Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The general recognition of information systems design as a legitimate field of inquiry may
be based on an interpretation that this is a form of computing research, broadly conceived. In
conducting such work, a university is seen to traffic in contemporary scholarship of importance to
society and its economic drivers. However, to many of us, what is really interesting about information
systems is less the technological component and more the human or social aspects that underlie the
study of systems use and impact. The very ubiquity that makes disciplinary ownership of information
research so difficult to pinpoint becomes, in another light, the motivator for studying human behavior
in this context, offering perhaps the greatest potential for building bridges between MIS and HCI.
Interdisciplinary sharing is no easy matter. Concepts that are familiar and routinely used in one
discipline may trigger confusion or misunderstanding in another. Expectations or standards of
evidence or theory building differ, and what constitutes an important question in one area may be
deemed irrelevant or of secondary concern in the other. MIS is arguably more theoretically
advanced than HCI, where there has been a longstanding debate about the real value of theory to
designers (e.g., Landauer, 1991), though one might counter that the form of theory most used in
MIS is heavily borrowed from elsewhere and makes few original contributions to the science of
human activities. Perhaps most difficult to overcome is the publishing trajectory of each disci-
pline's researchers. Scholars tend to populate publishing niches: a fixed set of journals, confer-
ences, and networks where familiarity breeds communicative styles for inclusion and exclusion.
These niches serve as powerful gatekeepers that render both bridge building and bridge crossing
difficult. The reward structure in academia can lead to very narrow views of appropriate outlets
for work (e.g., Mylonopoulos and Theoharakis, 2001). MIS departments tend to have more con-
servative publishing expectations than their HCI equivalents, frequently hiring and promoting on
the basis of publication record in a rather narrow but specified range of “A” journals. The low
cross-citation pattern one observes between these and other fields is evidence of this. For real
intellectual synergy to occur, the common ground must be readily apparent and allow recognition
to follow.
FINDING COMMON GROUND
Emphasis within MIS is given to planning, designing, and implementing technical systems, examin-
ing the human acceptance and use of these systems, and then evaluating the consequences of use
for the organization involved. This is a broad terrain, especially as information systems have
evolved and their uses have expanded. Current MIS research covers topics that twenty years ago
were nonexistent (e.g., Galletta et al. [2004] on user tolerance of Web site delays, a paper that
would be seen by many as mainstream HCI research). As a result, there are multiple outlets for
MIS papers and distinct emphases within certain MIS schools on areas or types of IS research.
The core literature suggests the existence of a robust discipline, so much so that Baskerville and
Myers (2002) argue that it should serve as a model for other disciplines, even if MIS departments
occupy a unique space in terms of the lack of pressure on faculty to fund their research through
competitive grants. But even when a discipline's arrival seems agreed upon, there may always
be an identity crisis, as Benbasat and Zmud (2003) now claim exists in MIS as a result of over-
diversification. Indeed, Lyytinen and King (2004) argue that feelings of inadequacy within MIS
are almost as old as the discipline itself.
The terrain covered by MIS is at least partly mirrored by research in HCI, which involves itself
with the design and use of interactive technologies with a view to supporting the development of
more usable and humanly acceptable systems (Shackel, 1997). Indeed, HCI research over the
last twenty years has demonstrated wide-ranging interest in myriad technologies, often far from the
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