What is MIS?
An exploratory research project By Michael Byrd, Eric Case, Bradley Dorn, Steven Pentland, and Wenli Zhang
For MIS 696A, Fall 2013
December 18, 2013
Contents
Executive Summary
Approach
Introduction
Defining a field
Developing metrics
Limitations
Data collection
Initial journal survey
Author list
Article list
Journal classification
Summary
Analysis
Author Publication
MIS Change Over Time
Journal Categories
Co-Authors
Conclusion
Appendix A: Author Biographies
Ritu Agarwal
Izak Benbasat
Robert O. Briggs
Eric K. Clemons
Alok Gupta
Blake Ives
Robert J. Kauffman
Jay F. Nunamaker Jr.
Paul A. Pavlou
Viswanath Venkatesh
James C. Wetherbe
Andrew B. Whinston
Robert Zmud
Vladimir Zwass
Executive Summary
In previous years, students in this class have taken the approach of attempting to define the discipline of Management Information Systems by analyzing publications in MIS journals and using the citations of those publications to link to other disciplines. These citation links serve to identify reference disciplines of MIS as a proxy to the definition of the field itself. In this study, we take a slightly different approach. Instead of using citations as the link to reference disciplines, we use the authors themselves as the link. We first identified the top authors in the top MIS journals, and then analyzed the complete publication record of those authors to identify the journals they had published in and by extension, the reference disciplines that those journals represent. We used both subjective coding and linguistic analysis to identify reference disciplines and we analyzed our data using a variety of visualization techniques.
Approach
Introduction
Management Information Systems (MIS) is a relatively new field of study. Currently, its scope is interdisciplinary, broad, and somewhat ill-defined. The purpose of this research is to provide a firm, defensible definition of the scope of MIS from an academic perspective.
Defining a field
Fields of study are defined by the knowledge they represent. In academia, authors create knowledge. The knowledge that authors create is disseminated by publication in journals. Academic journals select and evaluate knowledge that is appropriate to the focus of the journal. Previous work by students in this class has taken the approach of categorizing the articles published in these journals to identify the scope of topics that define MIS. We take a slightly different approach of focusing on the authors as a basis for defining a field of study. Since authors bring their various experiences and knowledge bases to bear in the execution of research and the publication of results, we feel that the author’s background can serve as a mechanism for identifying topic areas that define a discipline. We then use the academic journals in which the authors publish as a proxy for the knowledge base anduse the journal subject area to classify generated knowledge into categories.
Developing metrics
To develop our definition of management information systems, we use journal articles as atomic pieces of knowledge. We assume that knowledge that is classified together by a journal, meets some common criteria. For our study, we base the definition of these criteria on the self-assigned description of each journal. We interpret this definition using both computational linguistics and a subjective, normative evaluation. We then infer that the most prolific authors of journals that classify according to management information systems criteria are the most influential generators of management information systems knowledge.
Limitations
One limitation to our classification system is that each component is defined by the others. It is necessary to start with a given seed of information – the journal list generated by from our survey. We feel our approach is valid, but we acknowledge this potential limitation to our methodology.
Data collection
Initial journal survey
Our data collection began with a survey of faculty members in the Management Information Systems department at The University of Arizona to identify journals. The results of the survey produced a subjective list of the top, most influential management information systems journals.
Author list
For each journal in our initial journal list, we gathered a list of individuals with the most publications. We combined the lists developed from each journal to create our list of significant management information systems authors. Please see Appendix A for a brief biographical dossier on each author. The selected authors were:
- Agarwal, Ritu
- Benbasat, Izak
- Briggs, Robert O.
- Clemons, Eric K.
- Gupta, Alok
- Ives, Blake
- Kauffman, Robert J.
- Nunamaker Jr, Jay
- Pavlou, Paul A.
- Venkatesh, Viswanath
- Wetherbe, James C.
- Whinston, Andrew B.
- Zmud, Robert
- Zwass, Vladimir
Article list
For each author in our author list, we gathered citations for all of their publications. With this list, we gathered article titles, co-authors, year, and journal. The combined list of all publications would allow us to create a new expanded list of journals.
Journal classification
For each journal on the new journal list, we searched for the journal online and located either the website for the journal, the publisher’s website for the journal, or the website for the society that publishes the journal if neither of the previous were available. We then reviewed the websites and found statements that defined the aim and scope of articles published in the journal; usually a mission statement, overview, summary, etc. We collected these statements into a data file. We then manually assigned subject tags based on articles in the journal, the journal title, and the self-describing statement. These tags were selected to parsimoniously categorize the journal subject matter for analysis. Three raters coded the tags with overlap to enhance inter-rater reliability.
Summary
By gathering data previously described, we developed and used the following data sets in our analysis:
- List of influential management information systems authors
- List of articles written by influential management information systems authors
- Title
- Author and co-authors
- Publishing journal
- Year
- List of journal influential management information systems authors have published in
- Description
- Tag-based classification
Analysis
Data analysis was conducted over several dimensions - top author contributions, breadth of publications, and keywords associated with each journal. The objective of this research paper is to identify the top authors in the MIS field and then evaluate how their work has influenced other disciplines. Our analysis will begin with an overview of the main contributors to the MIS
Author Publication
As the discipline of information systems has developed over the years, the influence of our selected authors has grown. The graph below describes the number of yearly publications for the researchers being evaluated in this paper starting in the 1960s.
Two main factors contribute to the temporal growth presented in the graphic: Researchers have developed research careers and gained notoriety, which led to an increase in publications over time. As we will discuss in detail later, the influence of MIS on other disciplines increased leading to an increase in publication outlets.
Interestingly, the year-by-year publication count takes on a familiar trend. The gradual increase in the number of publications, followed by dramatic peak to trough movements reflects the same trend as the S&P 500 stock index.
The diverse composite of the S&P 500 make it an excellent indicator of U.S. economic health. The correlation between the number of publications and the S&P 500 suggests that researchers are able to conduct and publish research in flourishing economic time periods. In hindsight, this seems obvious because of the availability of grant funding during strong market growth. Amusingly, the number of publications takes a significant drop in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s when the S&P was rising due to the Dot Com bubble. We speculate that the number of publications dropped because researchers were working with tech companies instead of publishing research.
Overall, the year-by-year comparison of publications demonstrates the influence of our information system researchers. Given the method used to derive the list of MIS researchers, the majority of their publication were in IS specific journals. As the discipline has progressed over the years, its influence on other disciplines continues to expand. For this study, we are interested in the breadth of influence of MIS.
The table below highlights where the researchers have published the majority of their research:
1 / MIS Quarterly / 163
2 / Journal of Management Information Systems / 141
3 / Information Systems Research / 100
4 / Decision Support Systems / 52
5 / Electronic Commerce Research and Applications / 50
6 / Communications of the ACM / 49
7 / System Sciences / 43
8 / Management Science / 37
When these outlets are removed from the dataset, we begin to see the breadth of influence MIS researchers have. The original dataset consisted of over 1,400 publications in more than 400 journals. The visualization below exhibits the influence of top researchers. Darker colors represent the number of publications in each journal.
When analyzing the outlying journals, we start to see contributions to a variety of disciplines including: Accounting, Marketing, Organization, Water Resource Management, Economics, Education, E-Commerce, Transportation, Health Care, and Psychology. This demonstrates the scope of influence even a small subset of MIS researchers have on a variety of disciplines. This was not always the case for MIS researcher. As the field evolved over time its influence and acceptance in other disciplines has increased.
MIS Change Over Time
The Series of images below show the growing influence of MIS research over time. Each bubble represents the journal top MIS researchers published. The larger the bubble the more publications in that particular journal. The links between the journals are based on keywords extracted from the name of each publication:
1960’s
1970’s
1980’s
1990’s
2000’s
Two key interesting trends can be observed in these visualizations: as MIS matures, it has evolved away from a dependence on the journals of other fields and, the universe of outlets continued to expand, both within MIS and without. Major MIS journals are now surrounded by a variety of sub-disciplines encompassing MIS as a whole. Yet, even with this expanding universe of specialty journals, MIS researcher still contribute broadly to multiple diciplines.
Journal Categories
To further determine the influences on information system research, we categorized each journal. Our ontology consisted of 47 categories including: accounting, business administration, environment, government, health care, logistics, negotiations, manufacturing, marketing, phycology, sociology, and statistics. Journals were tagged with multiple categories depending on the description offered by the journal’s website. Multiple tags and the volume of journals allowed us to create a network map demonstrating the variety of influence and the relationships between each category. Each node in the network diagram below represents a different category. The closer nodes are to each other, the stronger the interdisciplinary research.
Overall, MIS researchers have had a most noticeable presence in Business Administration, Economics, Operations, Decision Science, Accounting, E-Commerce, Health Care, Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, Education, and Sociology.
Co-Authors
Along with analyzing the breadth of research by top MIS authors, we also looked at cross collaboration between co-authors. Our intension was to determine the extent that top MIS researchers work with each other as well as other scientists. Our evaluation revealed that most top authors publish with a distinct subset of authors. Cross collaboration was minimal.
Each of the larger spheres in the image represents our selected researchers. The surrounding clusters and smaller spheres represent co-authors. As the image shows, most top authors collaborate with only a small subset of researchers. Interestingly, Andrew Whinston, the larger green sphere, shows the most collaboration with other top researchers and has diversified work with lesser known scientists.
Conclusion
We set out to define the discipline of MIS through the identification of disciplines not directly related to information technology. Our analysis revealed that as MIS has grown as a discipline, it has been influenced by and also influenced a variety of other fields. These include health care, psychology, sociology, and education. Although we studied only a small subset of MIS researchers, we believe that their work is an indication of the direction of MIS. The exponential growth of technology has solidified the need for a bridge between technologist and end-user. Our findings demonstrate that MIS research has contributed to filling the void. As more and more disciplines and industries have voiced a need for effectiveness and efficiency through technology, MIS researchers have provided the structure necessary for successful implementation. We believe MIS has value in all areas of business and study. Our discipline is relatively young and its impact on real-world problem solving will continue expand.
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Appendix A: Author Biographies
Ritu Agarwal
Professor and Robert H. Smith Dean’s Chair of Information SystemsRobert H. Smith School of Business
The University of Maryland, College Park /
Year / Degree / Major / Institution
1988 / PhD / Management Information Systems / Syracuse University
1988
1984 / Masters / Computer Science
MBA / Syracuse University
Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta
1982 / Bachelors / Mathematics / St. Stephen's College, Delhi University
Biography
Prof. Ritu Agarwal is Professor and the Dean’s Chair of Information Systems at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park. Prof. Agarwal has evolved her interest in the use of information technologies in healthcare settings into an institutional effort. She and her colleagues started CHIDS to provide an independent third party research platform and organization that could build knowledge and insights into the complex domains of health information and decision systems. In addition to health information technology, Prof. Agarwal’s current research in the area of information technology management is focused on technology-enabled transformations in various industry sectors and the evolving effects of electronic markets. Prof. Agarwal has published extensively on information technology management topics in several top journals, and has made multiple presentations at industry and academic forums.
IzakBenbasat
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Information Technology ManagementThe University of British Columbia /
Year / Degree / Major / Institution
1974 / PhD / Management Information Systems / University of Minnesota
1971 / Masters / Management Information Systems / University of Minnesota
1969 / Bachelors / Marketing / Robert College, Istanbul
Biography
Prof. IzakBenbasat Ph.D. is a fellow of the Fellow, Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences). He is a CANADA Research Chair in Information Technology Management at Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Canada. He has a Ph.D. in Management Information Systems (MIS) from the University of Minnesota. His research interests includes:
Evaluating human-computer interfaces, specifically how to design web-based interfaces to facilitate business-to-consumer electronic commerce;
Investigating the role of explanations in intelligent support systems in improving user productivity and knowledge transfer to users; and
Measuring IT-related competencies, namely, IT knowledge in line managers and business competence in IT professionals, and their impact on the effective deployment of IT.
The general theme that links his areas of research interest is improving the communication between IT, management, and users of technology.
Robert O. Briggs
Professor of Management Information Systems, Director of Doctoral Studies, Management Information Systems DepartmentSan Diego State University /
Year / Degree / Major / Institution
1994 / PhD / Management Information Systems / University of Arizona
1987 / Masters / MBA Information Systems emphasis / San Diego State University
1986
1986 / Bachelors / Art History
Information Systems / San Diego State University
San Diego State University
Biography
Robert O. Briggs, Ph.D. (University of Arizona, 1994). Dr. Briggs studies the cognitive foundations of collaboration and applies his findings to the design and deployment of collaboration systems. He is co-founder of the field of Collaboration Engineering and co-inventor of the ThinkLets design pattern language for collaborative work practices. He has made theoretical contributions on group productivity, ideation, creativity, consensus, change, technology transition, and satisfaction. He is currently working to reduce military decision cycles with collaboration systems and to reduce the dropout rate among K12 learners-at-risk with collaborative learning techniques, with a focus on technical and cognitive challenges for transferring engineered work practices to non-experts without training on either the techniques or technologies.
Eric K. Clemons
Professor of Operations and Information Management and Area Coordinator, Information, Strategy, and EconomicsThe Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania /
Year / Degree / Major / Institution
1976 / PhD / Operations Research / Cornell University
1974 / Masters / Operations Research / Cornell University
1970 / Bachelors / Physics / Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Biography
Dr. Eric K. Clemons is Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. A pioneer in the systematic study of the transformational impacts of information on the strategy and practice of business, his research and teaching interests include strategic uses of information systems, information economics, and the changes enabled by information technology.
Alok Gupta
Curtis L. Carlson Schoolwide Chair in Information ManagementDepartment Chair, Dept. of IDSc, Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota /
Year / Degree / Major / Institution
1996 / PhD / Management Science and
Information Systems / University of Texas Austin
1991 / Masters / Mine Electrical Systems / Pennsylvania State University
1988 / Bachelors / Mining Engineering / Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Biography
Alok Gupta is Curtis L. Carlson Schoolwide Chair in Information Management and Chair of Information and Decision Sciences at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. His research has been published in various information systems, economics, and computer science journals such as Management Science, ISR, MIS Quarterly, CACM, JMIS, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Computational Economics, Decision Support Systems, and IEEE Internet Computing. In addition, his articles have been published in several leading books in the area of economics of electronic commerce. He was awarded a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for his research on dynamic pricing mechanisms on the internet. From 1999-2001, he served as co-director of Treibick Electronic Commerce Initiative (TECI), an endowed research initiative at Dept. of OPIM, University of Connecticut. He is also an affiliate of the Center for Research in Electronic Commerce (CREC) at the University of Texas at Austin. He serves as Senior Editor for ISR and an Associate Editor for Management Science. He also serves on the editorial boards of JMIS, DSS and Brazilian Electronic Journal of Economics. He has been serving as Publisher of MIS Quarterly since 2005. He teaches courses in the areas of computer networking, electronic commerce, decision support, IT infrastructure, and computer programming at the undergraduate, MBA and Ph.D. levels.