Leaders Assess the Current State of the Academic IS Discipline

Telephone interviews were conducted with 17 leaders in the IS academic field. The leaders shared their views on the current status of the IS field in terms of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the discipline. The insights of the leaders are organized into 10 categories, including the core identity of IS, the legitimacy of the IS field, competitors to what we teach and research, research rigor versus relevance, the pervasiveness of information technology, the impacts of changing technology, the quantity and quality of journals, the demand for IS services, and ICIS and AIS. In many areas the leaders agree on the issues. Most of the differences of opinion are research related, such as the core identity of the field for research purposes, how to best achieve relevance in our research, and the number of journals in our field.