A Decision-Theoretic Foundation of IS Business Value Research

Enduring doubts about the value of IS investments reveal that IS researchers have not fully managed to identify and to explain the economic benefits of IS. Three research tasks are essential requisites on the path towards addressing this criticism: the synthesis of knowledge, the identification of lack of knowledge, and the proposition of paths for closing knowledge gaps. This paper considers each of these tasks by a) synthesizing key research findings based on a comprehensive literature review, b) identifying and unfolding key limitations of current research, and c) applying a decision-theoretic perspective, which opens new horizons to IS business value research and shows paths for overcoming the limitations. The adoption of this perspective results in a decision-theoretic foundation of IS business value research and includes the proposition of a consistent terminology and a research model that frames further research.