Under What Conditions is IS Research Relevant to Practice? An Analysis of IS Scholars Who Are Mentioned or Cited Often in Trade Magazines and the General Media

The issue of rigor and relevance has been a longstanding topic of discussion and debate within many areas of business. Among disciplines that are more established than IS, such as marketing and accounting, scholars continue to debate whether academic research has any direct value to managers or employees. Not surprisingly, in disciplines that are much younger – such as IS and entrepreneurship – these questions have also arisen. We bring scientometric methods to bear on the topic. Defining relevance as the mention of IS research and IS researchers in mainstream business magazines and newspapers, we employ a host of methods to identify the extent to which IS research and researchers are mentioned in the mainstream media. Our study identified some individuals who are frequently mentioned or cited, namely IS scholars who have assumed nontraditional roles working on government panels (in the case of Mary Culnan of Bentley University) or as journalists in the popular press of trade magazines (in the case of M.S. Krishnan, University of Michigan and Prabhudev Konana, University of Texas). With the exception of these highly-visible scholars and several IS economists, few IS scholars receive much notice in trade magazines or in the general media. We conclude with suggestions for investigating various types of relevance.