A Concept Map of the Organisational Size Construct in Information Systems Research

Many disciplines pursue research into organisations. Organisational size, as a frequent research variable in the IS literature, has received considerable application but little critical examination. This paper examines the content and construct validity of the organisational size construct. A survey of research papers published in six leading IS journals over an eleven year period finds 21 factors supporting the organisational size construct. The results show a large number of factors in scholarly use, however multi-dimensional scaling analysis suggests that these can be divided into three principal groups. Additionally, many studies offer little or no supportive analysis or justification for their use of organisational size. The findings raise a number of issues which merit further research.