Abstract
Disruptive information technologies (IT) are impactful in scope and in scale. Many stakeholders are significantly affected. Yet the Information Systems (IS) discipline continues to be preoccupied with the interests of the organisations that sponsor IS. It is untenable for the academic IS discipline to sustain that myopia. Further, research projects fail to address the needs of practitioners. They prioritise rigour and intellectual depth over relevance, comprehensibility and implementability. Disruptive IT delivers near-future phenomena materially different from those observable today. Obsession with empirical rigour, and the slowness of research conduct, write-up and publication, lead to researchers reporting on phenomena of the past, not of the near future. IS research in contexts that exhibit rapid change needs to deliver insights using futures studies techniques. This paper argues that two major changes are necessary for the IS discipline to rediscover its mojo.
Recommended Citation
Clarke, Roger, "Conduct Research into Near-Future Phenomena and Reflect the
Perspectives of Multiple Stakeholders" (2025). ACIS 2025 Proceedings. 29.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2025/29