Information Systems - The State of the Field

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demonstrates a keen and widespread interest in our field and in its ongoing development; second, that I was interested to read the authors’ response (see Chapter 14 in this volume). They provide a useful further insight into their thinking, for example, by providing a slight modification to the nomological net introduced in the MISQ article, by explaining their intention to draw something of a boundary ‘around the phenomenological domain serving as the topical basis of IS scholarly journals’, and by surfacing and clarifying their intention of ‘refocusing IS research on issues of design’. Despite all the debate, they make it crystal clear that they ‘still believe strongly in the views presented in [the MISQ] article’. And despite all the debate, let me make it crystal clear that I stick to my strongly held views too!

Thank goodness that we do have a range of opinion being expressed in our academy: how boring would it be were we to agree on everything. I am reminded of work by Gibbons and colleagues at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University in England (Gibbons et al., 1995), and also of more recent discussions in the knowledge management (sic) literature with regard to knowledge creation (e.g., Von Krogh et al., 2000). The former argue that new knowledge will emerge from trans-disciplinary treatments of contemporary phenonema, while the latter make the case that knowledge is not simply ‘out there’ to be tapped and exploited, but arises from exploration (cf. March, 1991) and interaction between human beings. Related work on communities of practice (e.g., Lave and Wenger, 1991; Brown and Duguid, 1991) and knowing—as opposed to knowledge—(e.g., Kleine et al., 1998) also comes to mind. Here, our community of practice is engaged in just such an exercise of knowledge creation—of knowing. It is an emergent and iterative process—one which will undoubtedly lead to new insights. But, this is the very point of my argument. In an attempt to crystallize and contain the IS domain, the unintended consequence (cf. Robey and Boudreau, 1999) of our actions may well be to constrain and limit the development of our field—an outcome, presumably, which we would all wish to avoid. Here, I’m reminded of the need for boundary spanning—individuals in our community who are willing to reach out into other fields (cf. Tushman and Scanlan, 1981), rather than to be more inward in their focus. Indeed, in my earlier article, I cautioned against closed systems (that exhibit entropy), and argued for innovation and emergence.

Klein and Hirschheim (Chapter 15 in this volume) deal with aspects of the argument that I would otherwise incorporate into this note (e.g., ‘the techno-centrism of the IT artifact focus’, and the ontological realism that underpins much of the Benbasat and Zmud argument, as against the social constructionist perspective that

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they—and I—take). Let me, therefore, limit my remarks in this note on two aspects of Benbasat and Zmud’s rejoinder: (1) the focus on IS design within organizations, and (2) the limitations of any community of practice that restricts its focus to a prevailing orientation that finds form in journals emanating from a particular country or region. I shall conclude with a reflection on why I believe we should delight in this debate. On reflection, I realize that in some ways we may be having a debate between modernists and post-modernists (see, for example, Cahoone, 2003). The following is an attempt to summarize this conclusion, and draws heavily from Mary Klages’s course syllabus on modern critical thought at the University of Colorado (see: http://www. colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html).

Postmodernism rejects boundaries and rigid genre distinctions. It emphasizes pastiche, parody, and bricolage. It favors reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity, ambiguity. It places emphasis on the destructured, the decentered, and the absence of solutions. While much the same can be said of modernism, postmodernism differs in relation to its stance on these issues. Modern- ism—like postmodernism—presents this fragmented view of human subjectivity, history and the world we live in, but does so with a measure of angst. It presents this fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and something to be concerned about. I see the arguments of Benbasat and Zmud, and Weber, among others, in this light. They, like many modernist thinkers, try to uphold the idea that we as a ‘discipline’ should accentuate the unity, coherence, and meaning that they lament as being lost in much of recent IS literature that has somehow forgotten the ‘core’—which in their terms is the IT artifact. Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn’t lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates all this. The world is meaningless? Let’s not pretend that we can make meaning then, let’s just play with nonsense; let’s enjoy the incongruities, the range of stances we take, and the emergence—the new knowledge that arises from the confluence of ideas emanating from our different worldviews. Let’s continue to explore terra incognita. Who knows what we might find. In other words: ‘Don’t worry, be happy’.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me first deal briefly with the focus on IS design within organizations, and the unintended focus on US-style research that underpin the stance taken by Benbasat and Zmud. Both are aspects of their argument with which I take issue.

In my JAIS article (Galliers, 2003) I questioned whether the development of our field of study—and, indeed, our span of influence— should be viewed as a sign of crisis or of natural growth. I argued for the latter. It was undoubtedly the case that our primary concern

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within IS during the earlier years of the field’s development—during the late 1970s and 1980s for example—was related to IS development methodologies. One might even argue that IS development—systems analysis and design—defined the field of IS in this period (see, for example, Gane and Sarson, 1979; Avison and Fitzgerald, 1988). But we have seen new topics emerge since then: decision support systems, group systems, IS evaluation, IS planning and strategy, e-commerce, security, privacy, business process re-engineering, enterprise systems, out-sourcing, knowledge management, national IT policies, off-shoring, IS governance—to name but a few. It really does fly in the face of ‘reality’ to suggest that the core of the IS field concerns IS design within organizations. Certainly, such concerns are an important aspect of our field—historically perhaps even more so than today— but to claim more than this does an injustice to those in our academy whose concerns relate to wider organizational, inter-organizational, management, strategy, policy, ethical, societal and global issues. In arguing in my earlier article that our locus of study is more broadly based than organizations or individuals working in organizations, I highlighted the need to include societal, policy and ethical issues within the ambit of the IS field. I invoked systems theory (e.g., Checkland, 1981, 1999) in a consideration of where to draw our boundary, noting that the very act of doing so is itself a social construction (e.g., Bijker etal., 1987). I reasoned that were we not to push the boundaries, ‘we may well be overly constraining ourselves and we will certainly not know whether [relevant choices have] been made’, noting that alternative boundaries might be considered simultaneously.

I turn now to the question of the innate cultural bias in an argument that centers on drawing a boundary around ‘the phenomenological domain serving as the topical basis of IS scholarly journals’. While this cultural bias is I am sure unintended, it needs to be surfaced. It is certainly the case that journals emanating from particular regions of the world, particularly North America, tend to be self-referential, focusing on particular topics and the work of members of the academy from that region, and through lenses that are commonplace in that region. This is done at the expense of related work conducted elsewhere. This is not my opinion alone; it is based on empirical evidence (see, for example, Galliers and Meadows, 2003).

In related work, Edgar Whitley and I have analyzed the papers presented during the first ten years of ECIS—the European Conference on Information Systems (Galliers and Whitley, 2002, 2005). It is clear from this analysis and from survey research conducted previously (Avgerou et al., 1999) that there is a distinctive quality to European IS research as compared to that undertaken in North America. There is considerable overlap of course, but nonetheless, the distinguishing

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features are insightful, and might lead Benbasat and Zmud to redraw their boundary. Let me provide examples that relate to both the ontological and the epistemological dimension.

Banker and Kauffman (2004) propose ten categories for IS research in relation to their review of IS papers that appeared over the first 50 years of the journal Management Science. These are: decision support and design science; value of information, human– computer systems design; IS organization and strategy; economics of IS and IT; global and societal issues, electronic markets; interorganizational issues; group decision making and creativity, and IS research. We based our review of topics considered in ECIS papers on this typology for the most part, making only minor changes to the classifications. Were we to group together the ECIS papers that covered topics focusing on IT, on IS/IT development and design, and on decision support, we would find that they account for almost 30% of the topics covered. Similarly, by grouping together papers dealing with issues concerning global and societal, organizational and inter-organizational, and electronic market concerns, we find that these account for practically 60% of the papers presented. Empirically, then, ‘the phenomenological domain serving as the topical basis’ of ECIS papers appears to be considerably broader than Benbasat and Zmud surmise, or than have appeared in

Management Science.

We might also look at a distinction that relates to the commonly held belief that European IS researchers draw more heavily on what might be broadly classified as social theory. In order to explore this belief, we adopted a method developed by Jones (2000) to analyze the social theory content of ECIS papers. Jones’s method investigates how many authors cite social theorists and how many different social theorists are cited by them. In the first ten years of ECIS, 29% of the papers (335 papers) cite at least one social theorist, with the likes of Rogers, Giddens, Latour and Polyani being cited frequently. Jones defines the social citation density (or ‘Matthew Jones Index’—MJI) as the sum of the number of distinct social theorists cited by each paper, divided by the total number of papers. Using this notation, we discovered that papers presented in the first ten years of ECIS have an MJI of 0.53. We then considered the proportion of ECIS papers citing social theorists with the total number of papers presented by authors from each country and found, for the most part, that the proportions are closely correlated, with certain exceptions: the UK has provided proportionately more social theory papers, while the USA has provided proportionately fewer such papers. To provide further comparison, we compared the MJI for ECIS with the MJI of papers published during the period 1992–1999 in MISQ and JMIS. Together,

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these two US journals have an MJI of 0.05. Who was it who said that the USA and the UK are nations divided by a common language!

As a result of this analysis, we concluded that these data provide at least a strong suggestion that European IS research is focused more broadly, and draws far more heavily on social theory than IS research published in ‘mainstream’ (i.e., US-based) journals. Given the global nature of our field, I argue (cf. Galliers and Meadows, 2003) that we should be very careful in attributing global lessons from local perspectives, experience or data.

So, where is all this leading to? Well, first, I wanted to demonstrate that there is a range of opinion and perspective in the field of IS. These differences relate to topics of interest, research approaches adopted, and the literature cited. They tend to be based on schools of thought that are regionally based. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Benbasat and Zmud would presumably argue that it is a bad thing because we would lose academic respectability were the IS academy to be seen to be so diffuse and diverse by other academies. In my JAIS article, I tried to show that other academies were similarly diverse— particularly in the fields of management and the social sciences—and that many saw themselves as being trans-disciplinary. I argued that we were not alone. I argued that the broadening of our sphere of influence and interest was a good thing in terms of reputation and in terms of knowledge creation. I stick to this argument. Let me, though, try to expand on it somewhat by looking at these two opposing perspectives through the lens of post-modernist theory.

As I indicated in my introduction, on reflecting on the polarity in thinking present here—Weber describes this phenomenon (Chapter 13 in this volume) as ‘ships in the night’—it seems to me that it all boils down to whether we are at one with multiple perspectives, with ambiguity, with emergence, or not. Given the complexity of the phenomena we study, I would argue that we should be at one with, or at least the inevitability of, permeable boundaries. Given the rate of change in the technology—the IT artifact of today is so very different to the IT artifact of ten years ago, let alone 30 or 40 years ago, to make it such a ‘moveable feast’ that it defies logic to make it the center of our focus. What is ‘it’ in any event, and what will ‘it’ be in, say, ten years’ time? I therefore take a post-modernist perspective on our domain—note: not our discipline. To repeat, post-modernism does not lament, but actually celebrates fragmentation, provisionality and incoherence. Let’s enjoy the incongruities and the range of stances we take in the IS academy. Let’s enjoy the emer- gence—the new knowing that arises from the confluence of—sometimes competing—ideas emanating from our different worldviews. Let’s continue to explore terra incognita. In other words: ‘Don’t worry, be happy’.

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NOTE

1The title is taken from the song of the same title by Bobby McFerrin on the CD Simple Pleasures, Capitol Records, 1990.

REFERENCES

Avgerou, C., Siemer, J. and Bjorn-Andersen, N. (1999) ‘The academic field of information systems in Europe’, European Journal of Information Systems, 8(2), pp. 136–153.

Avison, D. E., and Fitzgerald, G. (1988) Information System Development: Methodologies, Tools and Techniques, Blackwell Scientific, Oxford, UK.

Banker, R. D. and Kauffman, R. J. (2004) 50th Anniversary Article: ‘The evolution of research on Information Systems: A fiftieth-year survey of the literature’, Management Science, 50(3), pp. 281–298.

Benbasat, I. and Zmud, R. (2003) ‘The identity crisis within the IS discipline: Defining and communicating the core’s properties’, MIS Quarterly, 27(2), pp. 183–194.

Bijker, W., Hughes, T. and Pinch, T. (1987) The Social Construction of Technological Systems, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Brown, J. S. and Duguid, P. (2001) ‘Knowledge and organization: A social-practice perspective’, Organization Science, 12(2), pp. 198–213.

Cahoone, L. E. (ed.) (2003) From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (2nd edn), Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

Checkland, P. (1981,1999) Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, UK.

Galliers, R. D. (2003) ‘Change as crisis or growth? Toward a transdisciplinary view of Information Systems as a field of study’, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 4(6), pp. 360–76.

Galliers, R. D. and Meadows, M. (2003) ‘A discipline divided: Globalization and parochialism in Information Systems research’, Communications of the AIS, 11(5), January.

Galliers, R. D. and Whitley, E. A. (2002) ‘An anatomy of European Information Systems research: ECIS 1993—ECIS 2002, Proceedings: 10th ECIS, Gdansk, Poland, 6–8 June.

Galliers, R. D. and Whitley, E. A. (2005) ‘Vive la difference! Distinguishing features of European Information Systems research’, European Journal of Information Systems (under review).

Gane, C. and Sarson, T. (1979) Structured Systems Analysis: Tools and Techniques, PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. and Trow, M. (1995) The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies, Sage, London, UK.

Jones, M. (2000) ‘The moving finger: The use of social theory in WG 8.2 Conference Papers, 1975–1999’, in R. Baskerville, J. Stage and J. I. DeGross (eds.), Organizational and Social Perspectives on Information Technology, Kluwer, Aalborg, Denmark, pp. 15–32.

Kleine D., Roos J. and von Krogh, G. (eds.) (1998) Knowing in Firms: Understanding, Managing and Measuring Knowledge, Sage, London, UK.

References 331

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

March, J. G. (1991) ‘Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning’, Organization Science, 2(1), pp. 71–87.

Orlikowski, W. and Iacono, S. (2001). Research Commentary: ‘Desperately seeking the “IT” in IT research—A call to theorizing the IT artifact’, Information Systems Research, 12(2), pp. 121–134.

Robey, D. and Boudreau, M. C. (1999) ‘Accounting for the contradictory organizational consequences of information technology: Theoretical directions and methodological implications’, Information Systems Research, 10(2), June, pp. 167–185.

Tushman, M. and Scanlan, T. (1981) ‘Boundary spanning individuals: Their role in information transfer and their antecedents’, Academy of Management Journal, 24(2), pp. 289–305.

Von Krogh, G., Ichijo, K. and Nonaka, I. (2000) Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Weber, R. (2003). ‘Still desperately seeking the IT artifact’, MIS Quarterly, 27(2), iii–xi.

17

Cleaning the Mirror: Desperately Seeking Identity in the Information Systems Field1

Daniel Robey

Self-understanding is a profound motivation for humans engaged in almost any endeavor, from the arts to the sciences. John Coltrane, the legendary jazz saxophonist and composer, referred to his art as ‘cleaning the mirror’, a process through which ‘we can see more and more clearly what we are’ (quoted in Hentoff, 1966). Coltrane’s music was characterized by a restless search for meaning, and he changed his conception dramatically within relatively short periods of his performing career. Although critics decried his radical departure from ‘orthodox’ methods, Coltrane’s search for meaning fundamentally reshaped established forms of composition, improvisation and performance, thus changing the identity of the art form called jazz.

Academic researchers also try to clean their mirrors in a quest for their own identities. Over recent years, two sides of a debate have formed concerning the identity of the information systems (IS) field. On one side, arguments have been presented for establishing a clearer identity by narrowing our focus around a distinct, core paradigm. Aspects of this paradigm include agreement on a core phenomenon (Orlikowski and Iacono, 2001), original theory (Weber, 2003), and a dominant paradigm for guiding research (Benbasat and Weber, 1996; Benbasat and Zmud, 2003). With a clearer identity, it is argued that IS research will be regarded as more legitimate (Benbasat and Zmud, 2003).

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On the other side of the debate stand the champions of diversity. Rather than viewing the absence of a core paradigm as a liability, proponents of diversity argue that greater fragmentation is appropriate for IS (Banville and Landry, 1989; King, 1993), consistent with academic values and community practices (DeSanctis, 2003; Robey, 1996), adaptable to changes in the properties of information artifacts (Whinston and Geng, 2004), and characteristic of other legitimate academic fields (Lyytinen and King, 2004). Rather than ‘circling the wagons’ to defend against threats, IS should become more ‘transdisciplinary’ (Galliers, 2003) and regularly change its identity (Lyytinen and King, 2004; Robey, 2003). These more adaptive measures, it is argued, will ensure the IS field’s legitimacy.

In our efforts to set new directions for IS as an academic field, it is important to recognize what we are now (DeSanctis, 2003). IS is currently a field characterized by both conformity and diversity. In some topic areas, IS researchers agree strongly about phenomena and how to study them, making these relatively ‘tight’ areas of inquiry. In other ‘loose’ topic areas, diversity abounds. As a whole, the IS field might be characterized as ‘heterogeneous’, consisting of tight areas of focused activity and loose areas of innovation. Much like contemporary jazz, we draw from established traditions while incorporating fresh ideas from outside our field and original ideas of our own. The margins of IS overlap with other disciplines, but this need not threaten our legitimacy. Indeed, innovation around traditional cores makes both IS and jazz more elastic and reflective of modern conditions.

Figure 17.1 shows a partial map of research topics in IS. The smaller shapes represent tight areas of inquiry; the larger shapes represent looser areas. Within the more tightly circumscribed topics, researchers agree on relevant theory, specific research questions, methodological issues, and standards for evaluating a study’s contribution. Transaction cost economics (TCE), technology acceptance model (TAM), and diffusion of innovations (DOI) are shown as theories that have been used extensively in IS research. Although additional studies may contribute little to the overall knowledge base in these three areas, knowledge is solidified through the accumulation of findings across many studies. As a result of consensus around tight research paradigms, we might claim that we know a great deal about topics in these areas.

For example, TAM studies have repeatedly confirmed the importance of perceived usefulness and social norms on users’ intentions to adopt information technologies. In similar fashion, DOI studies have identified an agreed upon set of predictors of the diffusion of IT through populations of users and organizations. There is also general agreement that IT reduces the costs of economic transactions and