Discovering the Fundamentals of IS Discipline through AIS Basket Journal Citations (2008-2012)

Abstract

Discovering the fundamentals of Information Systems (IS) research is of benefit to both the IS community and the prospective IS practitioners. The purpose of this thesis was to explore the fundamentals of IS research by means of citation and Social Network Analysis (SNA) of all the articles published in the AIS basket of 8 journals between 2008-2012. Based on the systematic search from Scopus, we obtained a total of 1,205 articles containing 80,906 references. We then analysed this data in two units. In unit one, the references obtained from the articles were analysed with regard to discovering the research topics that IS researchers have addressed. We went ahead to discover the theoretical foundations of IS and the most influential IS papers. By means of citation analysis of the data obtained, we identified the top 10 influential IS papers. Using SNA techniques we identified 6 topics in combination with their theoretical foundations and models. The topics include Technology acceptance, Business value of IT investment, E-market strategy for competitive advantage, research methods, IS theory building and organizational structuring and finally quantitative methods. In unit two of this research we also analysed papers that cited one another only from among the 1,205 basket of 8 articles during the 5 year period on the basis of discovering topics in the current IS research. The results revealed research developments of new topics compared to those uncovered from the reference analysis. The findings of this study are relevant in providing a roadmap for IS future research in the IS community and prospective practitioners.