The reality of information systems research - Information Systems Foundations: Constructing and Criticising - page 26

We assert that the artefacts of research (i.e. journal articles and other publications) are
real, having an existence outside the cognition of their authors and readers. The question
then arises as to how we can categorise these objects.
The method of this paper is as follows:
1.

First, we establish that the information systems research domain is diverse.

2. Second, we examine the applicability of philosophical ontology as a tool to explore

the diverse categorisation of the reality of information systems research and its
community; in particular, the nature of the real artefacts, how people relate to that
reality, and to identify a philosophy upon which to build methods for analysis.

Characterising information systems research
There are a number of publications dealing with what information systems are, and what
information systems research is. From these papers, a number of common findings emerge:
1. There is often debate on what information systems is (Ives, et al., 1980; Seddon,
1991; Shanks, et al., 1993; Parker, et al., 1994; Holsapple, et al., 1994);
2. Information systems (IS) has many foundation or reference disciplines (Keen, 1991;
Seddon, 1991; Avison, 1993; Holsapple, et al., 1994; Parker, et al., 1994; Walczak,
1999; Galliers, 2004);
3. IS is located in different university faculties (Avison, 1993; Holsapple, et al., 1994);
4. IS is perceived as weak on theory (Keen, 1991; Avison, 1993; Straub, et al., 1994;
Gregor, 2002);
5. IS is perceived as practice dominated (Hurt, et al., 1986; Keen, 1991; Avison, 1993,
Shanks, et al., 1993);
6. IS uses many different research methodologies, models or frameworks (Ives, et al.,
1980; Avison, 1993, Shanks, et al., 1993; Holsapple, et al., 1994; Parker, et al., 1994;
Straub, et al., 1994; Baskerville and Wood-Harper, 1998; Fitzgerald and Howcroft,
1998; Galliers, 2004).
The authors clearly perceive that both the nature and scope of the information systems
domain are diverse; the approaches to researching information systems are diverse; the
approaches to teaching information systems are diverse and that there is a lack of any
single clear theoretical basis for the study of information systems.
The information systems research literature is characterised by only token adoption of
any form of subject categorisation, whether proposed as specific to the information
systems discipline or imported, with or without adoption, from one of the reference
disciplines (Lamp and Milton, 2003). The degree to which an information system is ad-
opted by users has long been used as a determinant of success (DeLone and McLean,
1992) and, in like manner, the lack of adoption of existing categorisation schemes may
be seen as an indication of the failure of those subject categorisation schemes.
All of the subject categorisation schemes that have been applied to the information sys-
tems domain have had simple hierarchical structures, enforcing a single view of inform-
ation systems subject categorisation. It could be hypothesised that such a single structured
subject categorisation scheme is inadequate to capture the diversity inherent in the in-
formation systems domain, resulting in the lack of significant uptake of any of these
schemes.
How then can this diversity be expressed in a categorisation scheme? Systems theorists
(Ackoff and Emery, 1972; Checkland, 1981; Churchman, 1979) have identified the need
to account for diversity, whether expressed as perspectives or as world views, in the