Research of information systems: from parochial to international,towards global or glocal?

The development over time of the Information Systems Journal and information systems (IS) research in general is examined by applying both quantitative and qualitative data analyses. The evidence suggests that the journal and the IS discipline have both evolved from parochial and national to become international. This evolution has influenced the phenomena and contexts being studied and, ultimately, theory and practice. Cultural and institutional differences are major obstacles to globalizing IS research. Based on a trilemma for theoretical development among generality, accuracy and simplicity, glocalization is suggested as an alternative to globalization. The merits of glocal research and education, with globally connected villages, are discussed.     

信息系统的结构与运营机制研究综述

文章对信息系统结构和行为的研究现状、进展和不足进行了分析和综述,剖析了当前具有典型意义的信息系统结构模式和行为特征;进而进一步研究了信息系统的逻辑结构,提出了一种信息系统的层次逻辑体系结构模型,刻画了该模型的概念框架、基本组成和工作机制,该模型的价值和意义在于突破了现有结构模型在层次视野、技术和业务逻辑的集成性、系统模型之间的相关性和协同机制、结构和行为模式的适用性等方面的限制,提供了一个动态、集成和开放的信息系统逻辑结构和工作机理分析、设计和实践模式的框架。     

The wisdom nexus: Guiding information systems research,practice, and education

“Wisdom” has been at the heart of practical, philosophical, and spiritual disciplines since antiquity and is now increasingly receiving organizational as well as academic attention in scholarly areas that include psychology and organizational studies among others. However, practical wisdom has not received adequate focus in the information systems (IS) discipline. In this commentary, we make the case for a systemic focus on the role of wisdom in IS research, teaching, and practice. We introduce underlying theoretical concepts of wisdom; review relevant key research linking wisdom and IS; propose a framework to link wisdom with IS research, practice, and education; and discuss the implications of the framework and illustrate how it can be used to generate research opportunities for IS. We conclude that wisdom, whose goal is the common good, can provide a foundation to discover, view, understand, and resolve myriad issues that lie at the nexus of wisdom and information technologies.     

Reflections on information systems practice, education and research: 10 years of the Information Systems Journal

This paper celebrates the 10‐year anniversary of the Information Systems Journal (ISJ) and the Editors reflect on the papers that have been published over that period and the changes that have occurred in the discipline of information systems. In the opening paper of ISJ, we suggested that the ‘launch of a new journal in information systems prompts thought and debate concerning the state of the subject area and some contemplation of its past and future’. We discussed three areas of this ‘not‐yet‐established discipline’: practice, education and research. In this follow‐up paper, we forgo our convention of ISJ editors not publishing in the Journal. We examine the issues raised in the first paper and consider what has happened in the intervening years as charted in the ISJ. The overview is necessarily selective, probably Anglocentric (with, perhaps, a slight Francophile tinge), sometimes downright opinionated, as well as over‐estimating, perhaps, the contribution of one particular IS journal.     

Information systems action research: Debunking myths and overcoming barriers

The relevance of action research as a research method in the information systems (IS) discipline is not disputed. Nevertheless, the extent to which action research is published in good journals is infrequent enough to indicate a serious problem. In this article, we explore the reasons underlying this situation and make recommendations aiming to increase both the practice and the publication of action research. To identify both the barriers to undertaking action research and potential ways of overcoming those barriers, we survey 218 authors of 120 articles demonstrating empirical action research published in 12 of our good journals during the period 1982–2016. We received 70 usable responses. We also surveyed 52 editors of selected IS journals and received 25 usable responses. Our findings are revealing as they indicate both genuine barriers associated with action research and some apparent barriers that are in reality misperceptions or myths. In reflecting on these, we emphasize the special qualities of action research. We also reflect on the critical role that action research plays in the IS field as a whole and its potential for further contributions to research and practice, given the strong and close connections with organizational problem contexts that action research requires. Finally, we make a number of recommendations that are designed to increase the incidence of action research in the IS discipline     

CASE tools and organizational action

Abstract. CASE research to date has been dominated by positivistic enquiry; particularly tool building, surveys and normative writings. In contrast, there is a growing community of IS researchers developing models of IS practice that highlight the complex relationship between context and process that has to be mastered in order to develop viable information systems. This paper bridges the gap between the two bodies of knowledge by presenting a phenomenological study of CASE tool usage in a large UK manufacturing company over a four year period which shows that organizational context, tool features and usage are inextricably linked. The lessons arising from the work are presented and grounded in interpretive IS theory. The results of the work are clearly in accord with this theory, thus, showing the importance of interpretive CASE research, as a complement to positivist thinking, in bringing to light the human and organizational issues which strongly influence systems development practice     

Value-focused assessment of information system security in organizations

Abstract.  Information system (IS) security continues to present a challenge for executives and professionals. A large part of IS security research is technical in nature with limited consideration of people and organizational issues. The study presented in this paper adopts a broader perspective and presents an understanding of IS security in terms of the values of people from an organizational perspective. It uses the value-focused thinking approach to identify 'fundamental' objectives for IS security and 'means' of achieving them in an organization. Data for the study were collected through in-depth interviews with 103 managers about their values in managing IS security. Interview results suggest 86 objectives that are essential in managing IS security. The 86 objectives are organized into 25 clusters of nine fundamental and 16 means categories. These results are validated by a panel of seven IS security experts. The findings suggest that for maintaining IS security in organizations, it is necessary to go beyond technical considerations and adopt organizationally grounded principles and values.     

Firm-level benefits of IT-enabled resources: A conceptual extension and an empirical assessment

While the business value of IT (BVIT) is central to the IS discipline, only recently a possible chain of causation from IT assets (i.e., fungible, widely available, commodity-like, technology-based products) to firm performance has been conceptually specified. Furthermore, little empirical evidence exists regarding IT assets’ business value. In light of this paucity, this paper makes several contributions to IS research and practice. First, it advances the BVIT literature by empirically testing a model that traces a path from IT assets through IT-enabled resources to firm performance. Second, it extends the BVIT and resource-based view (RBV) literatures by explicating and testing the impact of a firm’s external environment on its IT-enabled resources. Third, it builds on recent literature to argue for, and test, two distinct forms of firm-level outcome: operational and strategic benefits. Finally, the paper contributes to managers’ and IS practitioners’ knowledge by demonstrating the transformative capacity of IT assets on the strategic potential of organizational resources. Empirically, the paper develops and employs valid and reliable scales to test the research model using survey data on IT-enabled customer service departments. The findings demonstrate that when an IT asset is combined with an organizational resource, the extent of synergy borne out of the resulting relationship can positively impact the strategic potential of the ensuing IT-enabled resource. This IT-enabled resource, in turn, is positively associated with firm-level benefits. Further, the external environment is shown to exert a positive effect on the strategic potential of outside-in IT-enabled resources. In sum, this paper offers several important conceptual and empirical contributions to a stream of research that is at the core of the IS discipline.     

Rethinking the place of the artefact in IS using Heidegger's analysis of equipment

The IT artefact, conceived as a bundle of features or properties, is frequently seen as the core object of interest in IS. We argue that this view of IT derives from a worldview that stresses a duality between the individual and the external world. Using a stylized account of an IT implementation project, we show how this worldview conditions the phenomena that show up as most central in the IS discipline and the way mainstream theories and research approaches make sense of these phenomena. Retelling the same story through the lens of Heidegger's analysis of equipment in Being and Time (1927/1962), we present an alternative conception of IT as equipment holistically interwoven with other equipment, user practices, and individual identities. This allows rethinking what are central and peripheral concepts and phenomena in the IS discipline, and outline implications of such a shift for IS theorising, research practice and design.     

Topics of interest in IS: evolution of themes and differences between research and practice

The information systems discipline has been criticized in the past for lack of secure foundations, frequent shifts in focus and lack of impact on practice. The study deals with two main issues—evolution of themes in IS research and practice over time and differences between research and practice in the IS area as evidenced by the publication process. More than 3000 articles published across five years in four IS journals and five magazines were examined and categorized by thematic areas. We find journals and magazines focusing on different themes with the former focusing on conceptual and abstract models while the latter devote attention to specific applications. Significantly, academic themes show more variance over time. Apparently, there is no significant increase in the richness of themes being addressed over time but there is evidence of conflicting contemporaneous trends in research and practice.     

Conceptualising the link between information systems and resilience: A developing country field study

Resilience—the ability of systems to cope with external shocks and trends—is a topic of increasing interest to research and practice. That growing interest is reflected within information systems (IS), but a structured review of IS literature shows a number of knowledge gaps around the conceptual and empirical application of resilience. This paper investigates what the subdiscipline of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) can contribute; finding that it offers the IS discipline fresh insights that can be built into a new framework of resilience, and an arena within which this new framework can appropriately be field tested. Application of the resilience framework was undertaken through interviews and a survey in an urban community in Costa Rica; benchmarking both community resilience and “e‐resilience” (understood here as the contribution of ICTs to community resilience), and developing from these a set of action priorities. The paper reflects on what can be learned generally from this conceptualisation and operationalisation of resilience. It also reflects on what ICTs contribute to resilience in developing countries and on what this ICT4D‐based research specifically contributes to the identified IS knowledge gaps. This includes identification of a future research agenda on information systems and resilience.     

Information systems as a discipline in the making: comparing <Emphasis Type="Italic">EJIS</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">MISQ</Emphasis> between 1995 and 2008

This paper aims to shed light on the dynamics of information systems (IS) as a discipline in the making. We use the ideas of the sociologist Abbott to propose three different stages of a discipline's development: differentiation, competition, and absorption. These stages reflect how disciplines go through different cycles and how they acquire, consolidate or lose elements of knowledge. We map these stages using citation and co-citation analyses of two main IS academic journals (EJIS and MISQ) from 1995 to 2008. Our results indicate that IS is currently in a stage of absorption, with research being consolidated around the theme of ‘IS acceptance’. Dominant models and frameworks related to this theme are predictive and thus lend themselves usable for positivistic and quantitative research. In this stage there is also a healthy degree of variety in IS including dormant elements which could reignite. Implications derived from our findings aim to help in the consolidation and extension of knowledge about IS in both academia and practice.     

Grounded theorizing for electronically mediated social contexts

Electronically mediated social contexts (EMSCs), in which interactions and activities are largely or completely computer-mediated, have become important settings for investigation by Information Systems (IS) scholars. Owing to the relative novelty and originality of EMSCs, IS researchers often lack existing theories to make sense of the processes that emerge in them. Therefore, many IS researchers have relied upon grounded theory in order to develop new theory based on empirical observations from EMSCs. This article reviews a selected set of papers concerned with grounded IS research on EMSCs. It examines how the authors of these papers handled the characteristics of EMSCs and, in particular, addresses the topics of data collection, data analysis, and theory building. The paper also draws implications and recommendations for grounded researchers interested in investigating these original and fascinating environments in their future work. For example, it calls for grounded researchers on EMSCs to reflect upon the characteristics of their domains of inquiry, to respect the logic of discovery of grounded methods, and to articulate more clearly their theoretical ambitions along the induction/abduction continuum. The paper closes by suggesting promising areas for future grounded research on EMSCs, including taking advantage of the potential for combining qualitative and quantitative analytical methods.     

Profiling grounded theory approaches in information systems research

Studies claiming to use the Grounded theory methodology (GTM) have been quite prevalent in information systems (IS) literature. A cursory review of this literature reveals conflict in the understanding of GTM, with a variety of grounded theory approaches apparent. The purpose of this investigation was to establish what alternative grounded theory approaches have been employed in IS, and to what extent each has been used. In order to accomplish this goal, a comprehensive set of IS articles that claimed to have followed a grounded theory approach were reviewed. The articles chosen were those published in the widely acknowledged top eight IS-centric journals, since these journals most closely represent exemplar IS research. Articles for the period 1985-2008 were examined. The analysis revealed four main grounded theory approaches in use, namely (1) the classic grounded theory approach, (2) the evolved grounded theory approach, (3) the use of the grounded theory approach as part of a mixed methodology, and (4) the application of grounded theory techniques, typically for data analysis purposes. The latter has been the most common approach in IS research. The classic approach was the least often employed, with many studies opting for an evolved or mixed method approach. These and other findings are discussed and implications drawn.     

Integrative framework for assessing firms’ potential to undertake Green IT initiatives via virtualization – A theoretical perspective

Green IT (information technology) has recently emerged into an active research area in the information systems (IS) discipline. A major gap that exists in the Green IT research literature today is the absence of a theoretical framework that can be used to assist organizations in assessing their potential for undertaking Green IT initiatives and implementing them via modern technological means such as virtualization. This study attempts to bridge this gap by developing and proposing an integrative framework which focuses on identifying and examining the factors that contribute to the assessment of a firm’s readiness to go green via IT-enabled virtualization. The framework is firmly grounded using three well-established IS theories: (a) technology-organization-environment, (b) process-virtualization, and (c) diffusion of innovation. It integrates these three theoretical lenses to utilize the strengths of each for assessing the potential for undertaking Green IT initiatives and the stages of Green IT implementation at the organizational level. The implications of the outcome of this study, both for the IS researchers and for the practicing managers are discussed. The plan for empirical testing and validation of our propositions is presented, as well as suggestions for future extensions of this study.     

Moden und Trends in Wirtschaftsinformatik und Information Systems

The business and information systems engineering (BISE) discipline, dominating in the German-speaking countries, where it is called Wirtschaftsinformatik, is currently undergoing a phase of increasing internationalization and the U.S.-based Information Systems (IS) discipline is often considered an ideal. Studies show that BISE has often dealt with fads in the past – for IS there are no findings reporting on the diffusion of fads. The objective of the paper is to close this research gap. We conducted a literature analysis that investigates the development of topics and terms in BISE and IS from 1994 to 2007. Titles, abstracts and keywords of 2,564 articles in three BISE journals and 5,647 articles in five IS journals were analyzed. The results show that BISE is topically more diverse and concrete than IS. In addition, the rate of fads is higher in BISE than IS. We concede that being engaged in fads is not necessarily negative – rather, it may considerably contribute to the relevance of research. However, it has to be considered that an overly intense orientation on fads may negatively influence a cumulative research progress. Hence, we conclude that for BISE and IS, which both have a theoretical and pragmatic mission, a balanced ratio of short- and long-term topics seems appropriate.     

How a professionally qualified doctoral student bridged the practice-research gap: a confessional account of Collaborative Practice Research

Information Systems (IS) is a profession-based discipline that constantly seeks new ways to bridge the practice-research gap. These efforts include enacting scholar-practitioner roles across institutional boundaries, developing and disseminating new knowledge, and engaging professionally qualified doctoral students. Against this backdrop, we provide a confessional account of 10 years of Collaborative Practice Research (CPR) between Anna, an IS practitioner, and Lars, an IS researcher. The collaboration was initiated when Anna, while working full-time, engaged as doctoral student with Lars as supervisor. Combining social process modeling with theories of change and learning, we show how Anna and Lars responded to the experienced challenges and opportunities, how Anna's action strategies developed as she grew into becoming a practitioner-researcher, how the collaboration impacted the practice context, and, how the research resulted in traditional publication outcomes. On the basis of these analyses, we discuss how to engage professionally qualified doctoral students within the IS discipline. In addition, we offer lessons on how CPR can help bridge the practice-research gap as a path towards becoming a practitioner-researcher.     

Distilling a body of knowledge for information systems development

As a contribution towards consolidating the information systems (IS) field, we offer a systematic method for distilling a canonical body of knowledge (BOK) for information systems development (ISD), an area that historically accounts for as much as half of all IS research. Based on an integrative synthesis of the literature, we present a map of the most significant ISD research, uncover gaps in its canons and suggest fruitful lines of inquiry for new research. Our review combines citation analysis, which identifies the field's evidence of cumulative tradition, with computer‐aided textual analysis, a hermeneutically guided method that organizes the fragmented corpus of ISD literature into coherent knowledge areas. From a pool of over 6500 articles published in the IS Senior Scholars' Basket of Journals, we find 940 IS citation classics, and from that list, 466 ISD articles that offer canonical ISD knowledge distinctive to IS and complementary to other disciplines such as software engineering and project management. From this study, we offer two contributions: (1) a justification for an ISDBOK grounded in the theory of practice and professionalism, and (2) a canonical map of disciplinary ISD knowledge with areas that have demonstrated cumulative tradition and others that require the attention of IS scholars. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd