Abstract
The way a scientific field applies theories shapes its intellectual structure and determines its development and survival as a discipline. Information Systems (IS) with its multidimensional nature and innovatory essence has a different contingence with its original theories, which are basically rooted in a diverse spectrum of fields. This research is designed to investigate which theories have been deployed in different IS research streams in the last decade, and by analyzing the perceived gap, how it might be changed in the future. To this aim, a data-driven method for analyzing the published papers’ cited references in the top two IS journals is designed and implemented. This study is directed based on the co-citation network analysis, text analysis, and investigation of the highly cited references in MISQ and ISR from 2009 to 2018. The analysis of the top-cited references co-citation network revealed six distinct clusters representing the research areas in our field including IS Value, IS Research, E-commerce, IS in Organization, Social Network Analysis, and IS Usage. Further, text analysis and interpretations disclosed the main and the dominant theoretical foundation in each cluster and their linkages. By examining the relationships between the clusters and their theories, the eminent theoretical gap in E-commerce cluster is distinguished. Subsequently, some fact-based hypotheses about what would be changed in this cluster in the future are represented. Considering a wider timespan, including data from basket of 8 journals and deeply analyzing all clusters, this study could be continued.
Highlights
Information Systems (IS) field of research has been the subject to identity crisis during the time [1-3]
The 154 most cited references by MIS Quarterly (MISQ) and Information Systems Research (ISR) during the last decade are analyzed in this study
We tried to shed light on the IS theoretical foundation in the last decade, especially with respect to how different groups of studies interrelate with one another in the context of the theory exploitation
Summary
Information Systems (IS) field of research has been the subject to identity crisis during the time [1-3]. The multidisciplinary nature of this field raises lots of debates about the main origin, focus, and scientific contribution of IS and how it could survive and grow as a discipline [4]. IS field of research is rooted in different basic fields such as psychology, sociology, system science, management, economics, and strategy and these fields have contributed toward IS emergence and growth [7]. IS research covers wide range of topics including IS usage/adoption, IS design and development, e-commerce/e-business, IS research, knowledge management, IS evaluation, software and programming languages, IS functional applications, telecommunication and networking, and internal/external environment of IT [8], which are diverse and different in concept and impact. The diverse nature of IS and how its semantic structure is shaped from one side, and the emerging concepts and technologies on the other side make this field both complicated to comprehend and essential to be examined
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