TY - JOUR
T1 - A comment on “is information systems a science?”
AU - Dennis, Alan R.
AU - Valacich, Joseph Joe S.
AU - Brown, Susan A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Susan A. Brown is the APS Professor and department head of Management Information Systems in the Eller College of the University of Arizona. She completed her PhD at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include technology implementation, individual motivations and consequences of IT use, mediated interactions, and research methods. She has received funding for her research from the National Science Foundation, and other public and private organizations. Her work has appeared in leading journals including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Communications of the ACM, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and others. She has served as an AE at MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Decision Sciences, and is currently an SE at MIS Quarterly and coeditor-in-chief of AIS Transactions on Replication Research, and became an AIS Fellow in 2017.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the Association for Information Systems.
PY - 2018/8
Y1 - 2018/8
N2 - In this paper, we respond to McBride’s (2018) paper on whether information systems is a science. We first argue that information systems is indeed a science in that it draws from and creates knowledge in a form similar to many different disciplines, including psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, computer science, and engineering. We counter the flawed logic of methodical extremists who believe that their approach represents the best or only path to knowledge. Specifically, we argue that many different methods of inquiry and discovery are appropriate in information systems and that each has its strengths and weaknesses.
AB - In this paper, we respond to McBride’s (2018) paper on whether information systems is a science. We first argue that information systems is indeed a science in that it draws from and creates knowledge in a form similar to many different disciplines, including psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, computer science, and engineering. We counter the flawed logic of methodical extremists who believe that their approach represents the best or only path to knowledge. Specifically, we argue that many different methods of inquiry and discovery are appropriate in information systems and that each has its strengths and weaknesses.
KW - Dance
KW - Discipline
KW - Qualitative research
KW - Quantitative research
KW - Research
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U2 - 10.17705/1CAIS.04314
DO - 10.17705/1CAIS.04314
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052619863
VL - 43
SP - 211
EP - 216
JO - Communications of the Association for Information Systems
JF - Communications of the Association for Information Systems
SN - 1529-3181
IS - 1
M1 - 14
ER -