UNCOVERING THE INTELLECTUAL CORE OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS DISCIPLINE

By Anna Sidorova, Nicholas Evangelopoulos,Joseph S. Valacich, Thiagarajan Ramakrishnan (MIS Quarterly,2008)


This study uses latent semantic analysis to examine a
large body of published IS research in order to address this
question. Specifically, the abstracts of all research papers
over the time period from 1985 through 2006 published in
three top IS research journals—MIS Quarterly, Information
Systems Research, and Journal of Management Information
Systems—were analyzed. This analysis identified five core
research areas: (1) information technology and organizations;
(2) IS development; (3) IT and individuals; (4) IT and
markets; and (5) IT and groups. Over the time frame of our
analysis, these core topics have remained quite stable.
However, the specific research themes within each core area
have evolved significantly, reflecting research that has
focused less on technology development and more on the
social context in which information technologies are designed
and used. As such, this analysis demonstrates that the
information systems academic discipline has maintained a
relatively stable research identity that focuses on how IT
systems are developed and how individuals, groups,
organizations, and markets interact with IT.