ISWORLDnet SUMMARY

I recently came across a number of papers on "crisis of identity". My
general impression was that while trying to solve the issue, too many
efforts had been spent to connect the solution to the historical roots and
to the name "Information Systems". Has anybody tried to solve the problem
of IS-field definition based on synchronous "state of affairs" only (e.g.,
based on the current bulk of papers produced in the field in the last 10
years)?

Personally, I have a feeling (without much research on the topic) that a
solution can be simple. If we agree that a field can be defined by its
subject and by its method, one suggestion could be as follows. Subject -
real life organizations including private companies, public sector,
non-profit organizations, etc. (with or without any IT systems). Method -
system approach (quite vague but still). This can lead us to "IS research"
investigates "the behaviour of real life organizations as systems". If we
accept this hypothesis, is there anything that does not belong to IS but
satisfies the definition, or does belong to IS but does not satisfy the
definition?


(Ken Herold)

Maybe you are familiar with this study:

IS study Web site: 
http://hw.haifa.ac.il/human/hebrew/ISMapWeb.htm


(Cecil Chua Eng Huang)

I have a paper in JAIS with Detmar, Karlene Cousins, and Lan Cao which
takes a preliminary stab at what you are suggesting (measuring researcher
production in information systems).   We look at articles in a bunch of
journals where the authors are self-declared IS researchers to see where
they publish.


(Heinz Dreher)

(Subject: is there anything that does not belong...)
... for example - medicine, especially of type holistic


(Somasundaram Ramanathan)

Please refer to a paper I have co-authored with Prof. Jeremy Rose titled
"Rationalizing, Probing, Understanding: the Evolution of the
Inter-Organizational Systems Adoption Field." in HICSS 2003, Research
Methods and Approaches in Organizational Systems Research (OSRMA) track.

In that paper, we encountered a challenge in defining the concept of a
field. The challenge was encountered in two ways:

i)  identify IOS adoption as a sub-field of IS
ii) select a couple of recent papers and fall back on literatures.
    At the the end, a sample of 73 papers (if i recollect correctly)
    was reached. Then through a detailed analysis of the 73 papers,
    the progression of knowledge in the field was defined. Thus, the 73
    papers are considered representative of knowledge accumulated in
    the field.

PS:
The earliest paper in my sample was Kauffman, "Data Systems That Cross
Company Boundaries" Harvard Business Review, 1966.


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