Fon Sundaravej
The Identity Crisis within the IS Discipline: Defining and Communicating the Discipline’s Core Properties
By Izak Benbasat and Robert W. Zmud
After thirty years of the IS research history, the authors of this article raise a concern of the erroneous direction and scope of the IS research and try to define the core concepts of IS discipline for subsequent IS scholars. The authors argue that IS research should focus on the identity of the IS discipline, called the IT artifact which is the application of IT to enable or support some task(s) embedded within a structure(s) that itself is embedded within a context(s). The set of core properties of the IS discipline includes the managerial, methodological, and technical capabilities as well as operational practices, IT usage, and IT impacts. These involved constructs are intimately related to the IT artifact. Thus, their relationship is named as an immediate nomological net, according to the authors. They claim that this nomological net is absent from much IS research due to two types of errors: errors of exclusion and inclusion. Errors of exclusion is failing to study important questions within the core constructs but enhancing theories from other disciplines, while errors of inclusion is addressing situation that are unrelated to the core constructs. With these errors, the boundary of IS from other disciplines is ambiguous.
From this contemporary article, we can see the evolution of MIS research. The scope or foundation of the MIS discipline is still a concern of today’s researchers. The reason might be because nowadays there are more scholars in the MIS area, compared to thirty or forty years ago when the MIS first starts. Particularly, these researchers come from different backgrounds and have diverse interests. They could bring theories from other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics, finance, marketing, management, organizational behavior, computer science, etc. to the MIS area. In the mean time, these researchers relate MIS to other disciplines. As a result, the domain of MIS research today is extremely broad. When time passes by, subsequent researchers modify or extend prior works, creating new theories. The authors of this article see this evolution of MIS research. Therefore, they are trying to shape up the scope of MIS research and give some suggestions to young researchers about which area relates to MIS research or contribute to MIS knowledge by determining new research based on their model of IT artifact and nomological net. If the reviewed study does not belong to their nomological cycle, the authors evaluate that work not-related to MIS. The objective of these two former journal editors is trying to build their own rule or another framework for the MIS research.
IS 7890: IS Research Seminar Spring 2006