Information systems research has long been an area of interest for researchers as it started evolving as a discipline with its own identity, since the late 20th century, since the early 1970s. IS scholars had been researching and teaching a set of diverse topics associated with information technologies, IT infrastructures and IT-enabled business solutions (i.e., information systems), and the immediate antecedents and consequences of these information systems (e.g., managing, planning, designing, building, modifying, implementing, supporting, and/or assessing IT-based systems that serve, directly or indirectly, practical purposes), ever since IS evolved as a discipline of its own. Ever since the inception IS research has evolved to incorporate more contemporary areas of research in the recent times. This paper attempts to analyze the research trends in information systems research in contemporary times, by analyzing publications for 8 years, of the top three academic journals in the discipline.

In this paper, the abstracts of the publications in the top 3 information systems research journals have been studied, namely, “MIS Quarterly”, “Information Systems Research” and “Journal of Management Information Systems” from the period 2002 to 2009, to assess the trend of IS research and the shift that is happening in recent times amongst quality IS researchers. For accomplishing the same, the abstracts of over 950 articles have been studied and analyzed, from these journals, to understand the change in research focus.
To analyze the immediate past research trends, the publications of 2002 till 2006 have been analyzed to understand the trends in the mind set of researchers. Based on qualitative analysis, the research trends of these 5 years are being captured in this paper. This has been contrasted with the research focus in current times, as is depicted by the publications in these journals in current times, from 2007 till 2009. For doing so, the publication abstracts of these 3 years (till March 2009) have been analyzed. Based on the publications in these three academic journals for around 8 years, an attempt has been taken to predict the type of research and publications which will be seen amongst IS researchers in the next few years, particularly in these three journals.
Based on the analysis made, from studying the abstracts of over 950 papers published in the three journals, the future of studies in information systems research appears bright with a lot of meaningful contribution with both academic relevance to IS research as a discipline and industry relevance for practice. From this analysis, it appears that there would be renewed vigor in research in forthcoming years in varied streams, which would try to improve IS as a discipline and help further in its evolution as a matured area of study. Also, there would be a lot of focus on the implications of newer technology on overall business settings as they get more popular and mature for usage in firms. These studies would address the business implication of such revolutionary technologies, for example, the internet, on the overall firm’s competitiveness, value and strategy.To read the full paper CLICK HERE. This is a must read for all researchers venturing into the area of business research in the field of Information Systems.

By Kar

Dr. Kar works in the interface of digital transformation and data science. Professionally a professor in one of the top B-Schools of Asia and an alumni of XLRI, he has extensive experience in teaching, training, consultancy and research in reputed institutes. He is a regular contributor of Business Fundas and a frequent author in research platforms. He is widely cited as a researcher. Note: The articles authored in this blog are his personal views and does not reflect that of his affiliations.