Reviving the IT in the IS

As we approach our 22nd volume, the European Journal of Information Systems is a mature and successful scholarly outlet. The identity crises have waned. The scholarly readers seem to be comfortable with the idea of information systems (IS) as an academic discipline. Indeed, we are accustomed to the notion that a distinctive European viewpoint on IS is valuable.

For the IS field of study, the European viewpoint is regarded by many to entail a dominance of qualitative or interpretive research methodology. This dominance is frequently contrasted with a North American viewpoint that is regarded by many as dominated by quantitative or positivist research methodology. There is plenty of evidence for this contrast (e.g., most recently Córdoba et al, 2012). In my opinion, the North American penchant is consistent with a culture that has traditionally exalted and deeply institutionalized the value of science. I am less convinced that the above European viewpoint is consistent with the underlying culture. Which culture? In a region where many ‘foreign’ cultures coexist in great proximity, one might expect to find a journal that reflects a veritable pastiche of research approaches. There should not be a dominant approach … not even a qualitative one. Such repression of dominance is not so much the acceptance of diversity as it is the passionate pursuit of it. As a consequence, my role as EJIS EIC included expanding the editorial board to include more associate editors with more diverse orientations precisely to enfranchise beleaguered European researchers who were outside of the qualitative research domains dominant in EJIS at the time. (With compliments to our present EJIS EIC, the new strategy aiming at expanding EJIS research genres strikes me as moving EJIS to an even more perfect European perspective).

With regard to the topics under examination by IS researchers, the European perspective may be converging with others. EJIS articles have examined what such a European perspective might entail, for example, noting that ‘European IS draws more on social theories than elsewhere’ (Galliers & Whitley, 2007, p. 20). Still, sociology should not dominate a journal with a European perspective. A European perspective ought to result in a hearty pastiche of theoretical anchors and topics. Until about 2000, North American researchers were mainly focused on user satisfaction, while European researchers were more interested in IS development. This divide appears to have converged on IS adoption, but via different routes. North American researchers first expanded to consider strategies for building IS as well as user satisfaction, while European researchers first expanded to consider sociology, investment, usefulness, knowledge management, and systemic thinking. Since about 2005, the divergence seems to conclude, and has since converged on adoption. (I am using MISQ as my ‘North American’ indicator because it is 86% from North American sources and EJIS as my ‘European’ indicator because it is 65% European or Australasian; for details on these trends, see Córdoba et al (2012)).

Such a topical convergence is troubling for a European journal. There are many diverse aspects of IS available for researching. Adoption is certainly one, but only one. We have lately been so absorbed with defining the IS academic discipline, that we overlook a firm understanding of the IS as the phenomenon of interest that necessarily identifies the discipline. This set of IS phenomena are diverse and may overlap with the interests of other academic disciplines, but for us the center is different. EJIS, like the IS academic discipline, centers on the IS.

In terms of the underlying phenomena upon which our academic discipline should focus, many authorities regard IS, MIS, and information technology (IT) as basically synonyms. For the purposes of this article, however, I will distinguish IT as did my immediate predecessor as editor-in-chief, Ray Paul (2007, p. 194), who provided a definition for IT as follows: ‘IT is a collection of devices, software and accessories, which when combined might provide a part or all of the delivery mechanism for any IS that uses this mechanism. An appropriate delivery mechanism could be anything between pen-and-paper to a fully integrated collection of distributed computer systems, data capture points, interactivity capability, software applications, etc’.

Paul then provided the following description of the IS:

• The IS is not the IT and the formal processes being used.

• The IS is not the people using the IT and the formal and informal processes.

• The IS is what emerges from the usage and adaptation of the IT and the formal and informal processes by all of its users (Paul, 2007, p. 195).

Ultimately, the IS is embodied in ‘the ways people create value with information’ (Nunamaker & Briggs, 2011, p. 20:2). I find Paul's description of the IS compelling, and I strongly agree with the observation that the IS and the IT are not the same thing. Likewise, the IS and its usage, or the IS and its adoption, or the IS and its adaptation, are not the same thing. This description clarifies how the usage of IT, the adaptation of IT, and processes are important elements of the landscape that lead to an IS (people creating value with information). Usage and adaptation of IT are part of the phenomena of interest because these lead to an IS. IT therefore inhabits this landscape and is part of the discipline's phenomena of interest because it can ultimately lead to an IS, that is, the IS may be a consequence of the IT.

But the presence of IT in the IS landscape may have become partly eclipsed by the current obsession with the acts of adoption, and perhaps by a previous obsession with the acts of the IS development. In earlier times, IT may have been more prevalent in the study of IS. As a practical discipline, the IS field is more than 60 years old (if we choose to date the discipline from the 1951 LEO, the first business computer, see Ferry (2003)). One IS outcome of this genesis was the so-called LEO principle. It was born from this early experience and dealt with the primacy of the adaptation of the IT to purpose, rather than purpose to the IT (Baskerville, 2003).

In such times, the IT often amounted to a single computer, expensive to acquire and operate, closeted away in a specially designed computer room, and accessible only to experts. The presence of the IT was obscured for non-experts. The IS that was the consequence of the IT was much more obvious to the outside observer. The presence of obscure IT was reshaping organizational processes, demanding adaptation, changing jobs, and instituting new forms of human (and social) behavior. But the IT was hidden, while the consequences (the IS) were plain to see.

Today, however, it is the nature of IT itself that is ubiquitous and omnipresent. The presence of IT is much more obvious to the outside observer than the consequent IS. For example, IS development may only seem to be mashing up IT for a particular purpose (or it may seem eliminated entirely by an ERP acquisition). The investments in an IS may appear nearly made insignificant by outsourcing and the prevalence of low-cost retail IT (such as cloud-based services). The casual nature of mobile IT capabilities may seem to eliminate the need for many kinds of IS processes because these no longer need to be formal.

Perhaps, the act of adoption of an IT may be among the few obvious aspects of the IS left available to study. If so, IS researchers might be converging on the study of adoption less because it is the key phenomenon, than because it is obvious and simpler to study than more complex IS phenomena like adaptation or the IT itself.

While the presence of IT is obvious to the extreme, IS researchers may be encountering further difficulties that make it less easy to study. At the moment, there are at least three reasons why the study of IT is difficult for IS researchers.

First, the study of IT is a crowded and competitive space. Aside from our field, it is central to computer science, computing, and even the comparatively recent academic discipline named ‘Information Technology’. (Indeed, three separate and distinct kinds of university programs in computing are accredited by U.S.-based ABET, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. These three disciplines are computer science, IS, and IT.) Besides these three fields, which are intensely concerned with IT, just about everybody is studying IT usage within their scope, including myriad disciplines from accounting to zoology. In order to make a scholarly contribution in the IT space, a researcher faces the difficulties of treading past a lot of recent and ongoing research to find a novel research question.

Second, it is proving difficult to theorize IT in a way that is significant to an IS audience. Indeed, for most IS publications, IT has been either absent or minimally engaged (Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001). On the basis of Paul's definition, a significant IS contribution would mean that the IT study must lead to important results about ‘what emerges from the usage and adaptation of the IT’. This framing means that, for IS researchers the important theories developing from an IT study will regard not just the IT, but also the IS consequences of the IT. Therefore, the train of work can be lengthy: create the theory, create the novel IT, and then study the IS consequences. Top IS journal review panels, like those of EJIS, are most concerned about the quality of the first and the last parts of the train.

Third, interested researchers are struggling to publish their IT studies in IS journals. For IS, IT studies are often among those labeled as design science research. But at this stage, just generating a novel artifact in IT is not convincing top IS journal review panels that the results constitute significant new knowledge in the IS field (Osterle et al, 2011). Editors and reviewers require IS theoretical contributions, especially regarding the social or organizational consequences of the IT (Baskerville et al, 2011). It may be that such studies are best published in reference disciplines like computer science. It may also be that IS reviewers are simply unused to seeing IT contributions in IS journals and fail to recognize their significance. But it seems more likely that IS researchers have not yet found the means to convincingly express the intrinsic value of the IS consequences that inhabit novel IT studies.

While the vast range of IT studies is by no means solely under the jurisdiction of IS, it is certainly a key element within the IS research landscape. But the nature of IT has long ago progressed out of the one-machine computer room and onto global networks anchored not only in server rooms, but also in people's offices, desks, and pockets. Thereby the phenomena of IT are becoming far more complex and difficult to study. Perhaps, it is easier at the moment to just continue studying adoption. In order for the discipline principally concerned with the IS to grow and prosper in the future, researchers ought to be (re-) developing other historical areas of the landscape: usage, adaptation, processes, and IT itself. From these areas, I single out IT because I believe there is a wealth of European experience in IT design science research that has the potential to lead the IS discipline in its advance to its next level: significant, widespread IT research that takes the IS consequences beyond just adoption.

EJIS could just be the ideal venue for such new forms of contributions. With its ongoing passion for diversity, EJIS is configured to recognize that design science research is not just a research paradigm or research approach, but it is also the future of the topical engagement of the IS with the IT.

My parting words therefore are those of sincere encouragement to the IS design science researchers in the EJIS community. It is true that solutions to some fundamental problems with design science contributions momentarily remain elusive. You are undertaking a difficult challenge, but in prevailing you may just be setting the worldwide community of IS researchers back on their historical course, putting the IT back in the natural IS context of study. It will be worth the struggle to revive the IT in the IS. I offer the same encouragement to those undertaking the difficult consequential studies of usage, adaptation, and processes.

It has been my pleasure to serve as an EJIS editor or editor-in-chief for 9 years. With publication of this editorial, I will retire from my roles in EJIS. My footsteps down the gangplank will be echoed by the footsteps of Pär Agerfalk up the quarterdeck ladder. With 6 years of experience as EJIS associate editor and senior associate editor, he will make a splendid EJIS editor. With Pär joining editor Dov Te’eni and editor-in-chief Frantz Rowe, EJIS continues in excellent hands.

In keeping with my encouragement above, this issue of EJIS offers seven articles that each deal with the usage of an IS, one consequence of an IT.

Could information security be improvisational? In ‘Conceptualising improvisation in information systems security’, Kennedy Njenga from the University of Johannesburg and Irwin Brown from the University of Cape Town apply hermeneutical exegesis to interpret texts from transcribed interviews of a single case study conducted in a South African firm. They find that improvisation does occur in order to counter unpredictable security situations. The study details 25 important, high-level concepts such as quick reaction and rational adaptation that are specific to either individual or collective improvisation in security settings.

Eric Monteiro from Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Knut H. Rolland from the Norwegian School of Information Technology contribute this issue's second research article, ‘Trans-situated use of integrated information systems’. It is based on findings from a longitudinal interpretative study of a maritime classification company with over 300 offices in more than 100 countries. This company deploys an auditing IS in all its offices for the purpose of standardizing their auditing procedures. They extend the theoretical construct of a system workaround to cover standardization attempts over multiple sites when heterogeneity affects interdependence between the auditing IS and other modules. Ultimately, they advance a theoretical account for one type of relationship between instances of technology use, viz., how relevant degrees of similarities of IT use occur across contexts even though these similarities were achieved in different ways.

Ting Li from Erasmus University and Till Unger of Bertelsmann uncover the challenges faced by quality personalization in e-commerce business and the growing customers’ concerns over their privacy. In ‘Willing to pay for quality personalization? Trade-off between quality and privacy’, personalization means that customers get reliable recommendations that are based on past purchasing history and browsing behavior, while avoiding the overload of unwanted information. This study has direct implications for online commerce business because it helps justify investing in personalized suggestions to their customers to increase online sales. Using a sample of 200 respondents from different industry domains (news and financial services), the research examines privacy concerns, privacy protection, and perceived quality of personalization. These factors impact the likelihood of online personalization usage and therefore the subsequent user contribution. In this context, user contribution implies that customers are willing to pay a premium for personalized products/services and/or are willing to provide personal information to receive suggestions. The results show that quality has a greater effect on customers’ intention to use online personalization than does their concerns about privacy.

‘Understanding overbidding behavior in C2C auctions: an escalation theory perspective’ is our fourth research article in this issue. It is co-authored by Sang Cheol Park and Mark Keil from Georgia State University, and Jong U.K. Kim and Gee-Woo Bock from Sungkyunkwan University. This study sheds light on the drivers of the overbidding behavior witnessed in some online consumer-to-consumer auctions by investigating through the lens of escalation-theory-based constructs. They use a survey instrument that measures bidding incentives such as (a) sunk costs (occurring when bidders have already invested their time and effort in the bidding process), (b) self-justification (occurring when individuals exhibit an eagerness to continue bidding because they are convinced that their initial bidding was correct), (c) completion effect (occurring when the motivation to attain a goal increases, as one gets closer to it), and (d) competition intensity. The survey of 250 online C2C bidders reveals that the completion effect and sunk costs are notable drivers of the overbidding behavior because they increase an individual's willingness to continue bidding (but not self-justification). It also shows that competition intensity will moderate the relationship between willingness to continue bidding and overbidding behavior such that the relationship will intensify when competition intensity is higher.

In ‘Information technology, the organizational capability of proactive corporate environmental strategy and firm performance: a resource-based analysis’, Jose Benitez-Amado from the University of Granada and Rita M. Walczuch from the Maastricht University of the Netherlands investigate how IT capabilities could potentially be enablers of proactive environmental strategy and how this strategy could play a meaningful role in mediating the effects of IT on firm performance. The research regards a sample of 63 Spanish firms. It is conceptually situated within the resource and dynamic capabilities-based theories. The data collected reveals that IT capabilities have indeed a positive effect over a firm's capability to develop a proactive environmental strategy. Among the practical implications of such a finding, sustainable practices such as the implementation of an environmental management system may generate business gains.

‘Toward a better understanding of behavioral intention and system usage constructs’, Jiming Wu and Hongwei Du from California State University conduct a meta analysis over 218 studies (drawn from several journal articles, conference proceedings, and dissertations) that helps us to better comprehend and to further advance the relationships between IT usage and its antecedents such as behavior intention (BI), perceived usefulness (PU), and perceived ease of usefulness (PEOU). Even for IT usage measures, the meta-analysis indicates how measurements are defined in contrasting ways. These include: actual IT usage, reported usage (by the users), and assessed usage. The study offers an aggregated analysis of the correlations between PU, PEOU, BI, and usage in general (i.e., the three usage measures are combined into a single variable). Then, it compares the correlations of interest and examines the explained variances in BI and usage. The meta-analysis shows that assessed usage is most correlated with BI and that actual usage is less so. The results also suggest that the impacts of PU and PEOU on BI are statistically more significant than their impacts on usage, and that system usage does not necessarily occur with BI. It suggests that we avoid using BI as a predictor for system usage and instead differentiate between BI and system usage in future research.

Hope Koch, Ester Gonzalez, and Dorothy Leidner from Baylor University discuss the implications of Social Network Sites (SNS) on the integration of IT new hires in ‘Bridging the work/social divide: the emotional response to organizational social networking sites’. The study adopts a qualitative case study conducted inside a bank facing high turnover among its IT hires. The bank counters this problem by introducing a work-related SNS. The SNS proves to be a useful resource for the IT new hires program because it creates personal resources for these new recruits. The researchers draw upon Boundary Theory to elicit the different roles assumed by people in different contexts and illuminate these roles’ boundaries could overlap. The positive results encountered with new IT recruits in this study are promising for other contexts. However, the study also found that some more mature and middle management practitioners felt isolated and expressed frustration over the SNS. Care should be taken consideration to include roles for all managerial levels.

All seven articles above discuss technology use. In one instance, it is the IT usage antecedents that are being studied (BI, PU, and PEOU in the meta-analysis), in another how technology could be used as a resource for pro-active corporate environmental strategy and yielding business gains, in a third in acclimatizing new IT hires, in a fourth in overbidding behaviors, in a fifth in the personalization of proposed products and service, in a sixth in improvisation, and finally IT usage is discussed from a trans-situated contexts’ perspective. This commonality across the seven articles in this issue of EJIS illustrates how one consequence of IT, usage, is an important element in the IS that is a consequence of the IT.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Myriam Raymond for her help with composing the above article summaries, and to the EJIS Associate Editors responsible for reviewing and developing the articles in this issue. These terrific associate editors include Regina Connolly, Yujong Hwang, Iris Junglas, Giovan Francesco Lanzara, Adam Vrechopoulos, and John Wells.