IS foundation material

Foundations of our field:
Results from ISWorld discussion list request for help

In December of 1999 Tor J. Larsen and Linda Levine asked for help in identifying (published) work that would help us in documenting IS (conceptual) development trends. We got quite a few responses from our colleagues around the world. These responses are listed below. We hope to make some sense out of this material over the next couple of months. At the present stage, March of 2000, we did not dare attempt sorting things in any other way than by contributor. Keeping to neutral terms we arranged the contributor list in alphabetical order, as you can see. Reading through this page you may come to the conclusion that key contributions are missing. If so, please send an e-mail to Linda (LL@sei.cmu.edu) or Tor (Tor.J.Larsen@BI.NO) - and we will add your suggestions to the list. The specification and reference to some of the listed work is not complete. We will do our best to cover the holes in the nearest future, or perhaps you can assist us with this task as well? At the end of the list we have included our own additional references not mentioned by anyone else so far.

Oslo and Pittsburgh, March 22, 2000.
Tor J. Larsen and Linda Levine

Izak Benbasat:

with Weber, Ron (1996). "Rethinking Diversity in Information Systems Research," Information Systems Research, Vol 7(4), December, pp. 389-399.
with Zmud, Robert W. (1999). "Empirical Research in Information Systems: The Practice of Relevance", Management Information Systems Quarterly, Vol. 23(1), March, pp. 3-16.
with Lim, L.H. (1993). "The Effects of Group, Task, Context and Technology Variables on the Usefulness of Group Support Systems: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies," Small Group Research, November, pp. 430-462.

Allen R. Dennis:

with Haley, Barbara, and Vandenberg, Robert J. (1996). "A Meta-Analysis of Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Participant Satisfaction in Group Support Systems Research," Proceedings of the seventeenth ICIS, Cleveland, Ohio, December 16-18, pp. 278-289.

Fiona Fui-Hoon:

with Lightner, N.(1998). "Methodology and Theory Building in MIS Research", Proceedings of the Americas Conference on Information Systems, Baltimore, August 1998, pp. 734-735.
Farhoomand, Ali and Drury, Don H. (1999). "A Historiographical Examination of Information Systems," Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 1, Article 19, June.

Bob Galliers:

with Currie, Wendy (Eds.) (1999). Rethinking Management Information Systems : An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.ISBN: 0-19-877532-6 (h), 0-19-877533-4 (ib.)
(Ed.) (1992). Information Systems Research : Issues, Methods and Practical Guidelines. Oxford, England: Blackwell. ISBN 0-632-02864-5.

Nektarios Georgalas:

The Role of Repositories In Integrating Information Systems and Enterprise Knowledge, Proceedings of the UKAIS99 Conference of the UK Academy for Information Systems in "Information Systems: The Next Generation", McGraw Hill, York, UK, 7-9 April 1999.
A Framework that uses Repositories for Information Systems and Knowledge Integration, Proceedings of the ASSET99 Symposium on Application-Specific Systems and Software Engineering Technology, IEEE Computer Society, Dallas, Texas, 24-27, March 1999.

Tim Goles:

with Hirscheim, Rudy (2000). "The Paradigm is Dead, the Paradigm is Dead ... Long Live the Paradigm: The Legacy of Burrell and Morgan," Omega, Vol. 28(3), May, pp. 249-268.
Robey, Daniel (1996). "Research Commentary: Diversity in Information Systems Research: Threat, Promise, and Responsibility," Information Systems Research, Vol. 7(4), December, pp. 400-408.

Nicola Guarino:

Formal Ontology in Information Systems - The LADSEB-CNR group addresses the ontological foundations of knowledge engineering and conceptual modeling.

Jos van Hillegersberg:

with Kumar, K. and Welke, R.J. (1996). "Directions in Object-Oriented Systems Development Research," in: Dias Coelho, J., Jelassi, T., König, W., Krcmar, H., O'Callagham, R. and Sääksjärvi, M. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th ECIS: European Conference on Information Systems, Lisbon, pp. 633-646.

Mark Hwang:

with Windsor, John.C., and Pryor, Allen. (2000). "Building a Knowledge Base for MIS Research: A Meta-Analysis of a Systems Success Model," Information Resources Management Journal, Vol. 13(2), April-June, pp. 26-32.
with Thorn, R. (1999). "The Effect of User Engagement on System Success: A Meta-Analytical Integration of Research Findings," Information & Management, Vol. 35(4), April, pp. 229-236.
(1998). "Did Task Type Matter in the Use of Decision Room GSS? A Critical Review and A Meta-Analysis," Omega, The International Journal of Management Science, Vol. 26(1), pp. 1-15.
(1996). "The Use of Meta-Analysis in MIS Research: Promises and Problems," The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, Vol. 27(3), Summer, pp. 35-48.
with Wu, B.J. (1990). "The Effectiveness of Computer Graphics for Decision Support: A Meta-Analytic Integration of Research Findings," The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, Vol. 21(2 & 3), Fall, pp. 11-20.

Kalle Lyytinen:

with Klein H.(1985). "The Powerty of Scientism in Information Systems", in Mumford et al. (eds), Research Methods in Information Systems. North-Holland, pp. 131-162, 1985.
with Klein H. (1985). "Critical Social Theory of Jurgen Habermas (CST) as a Basis for the Theory of Information Systems", in Mumford et al.(eds), Research Methods in Information Systems, North-Holland, pp. 219-236.
(1987). "A Taxonomic Perspective of Information Systems Development: Theoretical Constructs and Recommendations", in R. Boland and R. Hirschheim (eds), Critical Issues in Information Systems. John-Wiley,

(1987). "Different Perspectives on Information Systems: Problems and their Solutions", ACM Computing Surveys, vol 19(1), pp. 5-44, 1987
with Hirschheim R. (1987). "Information Systems Failures- A Survey and Classification of the Empirical Literature," Oxford Surveys in Information Technology, vol 4, pp. 257-309.
with Hirschheim, Rudy and Klein, Heinz K. (1995). Information Systems Development and Data Modeling: Conceptual and Philosophical Foundations. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37369-7
with Hirschheim R.and Klein H.(1996). "Exploring the intellectual structures of Information Systems Development: A Social Action Theoretic Analysis", Accounting, Management and Information Technologies (AMIT), vol 6, No ½, pp. 1-64, (Special Issue: Research on System Development: Position and Critiques).
with Ngwenyama O.(1996). "Groupware Environments as Action Constitutive Resources, A Social Action Framework for Analyzing Groupware Technologies", Computer Supported Cooperative Work, The Journal of Collaborative Computing, vol 6 (1), pp. 1-23.
with L. Mathiassen and J. Ropponen (1996). "A framework for software risk management", Journal of Information Technology, vol 11, no 4, pp. 275-287.
with Keil M., Cule P., and Schmidt R.(1998). "Against all odds: a new framework for identifying and managing software project risks", Communications for the ACM, November, vol 41, 11, pp. 77-83.
with Mathiassen L. and Ropponen J. (1998). "Attention Shaping and Software Risk- A Categorical Analysis of Four Classical Approaches," Information Systems Research, September, vol 9, No 3, pp. 233-255
with Rose G. and Welke R. (1998): "The Brave New World of Development in the internetwork computer architecture (InterNCA): or how distributed computing platforms will change systems development", Information Systems Journal, vol 8, no 3, pp. 241-253
with Robey D. (1999): "Learning Failure in Information System Development", Information Systems Journal, vol 9, No 2, pp. 85-101.
with Ropponen J.(1999), "Components of Software Development Risk: what influences it- a project manager survey", accepted for publication, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.
with Iivari J.(1999): "Research on Information Systems Development in Scandinavia- Unity in Plurality", Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol 10, No 1-2, pp. 135-185.
with Ngwenyama O. (1999): "Sharrock and Button?. And Much Ado about Nothing: How to build Windmills in CSCW Research and Attack Them", Computer Supported Cooperative Work, The Journal of Collaborative

Computing

Bjørn Erik Munkvold:

with Khazanchi, Deepak (2000). "Is Information Systems a science? An inquiry into the nature of the information systems discipline," The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, forthcoming.
Banville, C. and Landry, M. (1989). "Can the field of MIS be disciplined?" Communications of the ACM, (January), pp. 48-59.
Cheon, M., Grover, V. and Sabherwal, R. (1993). "The evolution of empirical research in IS: A study in IS maturity." Information and Management, Vol. 24 (5), February, pp. 107-119.
Ein-Dor, P. and Segev, E., "A Classification of Information Systems: Analysis and Interpretation." Information Systems Research, Vol. 4 (2), June, pp. 166-204.

Alain Pinsonneault:

with Kraemer, K.L. (1993). "The Survey Research Strategy in Studies of Information Systems: Review and Critique," Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol 10(2), pp. 75-106.

Ragnvald Sannes:

Cope, Chris, Horan, Pat, and Garner, Mark (1997). Conceptions of an Information System and Their Use in Teaching about IS, Informing Science, Vol 1(1), Fall, pp. 9-22.
Kahlil, Omar E. M., Strong, Diane M., Kahn, Beverly, K, and Pipino, Leo, L. (1999). Teaching Information Quality in Information Systems Undergraduate Education, Informing Science, Vol 2(3), pp. 53-59.

Vesa Savolainen:

(Ed.) (1999). Perspectives of Information Systems.New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 271 p.

Steve Sawyer:

Kling, R. ( 1990 ). "Social Analyses of Computing: Theoretical Perspectives in Recent Empirical Research," Computing Surveys,Vol. 12 (1), pp. 61-110.

Felix Tan:

with Gallupe, Brent R. (1999). "A Research Manifesto for Global Information Management," Journal of Global Information Management, Vol. 7(3), July-September, pp. 5-18.

Ron Weber:

(1987). "Toward a Theory of Artifacts: A Paradigmatic Basis for Information Systems Research," The Journal of Information Systems, Spring, pp. 3-19. (A publication of the American Accounting Association.)
(?) "Ontological Foundations of Information Systems," published with Coopers & Lybrand. Contact Ron for copy.
with Wand, Yair (1990). "An Ontological Model of an Information System," IEEE Transactions on

Software Engineering

with Wand, Yair (1993). "On the Ontological Expressiveness of Information Systems Analysis

Journal of Information Systems

with Wand, Yair (1995). "On the Deep Structure of Information Systems," Information Systems

Journal

with Zhang, Yanchun (1996). "An Ontological Evaluation of NIAM's Grammar for Conceptual Schema

Information Systems Journal

(1999). forthcoming article in ACM Transactions on Database Systems.

Ralph Westfall:

(1999) "An IS Research Relevance Manifesto," Communications of the AIS, Vol. 2(September), Article 14.

Ilze Zigurs:

Readings from a seminar on conceptual foundations, available by clicking the link.

Our own additional references:

(1999) Academy of Management Review, Vol. 24(4). Articles on paradigms and theory building, for example:

Elsbach, Kimberly D. "Perspectives on Developing Management Theory, circa 1999: Moving From Shrill Monologues to (Relatively) Tame Dialogues," pp. 627-636.
Lewis, Marianne W. "Metatriangulation: Building Theory from Multiple Paradigms," pp. 672-691.
Weick, Karl E. "Theory Construction as Disciplined Reflexivity: Tradeoffs in the 90's," pp. 797-806.

Checkland, Peter B and Holwell, Sue (1998). Information, Systems and Information Systems - Making Sense of the Field. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-95820-4.
Damanpour, Fariborz (1991). "Organizational Innovation: A Meta-Analysis of Effects of Determinants and Moderators," Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 34(3), pp. 555-590.
Huber, George P.(1990). "A Theory of the Effects of Advanced Information Technologies on Organizational Design, Intelligence, and Decision making," Academy of Management Review, Vol. 15(1), January, pp.47-71.
Iivari, Juhani, Hirschheim, Rudy, and Klein, Heinz K. (1998). "A Paradigmatic Analysis Constrasting Information Systems Development Approaches and Methodologies," Information Systems Research, Vol. 9(2), pp. 164-193.
Larsen, Tor J. and Levine, Linda (1999). "Information Technology at the Turn of the Millennium: Past, Present, and Future Trends," introduction to special issue on Information Systems: Current Issues and Future Changes, in The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, Vol. 30(2), Spring, pp. 7-11. See also introduction to the proceedings of the joint IFIP WG8.2&WG8.6 Working Conference, Helsinki, December 1998.
Larsen, Tor J. (1998). "Information Systems Innovation: A Framework for Research and Practice," in Larsen, Tor J. and McGuire, Eugene (Eds.), Information Systems Innovation and Diffusion: Issues and Directions. Hersey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, ISBN: 1-878289-43-8 (hc), 1-878289-46-2(soft).
Molloy, Steve and Schwenk, Charles R. (1995). "The Effects of Information Technology Strategic Decision Making," Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 32(3), May, pp. 283-311.
Van de Ven, Andrew and Poole, Marshall Scott (1995). Explaining Development and Change in Organizations," Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20(3), pp. 510-540.

Last updated on March 24, 2000. Comments to Tor.J.Larsen@BI.NO.