Paper Number
ICIS2025-1849
Paper Type
Short
Abstract
Taxonomies in Information Systems research classify objects to better understand complex phenomena. With the widespread adoption of taxonomy development, trends and conventions have emerged that often diverge from original methodological guidelines, particularly regarding mutual exclusivity and parsimony. This study investigates this disconnect by examining the application of these principles in practice and their impact on taxonomy design. An analysis of 95 peer-reviewed taxonomies revealed that mutual exclusivity is often relaxed and parsimony often not targeted. We further found that non-mutually exclusive dimensions contain significantly more characteristics than mutually exclusive ones. Based on these findings, we propose a conceptual continuum ranging from discriminative to descriptive dimensions to better understand how mutual exclusivity shapes taxonomy content. Taxonomy developers can improve clarity and usability by explicitly defining the function of each dimension using this continuum. This work forms the basis for future prescriptive guidelines to support more structured and theoretically grounded taxonomy development.
Recommended Citation
Nake, Leonard; Kuehnel, Stephan; and Damarowsky, Johannes, "Discriminative vs. Descriptive – Analyzing the Use of Taxonomies in Contemporary Information Systems Research" (2025). ICIS 2025 Proceedings. 10.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2025/is_researchmethods/is_researchmethods/10
Discriminative vs. Descriptive – Analyzing the Use of Taxonomies in Contemporary Information Systems Research
Taxonomies in Information Systems research classify objects to better understand complex phenomena. With the widespread adoption of taxonomy development, trends and conventions have emerged that often diverge from original methodological guidelines, particularly regarding mutual exclusivity and parsimony. This study investigates this disconnect by examining the application of these principles in practice and their impact on taxonomy design. An analysis of 95 peer-reviewed taxonomies revealed that mutual exclusivity is often relaxed and parsimony often not targeted. We further found that non-mutually exclusive dimensions contain significantly more characteristics than mutually exclusive ones. Based on these findings, we propose a conceptual continuum ranging from discriminative to descriptive dimensions to better understand how mutual exclusivity shapes taxonomy content. Taxonomy developers can improve clarity and usability by explicitly defining the function of each dimension using this continuum. This work forms the basis for future prescriptive guidelines to support more structured and theoretically grounded taxonomy development.
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25-Research