Where’s the competitive advantage in strategic information systems research? Making the case for boundary-spanning research based on the German business and information systems engineering tradition

Abstract

During the last decades, strategic information systems (SIS) research has become an influential stream within the information systems discipline. The success story of the Journal of Strategic Information Systems provides strong evidence. Yet, we believe that there is still a lot of untapped potential in the interaction of SIS research and industry. Put bluntly, it is impossible that results of SIS research are publicly available, reconstructable by subject matter experts, and valid beyond the single or very few cases and at the same time constitute the foundation of competitive advantage. We argue that SIS researchers need to become boundary spanners who actively engage in industry collaboration to help create competitive advantage and who disseminate their insights later on to advance the scientific knowledge base. We outline challenges of boundary-spanning SIS research and provide some ideas and recommendations. Wherever sensible, we draw on our experiences from the traditionally strong industry collaboration of the business and information systems engineering community from the German-speaking countries.