The Future (As a Focus) of IS Research

Abstract

This editorial functions as a call to action. At the ISJ, we are open to studies that address the future and thus welcome submissions. The future can take three roles in IS research: It can be an object of research, a purpose of research, and an implication of research.

If the future is an object of research, then we are striving to predict or envision the future. The answers to our future-oriented questions may be tentatively affirmative but to a rather restricted degree. At the turn of the last century, we saw many predictions: In 1991, Mark Weiser (1991) predicted that ubiquitous computing would shape the 21st century. His prediction was based on emerging technologies and became a reality to a large extent. Malone et al. (1987) predicted a world with more markets and larger organisations based on the projected reduction of transaction costs. This prediction was based on transaction cost theory and turned out to be correct. More recent predictions are based on data. For example, Frey and Osborne (2017) used data from O*NET and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to predict which jobs are endangered by digitalization. A fourth line uses semi-structured approaches to speculate about the future systematically. For example, Hovorka and Mueller (2025) explore what the future may be like in 2043. This is, of course, a speculation, but it is an informed speculation that extrapolates from what we know today. It involves a form of disciplined what-if analysis combined with imagination (Weick 1989). They foresee a world where digital technologies are normal rather than exceptional, and indeed where technology is so embedded into who people are that those same people might be better described as cyborgs. Technology is likely to be integrated into many aspects of our life, and yet that integration is likely to be so seamless that we may not even notice it.

The most interesting predictions are based on theory. Theories that involve a temporal dimension are particularly well-suited to these predictions. For instance, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) is intrinsically interesting because it was developed in the 1970s (Eldredge and Gould 1972) as a way of explaining events that had taken place some 66 million years previously, namely the Chicxulub asteroid impact that precipitated the end of the realm of the terrestrial dinosaurs (and the later rise of the mammals), as evidenced in the geologic and fossil records with iridium deposits and tektites (LaPalma et al. 2019). We cannot be 100% certain that the theoretical explanation is accurate, but it is plausible. Can PET also help us to predict the future? We are not suggesting anything as remote as 66 million years into the future: it's too far away to be able to collect data or even to speculate anything with respect to humankind, but it could provide a good basis for shorter term predictions, for instance the consequences of current and future disruptions. PET has already been used in IS research, albeit sporadically, to explain how a stable state or equilibrium is occasionally interrupted by a brief burst (or punctuation) of profound activity that can lead to dramatic or revolutionary changes in organisational productivity (Gersick 1991), problem solving (Wong and Davison 2018), systems development (Newman and Robey 1992), strategic alignment (Sabherwal et al. 2001) and digital transformation (Shu et al. 2023). Implicit in all these accounts is the suggestion that if PET can be used to explain historical events, as Eldredge and Gould (1972) do, then PET can also be used to predict future events. The exact nature of the agent that precipitates the change varies. While Eldredge and Gould (1972) theorised the impact of an extraterrestrial object (an asteroid) as that change agent, more recent scholars in studies of organisations have identified how human agents can play a role (e.g., Gersick 1991; Wong and Davison 2018), while Shu et al. (2023) suggest that a disease (Covid-19 in their case) can serve as an agent. We could also imagine that an ‘act of God’ such as an earthquake or tsunami or extreme weather event (though as the latter are increasingly associated with climate change, the anthropocentric aspect is still present) could also take that agential role. Regardless of the identity of the agent, PET is a useful theory for predicting at least some aspects of the future, and as such should occupy a more prominent position in our theoretical playbook than is currently the case.

Interesting ‘theories’ are Gartner's S-curves and hype cycles. ¹ According to them, new technologies go through phases of high and low expectations. They are also future oriented, with projections of a plateau being reached for a particular technology as far as ten or more years into the future. If one looks at their usage in consultancy and in practice, they have reached the status of a de-facto theory, although they lack proper theoretical and empirical foundations.

A special case of a technology-induced prediction was the Y2K problem. A major crash of computers was predicted for 1 January 2000, because many computer systems only used two digits for storing date information. This ‘prediction’ came with the face of a warning and call for action. Despite all the gloom and doom, the negative scenarios associated with the change from 99 (1999) to 00 (2000) generally did not play out as expected, yet the technological innovations that were undertaken to prepare us for Y2K were doubtlessly beneficial in other ways. Likewise, as we prepare for the possibility of an AI-centric world (and yes, AI may be seen as an agent of change), we are modifying our behaviour. But a future-oriented mind-set encourages imagination which can be disciplined (Weick 1989) and leveraged to allow the creation of future scenarios that are not only plausible but also genuinely helpful as we investigate how we can prepare ourselves for at least the near future.

The emergence of new technologies can spark our interest in what might happen next, but of course it is not easy to predict how people and technology will interact. It gets more complex still when the underlying normative structures of our society are disrupted or challenged, whether by technology, disease, natural disaster or anthropocentrically derived situations. We suggest that as IS researchers, one of our priorities and prerogatives should be to develop new theory to explain and predict more accurately what will happen next. In this, prescriptive and proscriptive theories will be valuable. Naturally, such conjectures will be subjective and falsifiable. But we argue that it will be more valuable to theorise and run the risk of being plausible yet wrong than not to theorise at all and just wait around to see what happens.

A criticism of these trends is that they are no more than imaginary or unscientific speculations, and as such perhaps unworthy of our attention. Such a comment is understandable, but we must point out that whenever a researcher creates a hypothesis, which is no more than a statement about an unproven relationship between objects, then the researcher is engaging in imaginary speculations. These speculations are common in the scientific discourse and their legitimacy is accepted, not least because they are open to falsification after data collection and analysis. The speculations that we are discussing in this editorial are in essence no different: they are valuable if they are credible, plausible, reasonable and falsifiable. What may be different is the time frame, in that we are suggesting the value of speculating some years into the future, whereas most researchers speculate the future on a much shorter time scale (typically less than a year, i.e. from model formulation to data collection and analysis), and indeed write up the outcomes of their speculations (hypothesis testing) in the same document as the speculations themselves. Nevertheless, although the speculative examples of future scenarios that we are promoting as being of potential value may not be completely accurate in all aspects, they can help us to make scientific progress in a sensible way.

The most radical view on the future as an object of research are science fiction visions or dystopias. As children, we may have enjoyed reading the novels of Jules Verne (e.g., Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1871), Paris in the Twentieth Century (1994)), and George Orwell (e.g., Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)). You might also be familiar with Brave New World (Huxley 1932) A Clockwork Orange (Burgess 1962) or We (Zamyatin 1924). While we would not treat those visions and dystopias as research themselves, they triggered subsequent business and research activities to shape the future Verne's (1994) posthumously published Paris in the Twentieth Century is particularly apposite as the author (in 1864) describes the Paris of 1961, where business and technology are the only objects with any value. Meanwhile, Metaverse was mentioned in Neal Stephenson's (1994) dystopian science fiction novel Snow Crash. It shaped the visions of technology companies such as Microsoft and Facebook (that subsequently was renamed “Meta”). It also shaped the visionary scientific discourse (Dolata and Schwabe 2023).

While the borders between predictions and visions are fluid, visionaries tend to be more comprehensive and less grounded in specific technological developments, theories or data. Both inform researchers who shape the future by their design.

Engineers build machines, houses, streets, cars and large computer systems. So, the output of engineering inventors, researchers and entrepreneurs shapes much of our current daily life. The future is the purpose of Engineering research, as any of its inventions will only become a market reality years later (Computer Science research is said to be 10 to 25 years ahead of what we see in the current product market). In the information systems discipline, design research represents the engineering perspective on research. Its pillars are the systematic striving for utility and invention (Hevner et al. 2004). Design Science researchers aim to create artefacts or take actions that will have future value for their beneficiaries, even as they reference a problem that is situated in the present. For example, the research group of Jay Nunamaker shaped a whole generation of IS research and practice with their research on Group Support Systems (Nunamaker et al. 1991) and their research approach (Nunamaker et al. 2015). Design Science inventions are not limited to technical artefacts but can be sociotechnical or even purely conceptual.

Business administration research has a tradition of designing useful conceptual artefacts. Porter's (2008) five forces model for strategy offered a new way to think about strategy. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) (Kaplan and Norton 1992) was purposely established so as to help organisations move away from a reliance on historical data and to incorporate a future perspective of the value that could be expected to be created. So, the future has a dual role in the BSC. Design research offers a scientific way to engage in creating useful business artefacts shaping the future of business practice.

Action Design Research (ADR) combines design research and action research (AR) to offer a systematic approach to developing useful sociotechnical artefacts in collaboration with companies. In the case of both ADR and AR, the researcher stays with the project until a satisfactory outcome (or some other terminating condition) is achieved. So, typically, they shape the near future. We encourage business and IS researchers to engage in such research and submit their results to ISJ if relevant to IS. In the same vein, ISJ is interested in research on novel sociotechnical artefacts or applications.

Besides design research, one other research genre strives to shape the future: Research agendas strive to shape and legitimise future research agendas. Good IS research agendas build on a deep understanding of technical, organisational and social trends and translate them into a research vision. For example, one of the authors was involved in a research agenda on ‘Computers as Teammates’ (Seeber et al. 2020). This vision was developed seven years ago and has shaped research since its publication (as indicated by its citation rate). ISJ welcomes the submission of research agendas on innovative topics, particularly when research communities systematically develop them.

Although we can learn from the past, the future is what matters. A research study that does not have implications for the future is of little value other than historical. This is one reason why it is conventional for all researchers to consider the implications of their research for research and practice: implications are seen as being forward-looking. Unfortunately, researchers tend to limit quite severely the extent to which they are prepared to be creative in their implications. This caution is perhaps driven by our inability to predict with any certainty what actually will happen in future. Furthermore, as researchers we are often discouraged from speculations that go beyond the data. However, although we can ask our data subjects about their intentions or likely future behaviour, and we may make recommendations for future research or practice, we hamper our future orientation by seldom allowing our research designs to probe far into the future itself. We could and should be more adventurous, more predictive in this regard. We can hedge our predictions carefully so as to make it clear that they are no more than predictions, and as such may not come true, but as with the development of theory, it would be better to attempt to predict the future than to just hang around and wait to see what happens.