Information Systems Journals Research Articles

ISJ inaugural editorial

ISJ inaugural editorial

Editor's desktop

Research data is a field of expanding importance for ASIS&T in our 75th year. The third ASIS&T Research Data Access and Development Summit (RDAP12) was held in New Orleans at the end of March, and in this issue we feature an RDAP-related special section assembled by guest editor Melissa Weaver. Our annual Information Architecture (IA) issue, reflecting the concurrent IA Summit will appear in October. The RDAP12 coverage includes an annotated program, a thematic overview of the summit by Karen Wickett, Xiao Hu and Andrea Thomer and summaries of the panels on data citation and training data management practitioners by Matt Mayernik and Xiao Hu, respectively. In addition, we have related articles on data citation, a major RDAP concern, by Joe Hourclé and Matt Mayernik. In conjunction with the Anniversary Celebration Committee we also begin our 75th anniversary coverage with “The Changed and Changing ADI/ASIS/ASIST After 75 Years,” an overview of the history of ASIS&T by Bob Williams. We are very grateful to Bob and to all our members who have worked over the years to record and preserve this legacy. Our other feature articles are on diverse topics. First, Bo-Christer Björk and Patrik Paetau discuss “Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature – Status and Challenges for the Information Systems Community.” Their report includes a study of open access to the information systems literature based on a sample of more than 700 articles from information systems journals, while on a lighter note, Jay ven Eman, stressing the need for taxonomic fieldwork, entices us with the unlikely juxtaposition of “Taxonomies, Biology and Baseball.” In addition to our focus on research data access and preservation, there is a sub-theme that runs through much of the issue: information professionals (IPs) – their roles, training, history, recognition, advocacy and status. IP advocacy is the topic of the “President's Page” where current president Diane Sonnenwald discusses the latest recommendations of the Information Professionals Task Force, which is establishing a website at InfoProfessionals.org and supporting panels to promote IP recognition at relevant conferences. In addition, RDAP12, and most particularly the training panel, was much concerned with the role of IPs in this emerging area, and questions regarding their qualifications, training and recognition for data curation are a major concern of Wickett, Hu and Thomer. Finally, of course, the history of ASIS&T is also a part of the history of a significant group of IPs, and its changing structure and focus over the years mirrors many of the broader impacts of the information age on how IPs define themselves. Stay tuned for more on IP advocacy as the anniversary and the task force's projects unfold.

About Our Authors

About Our Authors

Style composition in action research publication

Examining action research publications in leading Information Systems journals as a particular genre of research communication, we develop the notion of style composition to understand how authors ...

Editorial

Editorial

Reflections and opinions on 25 years with the ISJ

AbstractReflecting on 25 years as editors of the Information Systems Journal(ISJ), we analyse some statistics on the ISJ over this period. These include the origins of papers published in terms of author gender, geographical region and academic department, the type of research in terms of positivist or interpretive (and empirical, critical and descriptive, if the latter) and qualitative, quantitative, mixed or descriptive, research method and research category. The paper also consists of personal reflections on the ISJ discussing issues such as motivation for journal editing, impact of research on practice (and vice versa) and loss of control as the journal develops. We also use the ISJ lens to reflect on the discipline of IS as a whole. We hope therefore that this paper might also form part of a collection on the history of the IS discipline.

About Our Authors

About Our Authors

Shaping the landscape of research in information systems from the perspective of editorial boards: A scientometric study of 77 leading journals

Characteristics of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology and 76 other journals listed in the Information Systems category of the Journal Citation Reports–Science edition 2009 were analyzed. Besides reporting usual bibliographic indicators, we investigated the human cornerstone of any peer‐reviewed journal: its editorial board. Demographic data about the 2,846 gatekeepers serving in information systems (IS) editorial boards were collected. We discuss various scientometric indicators supported by descriptive statistics. Our findings reflect the great variety of IS journals in terms of research output, author communities, editorial boards, and gatekeeper demographics (e.g., diversity in gender and location), seniority, authority, and degree of involvement in editorial boards. We believe that these results may help the general public and scholars (e.g., readers, authors, journal gatekeepers, policy makers) to revise and increase their knowledge of scholarly communication in the IS field. The EB_IS_2009 dataset supporting this scientometric study is released as online supplementary material to this article to foster further research on editorial boards.

Quantitative approaches to content analysis: identifying conceptual drift across publication outlets

Unstructured text data, such as emails, blogs, contracts, academic publications, organizational documents, transcribed interviews, and even tweets, are important sources of data in Information Systems research. Various forms of qualitative analysis of the content of these data exist and have revealed important insights. Yet, to date, these analyses have been hampered by limitations of human coding of large data sets, and by bias due to human interpretation. In this paper, we compare and combine two quantitative analysis techniques to demonstrate the capabilities of computational analysis for content analysis of unstructured text. Specifically, we seek to demonstrate how two quantitative analytic methods, viz., Latent Semantic Analysis and data mining, can aid researchers in revealing core content topic areas in large (or small) data sets, and in visualizing how these concepts evolve, migrate, converge or diverge over time. We exemplify the complementary application of these techniques through an examination of a 25-year sample of abstracts from selected journals in Information Systems, Management, and Accounting disciplines. Through this work, we explore the capabilities of two computational techniques, and show how these techniques can be used to gather insights from a large corpus of unstructured text.

Towards the improved treatment of generalization of knowledge claims in IS research: drawing general conclusions from samples

This paper presents a framework for justifying generalization in information systems (IS) research. First, using evidence from an analysis of two leading IS journals, we show that the treatment of generalization in many empirical papers in leading IS research journals is unsatisfactory. Many quantitative studies need clearer definition of populations and more discussion of the extent to which ‘significant’ statistics and use of non-probability sampling affect support for their knowledge claims. Many qualitative studies need more discussion of boundary conditions for their sample-based general knowledge claims. Second, the proposed new framework is presented. It defines eight alternative logical pathways for justifying generalizations in IS research. Three key concepts underpinning the framework are the need for researcher judgment when making any claim about the likely truth of sample-based knowledge claims in other settings; the importance of sample representativeness and its assessment in terms of the knowledge claim of interest; and the desirability of integrating a study's general knowledge claims with those from prior research. Finally, we show how the framework may be applied by researchers and reviewers. Observing the pathways in the framework has potential to improve both research rigour and practical relevance for IS research.

A review of research trends in strategic information-systems planning

Research that addresses the alignment of information systems (IS) and business strategies has been a subject of growing interest to both academicians and business practitioners. Strategic IS planning (SISP) plays a major role in the alignment of IS strategy with the business strategy. Although a number of studies have explored various aspects of SISP and its role in the alignment, there is lack of review papers that examine specific research-trends in SISP. This article examines four aspects of recent SISP research, namely, research context, research subtopic, research method, and the unit of analysis by examining 132 articles from three prime IS journals specifically, ISR, MISQ, and JMIS. The results indicate that the most frequent research context was single-organisational, the most common research topic was alignment of IT and business plans, the most widely used research-method was empirical, and the most frequent unit-of-analysis was the top management.

Latent Semantic Analysis: five methodological recommendations

The recent influx in generation, storage, and availability of textual data presents researchers with the challenge of developing suitable methods for their analysis. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), a member of a family of methodological approaches that offers an opportunity to address this gap by describing the semantic content in textual data as a set of vectors, was pioneered by researchers in psychology, information retrieval, and bibliometrics. LSA involves a matrix operation called singular value decomposition, an extension of principal component analysis. LSA generates latent semantic dimensions that are either interpreted, if the researcher's primary interest lies with the understanding of the thematic structure in the textual data, or used for purposes of clustering, categorization, and predictive modeling, if the interest lies with the conversion of raw text into numerical data, as a precursor to subsequent analysis. This paper reviews five methodological issues that need to be addressed by the researcher who will embark on LSA. We examine the dilemmas, present the choices, and discuss the considerations under which good methodological decisions are made. We illustrate these issues with the help of four small studies, involving the analysis of abstracts for papers published in the European Journal of Information Systems.

Style Composition in Action Research Publication

Examining action research publications in leading Information Systems journals as a particular genre of research communication, we develop the notion of style composition to understand how authors structure their arguments for a research contribution. We define style composition as the activity through which authors select, emphasize, and present elements of their research to establish premises, develop inferences, and present contributions in publications. Drawing on this general notion, we identify a set of styles that is characteristic of how IS action researchers compose their argument. Premise styles relate to the dual goals of action research through practical or theoretical positioning of the argument; inference styles combine insights from the problem-solving and the research cycles through inductive or deductive reasoning; and contribution styles focus on different types of contributions--experience report, field study, theoretical development, problemsolving method, and research method. Based on the considered sample, we analyze the styles adopted in selected publications and show that authors have favored certain styles while leaving others underexplored; further, we reveal important strengths and weaknesses in the composition of styles within the IS discipline. Based on these insights, we discuss how action research practices and writing can be improved, as well as how to further develop style compositions to support the publication of engaged scholarship research.

TOO YOUNG TO HAVE A HISTORY? USING DATA ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES TO REVEAL TRENDS AND SHIFTS IN THE BRIEF HISTORY OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION SYSTEMS

ABSTRACT Using several data-analysis techniques, this paper seeks to construct a brief history of Accounting Information Systems (AIS). In an effort to achieve some degree of comprehensiveness, this paper examines both AIS research and pedagogy. It begins by documenting and classifying topical foci of research papers in the Journal of Information Systems. It then compares the pedagogical emphases of AIS courses as identified in past research. By deploying multiple methods of analysis to identify patterns of hegemony or change in the topics of AIS scholarship and teaching, this paper highlights the use of two data-analysis techniques found to be useful in the historical research of accounting. Findings reveal signs of the assimilation of AIS scholarship into the wider world of accounting research and strong influences upon AIS pedagogy by oversight bodies and technological innovation.

Toward a broader vision for Information Systems

In December of 2009, several founders of the Information Systems (IS) academic discipline gathered for a panel discussion at the International Conference on Information Systems to present their visions for the future of the field, and their comments were summarized in the inaugural issue of TMIS [Davis et al., 2010; J. F. J. Nunamaker et al., 1991]. To assure a robust future, they argued, IS journals, conferences, reviewers, promotion committees, teachers, researchers, and curriculum developers must broaden the scope of IS. This article explores the need for a broader vision to drive future development of the IS discipline.

About Our Authors

About Our Authors

Guest Editorial for the Special Issue on RFID-enabled Healthcare: Applications, Issues and Benefits

About the Guest Editor Dr. Samuel FossoWamba is a Senior lecturer at the School of Information Systems & Technology (SISAT), University of Wollongong, Australia, and Invited Associate Professor at the Rouen Business School, France. He earned an M.Sc. in Mathematics, from the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, an M.Sc. in E-commerce from HEC Montreal, Canada, and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering for his work on RFID-enabled supply chain optimization, from the Polytechnic School of Montreal, Canada. His current research focuses on business value of IT, inter-organizational system (e.g., RFID technology) adoption and use, supply chain management, electronic commerce and mobile commerce. He has published papers in a number of international-conferences proceedings and journals, including: European Journal of Information Systems, International Journal of Production Economics, Information Systems Frontiers, Business Process Management Journal, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, Proceedings of the IEEE, Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS), Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) and Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS). Dr Wamba is also responsible for organizing/coorganizing special issues on RFID for the Business Process Management Journal, the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and the Journal of Medical Systems. He has been serving as mini-track organizer and chair on the same topic for the 15 Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), the 6, 7, 8 and 10 Workshops on e-Business, a Pre-ICIS Workshop Sponsored by AIS SIGeBIZ. On the other hand, he is a CompTIA RFID+ Certified Professional, Academic Co-Founder of RFID Academia, Founder and CEO of e-m-RFID.biz. He is the current Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Service Science (CBSS), Wollongong University, Australia. More information is available online, at: www.samuelfossowamba.com

Editorial Policy

Editorial Policy

Betwixt and Between? Bringing Information Systems and Accounting Systems Research Together

I n 2008, the Research and Publications Committee of the Information Systems Section of the American Accounting Association decided to sponsor a special issue of the Journal of Information Systems (JIS) entitled ‘‘Reviews of Information Systems Research.’’ The objective of the special issue is to ‘‘publish papers that review a stream of research in information systems (IS) broadly defined.’’ The Committee intended that submissions would review and integrate the IS (information systems) and AIS (accounting information systems) literatures and suggest future research directions in both disciplines. The special issue followed a previous valiant and groundbreaking effort in IS/AIS research integration for the IS section by Professors Vicky Arnold and Steve Sutton (Arnold and Sutton 2002). As editor of this special issue, I took a somewhat different approach to the task than is normal. First, rather than a regular call for papers, I requested researchers to submit extended abstracts. The objectives of this approach were to ensure that the scope of the proposed article was concomitant with the objective of the special issue and to identify any potential overlaps in subject matter. In this process, I was able to negotiate the amalgamation of several writing teams. I also ensured that where there was commonality in subject matter, the writing teams were introduced to each other and worked to manage the writing process. Second, I had clear views on how the papers should be structured. As an author of one of the chapters in the earlier monograph for the IS section, I was impressed with the systematic approach Dr. Arnold took to ensuring a common approach in the structure of the contributions and the discipline exercised in ensuring that the goals of the monograph were achieved. It is simpler to achieve a common approach in a monograph than it is in separate papers in JIS. My ambition was, then, to strongly suggest directions to authors but not to mandate a single approach. As a consumer of many literature reviews, I realize how easy it is to maroon readers in a Sargasso Sea, not knowing how to navigate their way. Readers need clear navigational markers and a sense of direction. Third, I saw the review process as a mutual exercise among writing teams, reviewers, and myself as editor. Given the scope of this exercise, I deliberately took a more active editorial role than is normal. These objectives probably added somewhat to the time taken for publication but did, I believe, improve the quality of the papers.

Annual Report by the Editor, Journal of Information Systems

Annual Report by the Editor, <i>Journal of Information Systems</i>