Evaluating and Developing Theories in the Information Systems Discipline

This paper articulates a framework and criteria that can be used to evaluate the quality of theories. While the framework and criteria have general applicability, my focus is the evaluation of theories within the information systems discipline. To illustrate the usefulness of the framework and criteria, I show how they can be employed to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of a theory which, based upon citation evidence, has had a significant impact on other researchers within the information systems discipline. Because the evaluation of existing theories often provides the basis for refining existing theories or building new theories, I also show how the framework and criteria can be used to inform the development of high-quality theory

Information Systems Foundations: Theory Building in Information Systems

This volume presents the papers from the fifth biennial Information Systems Foundations Workshop, held at The Australian National University in Canberra from 30 September to 1 October 2010. The focus of the workshop was, as for the others in the series, the foundations of information systems as an academic discipline. The emphasis in the 2010 workshop was on theory building in information systems, which is a non-trivial and difficult issue because the field deals with such a wide range of phenomena, from the highly technological in nature to the distinctly human and organisational in focus. The theory building problem stems from the fact that the sciences that underlie and deal with technologically-oriented fields generally result in theories that fit within the ‘covering law’ model—that is, are assumed and believed to have universal applicability and explanatory and predictive power—whereas, by contrast, theories in the human sciences are generally much more conditional, contextual, tentative and open to exceptions. Successfully marrying the two is, not surprisingly, a challenge that the chapters in this volume explore