Evolution of Information Systems Research

The field of information systems (IS) has evolved along with the development of information technology and applications over the past twenty years. It is important to understand how the research issues have evolved in the past and what are the driving force underlying the evolution. An excellent area for exploring these issues can be found in research articles published in IS-related journals. We surveyed 3841 papers published between 1980 and 2001 in eight major IS journals. The papers were categorized according to their research themes and the theories they adopted. We found an increase in human-related research and a decline in systems-related research. Two major trends are identified: one driven by system design issues (1980-1993) and the other driven by human factors and system applications (1993-2001). Two underlying forces behind the research have been new technology development and organizational needs. Our examination of the theories used in the published papers revealed a substantial increase in human-related theories such as the technology acceptance model (TAM) and social cognitive theory (SCT) but a lack of attention to such systems theories as media richness theory and task-technology fit (TTF).