Our paper on Intellectual Diversity in IS research will appear in the December Issue of Information Systems Research (ISR).
The paper was led by Monideepa Tarafdar with support from Guohou (Jack) Shan, Alok Gupta, & myself.
The paper can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eS3FF5W3
The paper shows that over time topics & methods change in ISR. It also shows that many topics & methods do not appear on the pages of the journal.
Before one rushes to conclusions, that ISR excludes part of the Information Systems community - I encourage readers to step back - quell that impulse - & think about the big picture.
While this paper provides a snapshot of what one community of IS researchers attends to, it should not be interpreted as a sign of the narrowness of the journal or of the field.
Rather, ISR should be seen as part of a bricolage of communities that comprise a broader interdisciplinary discourse about how information systems & technologies shape, & are shaped by, sociotechnical systems.
Within that bricolage, there are places for many methods, topics, & types of analysis - with some journals more open to qualitative or design science & others more open to empirical or behavioral work.
What is needed, to assess the health of the bricolage is a systematic, broader review of Information Systems journals to assess the balance of topics & methods as well as where they appear.
When that is done, we will know the health of the broader discipline & its openness to ideas, methods, & genres of work.
In the interim, what about ISR?
Having served as a Senior Editor at ISR, I can say, unequivocally, that the journal is open to many topics & methods, including those that do not appear with great frequency.
Where at some journals, the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) will send editors a paper & ask them to desk reject it. I have never had the ISR EIC act in that way. I have only had the EIC ask me to give the paper a fair (swift) shake.
If the EIC is assigning the papers, & letting the senior editors make the calls, then why might a genre of papers appear to be over-represented?
Simply put, what appears on ISR's pages reflects the preferences of the community of editors, authors, & reviewers that support a journal.
Some communities support using one method; others reject it. Some value a particular style of writing; others reject it. Some value breakthrough ideas, while others reject them.
Every community & journal has preferences.
If people want ISR to change, the community around it will need to change - which. means more people will need to engage with the journal - by agreeing to review & submitting your best work.
As a senior editor, I'm committed to giving all authors a fair shake. I know that the new EIC (like the old one), shares that sentiment.
So please submit your papers.
Let's build a stronger information systems community!
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