In recent years there have been a number of reviews aimed at defining the scope and content of SIS research (see Table A2
in Appendix A). These works were diverse in their methodology, scope and motivation, and our selection included papers
that were primarily intended to be review articles, papers that provided contemporary commentary on the key issues in
the field based on practitioner surveys and ones that were primarily concerned with some particular topic or perspective
of IS/SIS research but included significant reviews of the field as part of their contextualisation. These scholars have focussed
on the trends related to the content and perspective for SIS (e.g. Chen et al., 2010; Peppard and Ward, 2004; Sidorova et al.,
2008; Taylor et al., 2010; Wade and Hulland, 2004), its positioning with respect to business strategy (e.g. Chan and Huff,
1992), and its implementation and evaluation (e.g. Chan et al., 1997a,b).
Whilst many of our observations discussed above concur with the findings from earlier reviews, it is important to note
that the purpose of our analysis is not to provide a definition of SIS research trends: our interest is in exploring how existing
SIS constructs have dealt with advances in IT capabilities and the issues associated with adopting and leveraging these capabilities
over the three decades. In other words, we are concerned with developing a meta-level perspective on persistent identity,
evolutionary trajectory and characteristics of the SIS research field over time by identifying
the meta-level patterns of content and focus of SIS research,
the underlying use of key concepts over time and
trends associated with changes in the nature of IS strategic processes and strategising over this period.
in the context of evolving technological capabilities (e.g. ERP, SOA, Cloud Computing) and their deployment in practice in
order to gain insights about the persistence of identity and the evolutionary capacity of the SIS field.
2.4.1. Meta-level patterns and underlying use of concepts
With regard to the meta-level patterns of content and focus of SIS research, our findings broadly concur with those of
earlier reviews concerned with defining the scope and content of SIS research (e.g. Chen et al., 2010; Peppard and Ward,
2004). For example, in their 2010 review Chen et al. define extant SIS research in terms of three persistent strands: alignment
of SIS with Business Strategy (citing key contributions by Chan et al., 1997a,b; Chan and Reich, 2007; Henderson and Venkatraman,
1999), SISP (citing key contributions by Galliers, 1991, 2004; Premkumar and King, 1994; Ward and Peppard,
2002), and IS for competitive advantage (citing key contributions by Melville et al., 2004; Piccoli and Ives, 2005; Wade
and Hulland, 2004) – strands that we found already established in our analysis of the SIS publications of the 1980s. Similarly,
our observations about SIS parallel Taylor et al.’s (2010) observation that the 1980s were concerned with establishing IS as
distinct discipline, and that inter-organisational systems became prominent in the IS publications in the 1990s and 2000s.
However, whilst in our search results the dominant topics related to SIS displayed stability with the same ones appearing
as prominent over the decades,1 our manual analysis of the topics and the underlying concepts associated with them showed a
changed focus for their usage over the decades. For example, the quest for competitive advantage in the early 1980s morphed
into a concern with sustainable advantage in the late 1980s, and became linked with the development of capabilities and the
1 However there were some clear trends in the level of attention accorded to the terms in the abstracts over successive decades: alignment of IS with
business and corporate strategy, and the concern with competitive advantage increased in significance consistently from one decade to the next, whilst the
interest in planning peaked in the 1990s before dropping below its 1980s score in the 2000s. The focus on the achievement of value from IS investments, as well
as the focus on utilising the resource-based view of the firm to discuss the IS value as a means to build and sustain capabilities was particularly significant in the
late 1990s and the 2000s.
Y. Merali et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 125–153 129
resource-based theory of the firm in the 1990s and 2000s. Similarly, ‘‘complexity’’ first appeared in the SIS literature 1980s in
relation to information systems, but became prominent in the 2000s with a different conceptualisation, associated with ‘‘Emergence’’,
a term that did not appear in abstracts until the 2000s. Strategic planning for SIS is a focus of the literature across the
three decades, but the 2000s are marked by an emphasis on SIS in turbulent environments and the dynamical view of the IS
strategy, and by the 2010 complexity appears as an alternative lens to study the utilisation of IS in such contexts.
2.4.2. Change in five dimensions
Our contextual analysis showed that over the three decades there were significant advances in IT capabilities and their
exploitation in the field. By triangulating our longitudinal analysis of the SIS research with contemporaneous trends in IS
research and technology uptake we found that the evolution of the SIS trajectory over the three decades could be explained
as a shift along five dimensions associated with strategising in SIS. The dimensions are shown in Table 1 along with the trajectory
of trends in SIS research derived from our review of journal articles, Gable’s (2010) analysis of the research published
in the Journal of Strategic Information Systems since its inception, and technology trends derived from Gartner (http://
www.gartner.com/) analysis of hype curves over successive decades. The final column of this table is discussed in the next
section.
- Evolutionary capacity of the SIS domain
Our long view of the trajectory of SIS research demonstrates the ability of the field to adapt and absorb changes in a controlled
manner. Whilst the ‘‘headline’’ themes have remained relatively stable over time the technologies, applications and
contextual and conceptual frames addressed have been diverse and changed over time. However the shift has been a gradual
one: writers have introduced new issues in juxtaposition to ones already established in the dominant discourse. Whilst the IS
field has addressed potentially disruptive technologies and associated ‘‘fads’’ (e.g. Abrahamson, 1996; Baskerville and Myers,
2009; Kieser, 1997; Newell et al., 2001; Westrup, 2002) in each decade, taking a long view, the strategic frame has evolved
relatively smoothly to accommodate their impact (for example, over time e-business has become an integral part of business,
knowledge management is an integral part of management).
The trajectory demonstrates the adaptive capacity of the SIS field at a systemic level: over the successive decades it has
extended its scope in several dimensions:
Integration: from internal alignment of business and IS to integration with global networks.
Participation: from engaging internal players to engaging society.
Resource base: from a focus on internal IT resource management to leveraging human, social, relational and intellectual
capital dynamically and across boundaries.
Meta-level stability has been maintained over a 30 year period during which the pace of technological change has increased
(El Sawy et al., 2010) new concepts have been generated endogenously or imported from other disciplines, and a
diversity of (sometimes competing) practices, models, and value propositions have thrived amongst IS academic and practitioner
communities (Galliers, 2003, 2006; Taylor et al., 2010).
Table 1
Trends in the IS field 1980–2011.
Dimension of change 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010+
Dominant Alignment
Challenge
Aligning SIS
with Business
Strategy
Developing SIS for Integration of IS
with Business
Developing SIS for Networks and
Resource-based competition (valuing
relational, human and knowledge
resources)
Developing SIS for
complex, dynamic,
distributed contexts
Integration Focus Systems Process Resource ‘‘Global’’ socioeconomic
system
architectures
Emergent/adopted IT
trends
Applications
Portfolios
Integrated Systems Enterprise Architectures; Service-
Oriented Architectures and Web-based
services;
Multi-scale
Ecologies; Cloud
Computing
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
and CRM (Customer Relationship
Management) Systems
Business Intelligence and Knowledge
Management Environments
Web 2.0 and Social
Media
Scope of Strategic
Contextualisation
Internal Industry-linked Cross-Industry Value webs and Networks Wider Global-Local
Socio-Economic
context
Scope for Business
Model Innovations
Value Chain Extended Enterprise Value webs; Global reach Distributed, Socially
Relevant
130 Y. Merali et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 125–153
Its capacity for dynamic alignment and the adoption of ‘‘plastic boundaries’’ enable sustainability for the SIS field as a
generative research domain in the management arena: the trajectory demonstrates a capacity for integrating concepts from
computer science and various social science and management research domains (such as economics, sociology, organisational
behaviour and strategic management).
This characterisation of SIS field has some resonance with the findings of Sidorova et al. (2008) and Taylor et al. (2010) in
their analysis of the IS literature. Our multi-level characterisation resonates with Sidorova et al.’s classification of IS research
into macro- and micro-levels. The adaptive characteristics of the SIS trajectory and the coexistence of stability (and relatively
smooth evolution) at the meta-level with diversity and churn at lower levels suggest the kind of ambidexterity that Taylor
et al. advocate for the IS field: with the co-existence of both ‘‘Mode 1’’ research emphasising the creation of a rigorous body
of knowledge and establishment of identity of the field and its researchers in academia, and ‘‘Mode 2’’ research having a
trans-disciplinary character, working across boundaries with heterogeneous stakeholders and real world problems.
3.1. The SIS domain and co-evolution of physical and social technologies
We have argued so far that the SIS domain is dynamic, adaptive and ambidextrous. Going forward we propose the following
abstraction to define the position of SIS research on the broader canvas of socio-economic research drawing on Nelson’s
(2003) theorisation of technological evolution.
Nelson observed that there are two types of technology that play a major role in economic growth, Physical Technology
and Social Technology. Physical Technology refers to what we generally refer to as ‘‘technology’’ – in the case of SIS this would
include everything we refer to as ‘‘Information and Communication Technologies’’ (ICTs). Social Technology refers to the ways
of organising work and people, and includes things like organisational forms, work design, business practice, legal, institutional
and social structures and conventions. He then argued that in order for society and the economy to benefit from technological
invention, Physical and Social Technologies must co-evolve.
We propose that the SIS domain is profoundly the domain that is responsible for the co-evolution of Physical Technologies
(ICTs) and Social Technologies to deliver social and economic benefit. This conceptualisation is consistent with the reviews of
the field which cumulatively define the SIS domain as multi-level, multi-scale and multi-dimensional, and its focus as that of
developing, harnessing and leveraging IT for competitive positioning and organisational performance.2 As observed by writers
on IT and competitive advantage over the decades (e.g. Mendelson and Pillai, 1998; Mithas et al., 2011; Nevo and Wade,
2010) IT cannot confer sustainable competitive advantage in the absence of information systems management and organisational
capabilities. This reasoning holds at any scale: ranging from the local implementation of systems in individual businesses
through to large-scale adoption of global systems in multi-divisional and multi-national enterprises, and the success or failure
of innovations in global markets (Nelson, 2003).
This conceptualisation of the SIS domain is central to our discussion about the future of SIS research in Section 5.
3.2. Connecting with the wider strategic management frame
Before we move on to the next sections to look more closely at SIS research for the future, it is useful to position the
importance of IT advances in the wider context of strategic management.
In the management literature ICTs have been implicated as both drivers and enablers of the ‘Network Society’ and the
‘Network Economy’ (Axelrod and Cohen, 1999; Castells, 1996; Evans and Wurster, 2000; Shapiro and Varian, 1999). The
capabilities afforded by successive generations of IS/IT have increased in power and impact over the decades, creating
new opportunities and challenges, and the past three decades have witnessed step changes in:
Connectivity (between people, applications and devices).
Capacity for distributed storage and processing of data.
Reach and range of information transmission, and
Rate (speed and volume) of information transmission.
The exploitation of these capabilities has given rise to the emergence of network forms of organising as processes, information
and expertise are shared across organisational and national boundaries. The increase in the number of components to
be integrated across diverse technological platforms and business systems demands complex architectures. Greater connectivity
and access to an increased variety and volume of information constitute greater informational complexity (Chaitin,
1990), creating the need for more powerful semantic, algorithmic and computational capabilities.
Increased global connectivity and speed of communication have contracted the spatio-temporal separation of world events:
informational changes in one locality can very quickly be transmitted globally, influencing social, political and economic decisions
in geographically remote places (Merali, 2006; Merali and McKelvey, 2006). In SIS discourse (see for example Chen et al.,
2010; Chi et al., 2010; El Sawy et al., 2010; Gnyawali et al., 2010; Tanriverdi et al., 2010) this trend has been reflected in:
2 Inter alia the abstracts and articles we reviewed defined SIS domain as ranging over the acquisition/development of IT and systems, their implementation
and evaluation, their use in diverse organisational and business processes and practices, and their contribution to performance in diverse social, organisational
competitive and technological contexts.
Y. Merali et al. / Journal of Strategic Information Systems 21 (2012) 125–153 131
The critical role of information and knowledge in competition.
Increased dynamism, uncertainty and discontinuity in the competitive context.
Pressures for fast decision making in the absence of complete information, and
The importance of learning and innovation to afford requisite flexibility and adaptability for survival.
This is echoed in the literature on competitive dynamics where the network economy is characterised by competition
in high-velocity environments, speed of technological change, and uncertainty (Eisenhardt, 1990; Li and Atuahene-
Gima, 2002). Organisations, needing to shape and redefine their own competitive arena (Hayton, 2005), are confronted
with the need to continually innovate (Autio et al., 2000; Hayton, 2005; Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996). This brings with
it the challenges of working towards radical and incremental innovation, (Nambisan, 2002) while dealing with
resource constraints (Barney, 1991; McDougall et al., 1994; Stevenson, 1999) to achieve an efficacious balance of risk
and return.
Whist the context was changing over the decades to deliver innovative business models exploiting advances in IT
capabilities with increasing complexity, ubiquity, richness and reach, the core constructs of the SIS research domain
remained stable, but not static. Over the three decades that we have reviewed above, the SIS domain absorbed the
complexity presented in the wider IS and strategy field by extending its scope to accommodate changes and new
concepts.
In the next sections we look more closely at the current calls for changes in the SIS research agenda, and, looking to future
to define the challenges and opportunities for the field, we propose that it will be well served by drawing on Complexity
Science to address the emerging trends.
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