Is Information Systems a Discipline? A Foucauldian and Toulminian Analysis

Based on Michel Foucault’s description of how knowledge is created and Stephen Toulmin’s philosophy of human understanding, this essay uncovers what it means for a branch of knowledge to be a discipline. This deconstruction explains certain disciplinary misconceptions existing within the IS field and addresses the field’s disciplinary status. Although the findings suggest that the IS field does not yet qualify as a discipline in its own right, they show that as soon as the members of the IS field can reconstitute the field’s meta-theoretical structure and scholarly content, it is certainly capable of reaching that status

What does Native Theorizing and Native Products of Theorizing in Information Systems Look Like?

This paper supports efforts towards developing native information systems (IS) theories by providing exemplary case studies of how IS scholars have in the past undertaken native theorizing that produced native products of theorizing. It begins by arguing, based the IS field’s discursive activities, why relying on reference disciplines will not progress the IS field. Because descriptions of what native theories in IS and native products of theorizing look like are few and far between, this paper offers criteria for evaluating what a native IS product of theorizing looks like, which will lead to productive work in generating native IS theories

The Balancing Act Of Developing An Undergraduate Mis Program

This paper reports on the developmental process of an undergraduate program for Management Information Systems at the School of Business of University of Nicosia which is a private University in Cyprus. The paper examines how, beyond the challenges widely documented in the literature, the team in charge of curriculum development had to balance out requests by a Visiting Team of academics appointed by ECPU -a national quality assurance body supervising private Universities- with the insights and guidelines of an Advisory Body composed of volunteering representatives of major business organizations in Cyprus, whilst keeping under consideration financial restrictions as well as constraints imposed by the regulatory framework of the University. The developed curriculum addresses these issues and provides flexibility for future growth in accordance with ever evolving challenges of this field

Value of IS Research-A Response to the Rejoinders

This article responds to six rejoinders to Hassan [2014] and addresses their concerns surrounding the anxiety discourse in Information Systems (IS), the need to meet or exceed stakeholder expectations, the notion of originality and what it means to IS researchers, the nature of the core of IS research, and different strategies in establishing an academic discipline. This response argues for a focus on internal efforts to put our house in order ahead of reputational maneuverings, and proposes a closer examination of our intellectual structures

EVALUATING DIAGNOSES , TREATMENT AND INFERENCE ACTIVITIES IN THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROFESSION

Information systems (IS) is a field that influnces and is influnced by the work of many different academics and practitioners. The influnce of IS to other areas of knowledge (i.e. management) has led some people to argu in favor and against the idea that IS has become a reference field of knowledge. Focusing on either knowledge elements or knowledge activities of a reference field leaves out consideration of relationships and interactions through time between both. \ Following Abbott´s sociology of professional knowledge, this paper proposes a triad of analytical categories: ˜Diagnoses´, ˜Treatments´ and ˜Inferences´ to examine and advance a more comprehensive understanding of the development of IS. Our analysis, based on a pilot survey of five IS journals, suggests that the key focus of IS activity has been on refining methodologies (treatments). The field has been less explicit and inclusive in generating and disseminating diagnoses and inferences. \ Those people working in the field can and should make available untapped stocks of knowledge in relation to these two elements whilst attempting to expand the jurisdiction (ownership) of IS over different problems. They can do so by relating more strongly methodologies to how IS problems can be defined and theorized upon. As this is work in progress, we propose a number of implications that we intend to explore in further research.

Editorial: The History and Philosophy Department

Amid social and political upheavals and economic uncertainties and the increasingly pivotal role of information and communications technologies in society, the information systems (IS) field is perfectly positioned to address the social and technical implications stemming from these developments. One can find such discussions in historical and philosophical papers that have always attracted IS researchers’ attention but that have not received a formal channel to grow and thrive. The history and philosophy department of the Communications of the Association for Information Systems provides such a channel. By providing an avenue to analyze historic events and past successes and failures and to encourage new philosophical thinking for the present and the future, the history and philosophy department seeks to achieve what Peter Keen (1991, p. 27) once prognosticated: for the IS field to be at the “forefront of intellectual debate and investigation about the application of IT across every aspect of…society”. With this lofty goal in mind and to encourage a shift towards writing more historical and philosophical research, I describe these two intricately related genres of research that are distinct from the hypothetico-deductive research that crowds the pages of our journals but that perhaps hold the most potential for moving the IS field towards becoming an intellectually and socially influential discipline

Understanding Unstable Information Systems Phenomena: A Punctuated Equilibrium Perspective

The information systems (IS) literature includes different perspectives, epistemologies, and research philosophies to explore phenomena at the intersection of technologies, information, people, organizations, and processes. As studies are replicated and knowledge accumulates, researchers can develop a more in-depth understanding of how their constructs of interest interact and affect each other. IS researchers have reported mixed findings in prior research as the phenomena change. In this paper, we discuss unstable phenomena in IS and argue that conflicting findings in a variety of domains might be the result of this instability. Using examples from IS security and word processing research streams, we examine the issues surrounding unstable phenomena using a punctuated equilibrium lens and suggest research strategies and a research framework to help researchers conduct studies in this challenging environmen

Theory borrowing in IT-rich contexts : lessons from IS strategy research

While indigenous theorizing in information systems has clear merits, theory borrowing will not, and should not, be eschewed given its appeal and usefulness. In this article, we aim at increasing our understanding of modifying of borrowed theories in IT-rich contexts. We present a framework in which we discuss how two recontextualization approaches of specification and distinction help with increasing the IT-richness of borrowed constructs and relationships. In doing so, we use several illustrative examples from information systems strategy. The framework can be used by researchers as a tool to explore the multitude of ways in which a theory from another discipline can yield the understanding of IT phenomena

Sociomateriality and IS Identity

Challenges to identifying the information systems (IS) field originate within the community, from external institutional forces, from the change in technology, from the emergence of new phenomena, and finally, from the changing understanding of what a “field” or “discipline” entails. In this study we trace the historiography of the IS field to illustrate sources of confusion arising from deeply held assumptions regarding the formation and legitimacy of IS identity. By introducing the identity of IS as a “human science” as opposed to that of a natural science, we illuminate an interstitial gap in knowledge which IS inhabits. To address this gap, we posit sociomateriality as a perspective that offers IS a distinct identity as an academically and socially relevant field by uncovering and enabling research into the entanglement of humans, information, and technologies