Is Information Systems a Reference Discipline?

Abstract

In recent times, there has been a growing interest in the level of intellectual contribution that IS makes to other disciplines. Much of the debate that has dominated the literature so far is based on the visions and opinions of a few IS scholars. This study endeavors to provide new insights into these deliberations by examining citation flows between journals from various business fields, many of which have served as reference disciplines to IS research. A log-multiplicative model was used to assess the influence of IS journals vis-à-vis other business journals. Further, inter-disciplinary flows were analyzed to address the question of whether IS is a valuable source or provider of knowledge. The results suggest that IS, while serving as a modest source of knowledge to management and marketing, is still predominantly a refereeing discipline, relying primarily on these two disciplines for its research.