable research of the field’s development’ Thisscheme was updated in 1993 with an additional 175 keywordsbringing the total to nearly 1300 ‘to incorporate the new researchtopics and methods, hence reflecting better the evolution of the ISdiscipline’ (Barki, Rivard and Talbot, 1993) Table 1.1 shows thescheme with nine major categories

In a dynamically developing technology and business environment,individual keywords may become out of date and emerging researchareas may not receive specific mention The categories do, however,help to identify the focus of research within the IS discipline Evenwhere a new phenomenon is not identified explicitly as a keyword,analysis of the categories can provide a framework for its research

Unity and Diversity 13

For example, although e-business is not included as a keyword in theclassification scheme, e-business research could be located withinseveral different categories depending on the particular topic Thesecategories include: B, for external drivers and inhibitors of Internetpurchasing; C, for specific e-business technologies; D, for organiza-tional aspects of e-business adoption; E, for planning, evaluation andsecurity of e-business applications; F, for development of e-businessapplications; G, for usage of e-business by organizations; H, for char-acteristics of e-business systems; and I, for research into the levels ofeducation and research activity in the e-business area

Indeed, we could complete all the categories if we consider thereference disciplines influencing e-business, thereby adding A If theresearch was, for example, concerned with website design character-istics to facilitate online consumer purchasing, then theory from otherdisciplines including decision theory, ergonomics and psychologymay also be considered applicable The research could be located incategory A which is the category relating to reference disciplines (forexample, AC sub-discipline decision theory; and AP sub-disciplinepsychology) and, potentially, categories F (for example, FC develop-ment methods and tools) and H (for example, HD IS characteristics) The research would be classified as IS research not because it could

be allocated totally to an IS category, but because the primary focus

of the research was within the IS classification categories If the primaryfocus of the research was, for example, within a reference disciplinesuch as psychology or ergonomics, rather than in its application tothe IS discipline, then the research may be more properly classifiedand conducted within the other discipline Indeed, with IS researchnow impacting on other disciplines, this may well be the case Thiscategorization of website design also shows how essential it is that IS

Table 1.1 Major categories in IS research (Barki, Rivard and Talbot, 1993)

A Reference disciplines, including behavioral science, computer science, decision theory, information theory, organizational theory, social science, management science, economic theory, ergonomics, political science and psychology

B External environment: economic, legal, political and social

C IT, computer systems and software

D Organizational environment, including characteristics, functions and tasks

E IS management, including hardware, software, personnel, projects, planning, evaluation, security and other management issues

F IS development and operations, life cycles, IS development, implementation and operations

G IS usage, by organizations and users, and their support, access and processing

H IS types, application areas, components and characteristics

I IS education and research