Abstract
The notion of IT artifact as the core of the IS discipline has been generally accepted by IS scholars, despite a thick gray area consisting of multiple and varied conceptualizations of IT artifacts. In this study, we do not seek to clarify this gray area, or to impose any specific worldview upon it. Rather, we strive to present an accurate representation of the current state of IT artifacts as researchers conceptualized them. We do so through content analysis of 134 research articles from the most recent proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) 2009. We consider three facets for our analysis: IT artifact conceptualization adopted from Orlikowski and Iacono’s (2001), context of a study, and granularity of IT artifact treatment. These facets inform us as to the current state of IT artifacts. We provide discussions about the intersections of these three facets, comparison of our analysis of IT artifacts to two other studies, and provide implications for IS scholars and the IS discipline as a whole.
Recommended Citation
Zhang, Ping and Scialdone, Michael J., "State of IT Artifacts: An Analysis of ICIS 2009 Research Papers" (2010). PACIS 2010 Proceedings. 121.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2010/121