INFORMATION SYSTEMS AS A PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINE: FOCUS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

This article discusses the identity crisis in the Information Systems (IS) academic discipline. It reviews how Kuhn's (1970) concepts of paradigm and (normal) science apply to IS and argues that IS's scope is too broad and too disconnected from practice. The article proposes that IS become a professional discipline, guided by issues faced by providers and managers of Information Technology (IT). IS research would center on the management of provisioning, operation, and maintenance of IT artifacts. IS researchers would be practitioners similar to those in other professional fields, particularly medicine. The article contains a sample of potential research questions for IS as a professional discipline. Given the ubiquity of IT, the debate about IS identity is as important as ever. This article contributes insights to the debate, in the direction of facilitating a healthy discipline that enables productive and efficient use of IT resources, plus rewarding jobs for its practitioners, educators, and researchers.