The Identity Crisis within the Is Discipline: Defining and Communicating the Discipline’s Core Properties

文章链接：https://www.jstor.org/stable/30036527
作者：Benbasat, I., & Zmud, R. W.
时间：June 2003
期刊：MISQ
总结：该篇文章属于Classic IS People对IS的定义，要求Centering IT。指出IS研究常犯的两个错误：exclusive和inclusive。
个人观点：太过保守主义，虽然以此研究的内容将很IS。但是对IT的过度集中，是否会减小贡献？因为IT有很强的时效性。

摘要

We are concerned that the IS research community is making the discipline’s central identity ambiguous by, all too frequently, under-investigating phenomena intimately associated with IT-based systems and over-investigating phenomena distantly associated with IT-based systems. In this commentary, we begin by discussing why establishing an identity for the IS field is important. We then describe what such an identity may look like by proposing a core set of properties, i.e., concepts and phenomena, that define the IS field. Next, we discuss research by IS scholars that either fails to address this core set of properties (labeled as error of exclusion) or that addresses concepts/phenomena falling outside this core set (labeled as error of inclusion). We conclude by offering suggestions for redirecting IS scholarship toward the concepts and phenomena that we argue define the core of the IS discipline.

An Identity for the IS Discipline

上图定义了IS的核心元素，包括：

• Capabilities & Practices：涉及planning, designing, constructing and implementing IT artifacts.
• Human behaviors：包括了设计组件和使用组件
• Impacts：作为和人类交互的结果，影响对个人和组织都有影响

Errors of Exclusion

以上图为例，其中不包含任何IT元素，即把IT排除在外(exclusion)。该研究更适合组织行为领域发表。

Errors of Inclusion

以上图为例，该研究电子商务情境下消费者对产品诊断如何受到IT设计的影响。作者不建议包括太多和IT无关的因素，会降低IS的元素比重。 作者不建议将因变量换成购买，原因是IT到购买中间隔了很多中介。
作者不建议引入其他的营销自变量，因为这些变量不会引起IS学者的兴趣。