A Call for Interdisciplinarity in Information Systems Research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66450/sim.v30i3.02Keywords:
Interdisciplinarity, Discipline, Information systems, Critical theory, Methodology, FeminismAbstract
The present article defends the notion of interdisciplinarity in the realm of information systems research. The study commences with an examination of the notion of discipline and disciplinary exchange. This paper sets out to trace the history of the discipline of information systems, based on three criteria: the subject of study, the method, and the institutionalization (of the information systems community). The paper highlights the fact that interdisciplinarity has remained a minority approach. It is demonstrated that in the contemporary era, interdisciplinarity has become imperative in addressing pressing issues, including those related to climate change and equality. Furthermore, the assertion of interdisciplinarity in relation to other fields of study is also discussed. Finally, although the path is rife with obstacles, a research agenda focused on interdisciplinarity is proposed.
References
Abbas, R., Michael, K., Conboy, K., Janssen, M., Dwivedi, Y. K., Veloutsou, C., ... & Dubey, R. (2023). Publishing for impact: Interdisciplinary reflections. IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, 4(3), 201-217.
Alter, S. (2008). Defining information systems as work systems: Implications for the IS field. Euro-pean Journal of Information Systems, 17(5), 448-469.
Avison, D., & Fitzgerald, G. (2012). Reflections and opinions on 25 years with the ISJ. Information Systems Journal, 22(3), 179-193.
Baiyere, A., Grover, V., Lyytinen, K. J., Woerner, S., & Gupta, A. (2023). Digital “x”—Charting a path for digital-themed research. Information Systems Research, 34(2), 463-486.
Baskerville, R., & Pries-Heje, J. (1999). Grounded action research: a method for understanding IT in practice. Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, 9(1), 1-23.
Baskerville, R. L., & Myers, M. D. (2002). Information systems as a reference discipline. MIS Quar-terly, 26(1), 1-14.
Baskerville, R. L., Myers, M. D., & Yoo, Y. (2020). Digital first: The ontological reversal and new challenges for IS research. MIS Quarterly, 44(1), 1-17.
Benbasat, I., & Zmud, R. (2003). The crisis identity within the IS discipline: Defining and com-municating the discipline’s core properties. MIS Quarterly, 27(2), 187-194.
Benbya, H., Nan, N., Tanriverdi, H., & Yoo, Y. (2020). Complexity and information systems re-search in the emerging digital world. MIS Quarterly, 44(1), 1-17.
Blanckaert, C. (2006). La discipline en perspective. Le système des sciences à l’heure du spécialisme (XIXe-XXe siècle). Qu’est-ce qu’une discipline, 117-150.
Boell, S. K., & Cecez-Kecmanovic, D. (2015). What is an information system? 48th Hawaii Interna-tional Conference on System Sciences (pp. 4959-4968). IEEE.
Boullier, Dominique. (2022). Puissance des plateformes numériques, territoires et souverainetés. (2e édition, Research Paper). Chaire Numérique, Sciences Po.
Bourdon, J. (2011). L’interdisciplinarité n’existe pas. Questions de Communication, 19, 155-170.
Burgess, T. F., Grimshaw, P., & Shaw, N. E. (2017). Research commentary—Diversity of the infor-mation systems research field: A journal governance perspective. Information Systems Research, 28(1), 5-21.
Brynjolfsson, E., Li, D., & Raymond, L. (2025). Generative AI at work. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(2), 889-942.
Callon, M. (1990). L’évaluation interdisciplinaire et sa gestion. In Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Actes du colloque Carrefour des sciences, 75-83.
Castillo, J. M., Galy, E., & Thérouanne, P. (2023). Le technostress et sa relation avec la charge mentale en contexte professionnel. Psychologie du Travail et des Organisations, 29(4), 197-213.
Cecez-Kecmanovic, D., Galliers, R. D., Henfridsson, O., Newell, S., & Vidgen, R. (2014). The sociomateriality of information systems. MIS Quarterly, 38(3), 809-830.
Chatterjee, S., Sarker, S., Lee, M. J., Xiao, X., & Elbanna, A. (2021). A possible conceptualization of the information systems (IS) artifact: A general systems theory perspective. Information Systems Journal, 31(4), 550-578.
Cheikh-Ammar, M. (2018). The IT artifact and its spirit: A nexus of human values, affordances, symbolic expressions, and IT features. European Journal of Information Systems, 27(3), 278-294.
Chotia, V., Khoualdi, K., Broccardo, L., & Yaqub, M. Z. (2025). The role of cybersecurity and digital transformation in gaining a competitive advantage through Strategic Management Accounting. Technology in Society, 81, 102851.
Chughtai, H., Myers, M., Young, A. G., Borsa, T., Cardo, V., Demirkol, O., ... & Özkula, S. M. (2020). Demarginalizing interdisciplinarity in IS research: Interdisciplinary research in marginaliza-tion. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 46(1), 296-315.
Córdoba, J. R., Pilkington, A., & Bernroider, E. W. (2012). Information systems as a discipline in the making: Comparing EJIS and MISQ between 1995 and 2008. European Journal of Information Systems, 21(5), 479-495. https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2011.58
Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008
Davison, R. M., & Díaz Andrade, A. (2018). Promoting indigenous theory. Information Systems Journal, 28(5), 759-764. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12189
Davison, R. M., & Tarafdar, M. (2018). Shifting baselines in information systems research threaten our future relevance. Information Systems Journal, 28(4), 593-600. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12178
Davison, R. M., & Martinsons, M. G. (2011). Methodological practice and policy for organisationally and socially relevant IS research: an inclusive–exclusive perspective. Journal of Information Tech-nology, 26(4), 288-293.
Davison, R. M., Martinsons, M. G., & Malaurent, J. (2021). Research perspectives : Improving ac-tion research by integrating methods. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 22(3), 851-873.
De Vaujany, F. X., Walsh, I., & Mitev, N. (2011). An historically grounded critical analysis of re-search articles in IS. European Journal of Information Systems, 20(4), 395-417. https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2011.12
De Vaujany, F. X., & Mitev, N. (2015). Introduction au tournant matériel en théories des organisa-tions. Economica.
Desq, S., Fallery, B., Reix, R., & Rodhain, F. (2002). 25 ans de recherche en systèmes d’information. Systèmes d’Information & Management, 7(3), 5-31.
Dominici, A., Boncinelli, F., Gerini, F., & Marone, E. (2021). Determinants of online food purchas-ing: The impact of socio-demographic and situational factors. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 60, 102473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102473
Fabiani, J. L. (2006). À quoi sert la notion de discipline ? Qu’est-ce qu’une discipline, 11-34.
Farhoomand, A., & Drury, D. H. (2001). Diversity and scientific progress in the information systems discipline. The Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 5(1), 17. https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.00517
Feyerabend, P. (1975). Contre la méthode : Esquisse d'une théorie anarchiste de la connaissance. (B. Jurdant & A. Schlumberger, Trad. 1995). Seuil
Fosso-Wamba, S., & Guthrie, C. (2024). Artificial intelligence and industry 4.0 and 5.0: a biblio-metric study and research agenda. Procedia Computer Science, 239, 718-725.
Galliers, R. D. (2003). Change as crisis or growth? Toward a trans-disciplinary view of information systems as a field of study: A response to Benbasat and Zmud's call for returning to the IT artifact. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 4(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00034
Godefroid, M. E., Borghoff, V., Plattfaut, R., & Niehaves, B. (2024). Structural power imbalances in global organisations : analysing IT governance from a postcolonial perspective. European Journal of Information Systems, 1-22.
Goyal, S., Ahuja, M., & Guan, J. (2018). Information systems research themes: A seventeen-year data-driven temporal analysis. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 43(1), 23. https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.04323
Graybill, J. K., & Shandas, V. (2010). Doctoral student and early career academic perspectives. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity, 404-418.
Grover, V., & Lyytinen, K. (2015). New state of play in information systems research. MIS Quarter-ly, 39(2), 271-296. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2015/39.2.01
Grover, V., Gokhale, R., Lim, J., Coffey, J., & Ayyagari, R. (2006). A citation analysis of the evolu-tion and state of information systems within a constellation of reference disciplines. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 7(1), 13. https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00107
Guan, Z., Hou, F., Li, B., Phang, C. W., & Chong, A. Y. L. (2022). What influences the purchase of virtual gifts in live streaming in China? A cultural context‐sensitive model. Information Systems Journal, 32(3), 653-689.
Guhr, N., Werth, O., Passlick, J., & Breitner, M. H. (2023). Trends of top IS research by region, outlet, and emergence: A semi-automated literature review. Information, 14, 94. https://doi.org/10.3390/info14020094
Hassan, N. R. (2014). Value of IS research: Is there a crisis? Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 34(1), 41. https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.03441
Hassan, N. R., Mingers, J., & Stahl, B. (2018). Philosophy and information systems: Where are we and where should we go? European Journal of Information Systems, 27(3), 263-277. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2018.1435235
Hirschheim, R., & Klein, H. K. (2012). A glorious and not-so-short history of the information sys-tems field. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 13(4), 5.
Hooks, B. (2014). Black looks: Race and representation. Routledge.
Houzé, E., & Meissonier, R. (2018). Sociomatérialité contre sociomatérialité: dépasser un clivage par l'affordance de la technologie. Association Information et Management.
Hovorka, D. S. (2010). Moving beyond IS identity: Concepts and discourses. In Proceedings of Inter-national Conference on Information Systems 2010.
Iivari, J. (2017). Information system artefact or information system application: That is the question. Information Systems Journal, 27(6), 753-774.
Iivari, J. (2023, July). Inductive empiricism, theory specialization and scientific idealization in IS theory building. Association for Information Systems.
Ives, B., Hamilton, S., & Davis, G. B. (1980). A framework for research in computer-based man-agement information systems. Management Science, 26(9), 910-934.
Jeyaraj, A., & Zadeh, A. H. (2020). Evolution of information systems research: Insights from topic modeling. Information & Management, 57(4), 103207.
Kane, G. C., Young, A. G., Majchrzak, A., & Ransbotham, S. (2021). Avoiding an oppressive future of machine learning: A design theory for emancipatory assistants. MIS Quarterly, 45(1), 371-396.
Keen, P. G. (1980). MIS research: Reference disciplines and a cumulative tradition. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems.
Kleinpeter, É. (2013). Taxinomie critique de l'interdisciplinarité. Hermès, (3), 123-129.
Kotlarsky, J., Oshri, I., & Sekulic, N. (2023). Digital sustainability in information systems research: Conceptual foundations and future directions. Journal of the Association for Information Sys-tems, 24(4), 936-952.
Korff-Sausse, S. (2004). Pour une transversalité dans la recherche. Recherches en psychanalyse, (1), 119-130.
Kreps, D. (2018). Against nature: The metaphysics of information systems. Routledge.
Ketter, W., Padmanabhan, B., Pant, G., & Santanam, R. (2017). Addressing societal challenges through analytics. Journal of the Association for Information Systems.
Krishen, A. S., Dwivedi, Y. K., Bindu, N., & Kumar, K. S. (2021). A broad overview of interactive digital marketing: A bibliometric network analysis. Journal of Business Research, 131, 183-195.
Kuhn, T. S., & Biezunski, M. (1990). La tension essentielle : tradition et changement dans les sciences. Paris : Gallimard.
Laflamme, S. (2021). Rationalité scientifique, disciplinarité et interdisciplinarité. Nouvelles perspec-tives en sciences sociales, 16(2), 201-236.
Lee, A. S. (2011). IS research methods: Inclusive or exclusive? Journal of Information Technology, 26(4), 296-298.
Lee, A. S., Thomas, M., & Baskerville, R. L. (2015). Going back to basics in design science: From the information technology artifact to the information systems artifact. Information Systems Journal, 25(1), 5-21.
Leonardi, P. M. (2013). Theoretical foundations for the study of sociomateriality. Information and Organization, 23(2), 59-76.
Lévi-Strauss Cl., 1958, Anthropologie structurale, Paris, Plon.
Liu, Y., Li, H., Goncalves, J., Kostakos, V., & Xiao, B. (2016). Fragmentation or cohesion? Visual-izing the process and consequences of information system diversity, 1993-2012. European Journal of Information Systems, 25(6), 509-533.
Louvel, S. (2015). Ce que l'interdisciplinarité fait aux disciplines. Revue française de sociologie, 56(1), 75-103.
Lyytinen, K., & King, J. L. (2004). Nothing at the center? Academic legitimacy in the information systems field. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 5(6), 8.
Masiero, S. (2023). Decolonising critical information systems research: A subaltern approach. Infor-mation Systems Journal, 33(2), 299-323.
Marcovich, A., & Shinn, T. (2011). Where is disciplinarity going? Meeting on the borderland. Social Science Information, 50(3-4), 582-606.
McBride, N. (2018). Is information systems a science? Communications of the Association for Infor-mation Systems, 43(1), 163-174.
Michel, S., & Michaud-Trévinal, A. (2022). XXII. Donna Haraway. Les savoirs situés : Pour une pratique scientifique partielle et relationnelle. In Les grands auteurs aux frontières du management (pp. 281-294). EMS Editions.
Monteiro, E., Constantinides, P., Scott, S., Shaikh, M., & Burton-Jones, A. (2022). Editor’s Com-ments: Qualitative research methods in Information Systems: A call for Phenomen-focused Prob-lematization. MIS Quarterly 1 December 2022 ; 46 (4) : i–xviii.
Morin, E. (1994). Sur l’interdisciplinarité. Bulletin interactif du Centre international de recherches et études transdisciplinaires, 2(2).
Myers, M. D., & Avison, D. (Eds.). (2002). Qualitative research in information systems: a reader. Sage.
Nambisan, S. (2003). Information systems as a reference discipline for new product development. MIS Quarterly, 27(1), 1-18.
Newell, S., & Galliers, R. D. (2000). More than a footnote: The perils of multidisciplinary research collaboration. AMCIS 2000 Proceedings, 304.
Nourrit-Lucas, D. (2023). Comment penser l'interdisciplinarité en pratique ? Une question de disposition, d’indisciplinarité et de complexité. Journal of Interdisciplinary Methodologies and Issues in Sciences.
Orlikowski, W. J. (1992). The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organization Science, 3(3), 398-427.
Orlikowski, W. J. (2010). The sociomateriality of organisational life: Considering technology in management research. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34(1), 125-141.
Orlikowski, W. J., & Baroudi, J. J. (1991). Studying information technology in organizations: Research approaches and assumptions. Information Systems Research, 2(1), 1-28.
Oswick, C., Fleming, P., & Hanlon, G. (2011). From borrowing to blending: Rethinking the processes of organizational theory building. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 318-337.
Oustinoff, M. (2013). (In)discipline et interdisciplinarité: des mots aux choses. Hermès, (3), 21-24.
Palvia, P., Daneshvar Kakhki, M., Ghoshal, T., Uppala, V., & Wang, W. (2015). Methodological and topic trends in information systems research: A meta-analysis of IS journals. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 37(1), 30.
Papon, P. (2023). L’interdisciplinarité. Voyages au-delà des disciplines. In S. Blanc, M. Bouzeghoub, & M. Knoop (Eds.), CNRS Éditions. Futuribles, 454(3), 114-116.
Parmiggiani, E., Teracino, E. A., Huysman, M., Jones, M., Mueller, B., & Mikalsen, M. (2020). OASIS 2019 panel report: A glimpse at the “post-Digital”. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 47(1), 583-596.
Paul, R. J. (2007). Challenges to information systems: Time to change. European Journal of Information Systems, 16(3), 193-195.
Peaucelle, J.-L. (2001). La recherche française en systèmes d’information, comparaison avec les États-Unis. Systèmes d’Information & Management, 6(3), 5-30.
Pfirman, S., & Martin, P. J. (2010). Facilitating interdisciplinary scholars. In R. Frodeman (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity (pp. 387-403). Oxford University Press.
Pries-Heje, J., Baskerville, R., Ramesh, B., & Levine, L. (2008). Advances in information systems development: From discipline and predictability to agility and improvisation. In IFIP World Computer Congress, TC 8 (pp. 53-75). Springer US.
Rai, A. (2018). Editor’s comments: Beyond outdated labels: The blending of IS research traditions. MIS Quarterly, 42(3), iii-viii.
Robey, D. (2003). Identity, legitimacy and the dominant research paradigm: An alternative prescription for the IS discipline: A response to Benbasat and Zmud's call for returning to the IT artifact. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 4(1), 15.
Rowe, F. (2018). Being critical is good, but better with philosophy! From digital transformation and values to the future of IS research. European Journal of Information Systems, 27(3), 380-393.
Sarker, S., Palvia, P., Oguz, A., Wu, C., & Xiao, X. (2020). A brief retrospective (2013-2019). Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 20(12), 1.
Sedooka, A., Steffen, G., Paulsen, T., & Darbellay, F. (2015). Paradoxe identitaire et interdisciplinarité : Un regard sur les identités disciplinaires des chercheurs. Natures Sciences Sociétés, 23(4), 367-377.
Sénac, C. E. (2011, October). Les typologies de la recherche interdisciplinaire. Usages de l’interdisciplinarité en droit., Nanterre, France. hal-01535590v2
Seyedghorban, Z., Tahernejad, H., Meriton, R., & Graham, G. (2020). Supply chain digitalization: Past, present and future. Production Planning & Control, 31(2-3), 96-114.
Sidorova, A., Evangelopoulos, N., Valacich, J. S., & Ramakrishnan, T. (2008). Uncovering the intellectual core of the information systems discipline. MIS Quarterly, 32(3), 467-482.
Siponen, M., & Tsohou, A. (2020). Demystifying the Influential IS Legends of Positivism: Response to Lee’s Commentary. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 21(6), 1653-1659. https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00650
Siponen, M., & Klaavuniemi, T. (2021). Demystifying beliefs about the natural sciences in information systems. Journal of Information Technology, 36(1), 56-68.
Stein, M.-K., Galliers, R. D., & Whitley, E. A. (2016). Twenty years of the European information systems academy at ECIS: Emergent trends and research topics. European Journal of Information Systems, 25(1), 1-15.
Stock, P., & Burton, R. J. (2011). Defining terms for integrated (multi-inter-trans-disciplinary) sustainability research. Sustainability, 3(8), 1090-1113.
Struijk, M., Ou, C. X., Davison, R. M., & Angelopoulos, S. (2021). Putting the IS back into IS research. Information Systems Journal, 32(3) 469-472.
Straub, D. (2010). Editor's comments: MISQ, Inc. or an online collective? Is there a journal person-ality and what it means for authors. MIS Quarterly, 34(2), iii-viii.
Strohmeier, S. (2020). Digital human resource management: A conceptual clarification. German Journal of Human Resource Management, 34(2), 345-364.
Tarafdar, M., & Davison, R. M. (2018). Research in information systems: Intra-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 19(6), 2.
Tarafdar, M., Shan, G., Bennett Thatcher, J., & Gupta, A. (2022). Intellectual diversity in IS re-search: Discipline-based conceptualization and an illustration from information systems research. Information systems research, 33(4), 1490-1510.
Thompson Klein, J. (2011). Une taxinomie de l’interdisciplinarité. Nouvelles perspectives en sciences sociales, 7(1), 15-48.
Treiblmaier, H., Burton-Jones, A., Gregor, S., Hirschheim, R., Myers, M., & Stafford, T. (2018). Against Method and Anything Goes? A Critical Discussion Based on the Strange Ideas from Paul Feyerabend on Whether Epistemological Anarchy Can Benefit IS Research. Panel, Thirty ninth International Conference on Information Systems, San Francisco 2018.
Van Dijck, José, Poell, Thomas & De Waal, Martijn. (2022). The Platform Society as a Contested Concept: Platforms, Institutions, and Governance. Philosophy & Technology, 35, Article 56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00566-7
Venkatesh, V., Brown, S. A., & Bala, H. (2013). Bridging the qualitative-quantitative divide: Guide-lines for conducting mixed methods research in information systems. MIS Quarterly, 37(1), 21-54.
Vinck, D. (2000). Pratiques de l'interdisciplinarité (p. 221). Presses universitaires de Grenoble, Col-lection « Génie Industriel ».
Vinck, D. (2009). Construction des sciences et des disciplines scientifiques : question pour la re-cherche en soins infirmiers. Recherches en soins infirmiers, (3), 5-11.
Wade, M., Biehl, M., & Kim, H. (2006). Information systems is not a reference discipline (and what we can do about it). Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 7(1), 14.
Wolff, B., Kelter, L., Schlagwein, D., & Schoder, D. (2022). Is information systems research con-cerned with societal grand challenges? In ECIS.
Zhang, Y., Ge, L., Xiao, L., Zhang, M., & Liu, S. (2021). A bibliometric review of information sys-tems research from 1975-2018: Setting an agenda for IS research. Journal of Global Information Ma-nagement (JGIM), 29(6), 1-24.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
The author bears the responsibility for checking whether material submitted is subject to copyright or ownership rights (e.g. figures, tables, photographs, illustrations, trade literature and data). The author will need to obtain permission to reproduce any such items, and include these permissions with their final submission.
It is our policy to ask all contributors to transfer for free the copyright in their contribution to the journal owner. There are two broad reasons for this:
- ownership of copyright by the journal owner facilitates international protection against infringement of copyright, libel or plagiarism;
- it also ensures that requests by third parties to reprint or reproduce a contribution, or part of it, in either print or electronic form, are handled efficiently in accordance with our general policy which encourages dissemination of knowledge within the framework of copyright.
In conformity with the French law, the author keeps the 'moral rights' related to the article:
- The 'authorship right': It is the author's right to have his name associated with each publication and exploitation of the article.
- The 'integrity right': It can be claimed by the author if he finds that during an exploitation, his work has been distorted (cutting, reassembly...).
