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The Knowledge Cube: Scaffolding For A Body Of Knowledge About Information Systems, Steven Alter
The Knowledge Cube: Scaffolding For A Body Of Knowledge About Information Systems, Steven Alter
Business Analytics and Information Systems
This paper answers calls for a body of knowledge (BoK) for the IS field. Its new approach for thinking about a BoK provides a path for addressing a longstanding problem in the IS discipline. The paper proposes organizing knowledge as a three dimensional "knowledge cube" that goes beyond compilations of categories of knowledge, sets of generalizations, and sets of documents. The structure of the knowledge cube is based on recognition that "work system in general" is a general case whose subordinate cases include information system in general and project in general. In turn, the special cases have their own special …
Defining Information Systems As Work Systems: Implications For The Is Field, Steven Alter
Defining Information Systems As Work Systems: Implications For The Is Field, Steven Alter
Business Analytics and Information Systems
The lack of an agreed upon definition of information system is one of many obstacles troubling the academic information systems discipline. After listing a number of definitions of IS, this paper defines information system as a special case of work system as defined in Alter (1999a). This definition has many desirable characteristics: It is easy to understand; differentiates IS from IT; covers totally manual, partially automated, and totally automated information systems; links to a life cycle model that generates many insights about development and implementation problems; provides a simple guideline that helps in interpreting common IS/IT jargon; and has other …
The Is Core - Xi: Sorting Out Issues About The Core, Scope, And Identity Of The Is Field, Steven Alter
The Is Core - Xi: Sorting Out Issues About The Core, Scope, And Identity Of The Is Field, Steven Alter
Business Analytics and Information Systems
Debates about the core and the scope of the IS field and about whether the core and scope are related to a crisis in the field have smoldered for many years. This article is a response to ten articles submitted by members of the CAIS Editorial Board who accepted an invitation to contribute to a debate about the core and scope of the IS field. Those articles were written as responses to Benbasat and Zmud’s [2003] article “The Identity Crisis Within the IS Discipline: Defining and Communicating the Discipline’s Core Properties” and my rebuttal [Alter 2003b] entitled “Sidestepping the IT …
Sidestepping The It Artifact, Scrapping The Is Silo, And Laying Claim To 'Systems In Organizations, Steven Alter
Sidestepping The It Artifact, Scrapping The Is Silo, And Laying Claim To 'Systems In Organizations, Steven Alter
Business Analytics and Information Systems
The “IT artifact” and debates about the core of the IS field received a lot of attention in the last several years. This paper is a response to Benbasat and Zmud’s June 2003 MISQ paper “The Identity Crisis within the IS Discipline: Defining and Communicating the Discipline’s Core Properties,” which argues that “the IT artifact and its immediate nomological net”1 constitutes “a natural ensemble of entities, structures, and processes” that “serves to bind together the IS subdisciplines and to communicate the distinctive nature of the IS discipline.” This paper starts by examining the meaning of “IT artifact” and concluding that …