Can the field of MIS be disciplined?
Communications of the ACM
Information Systems Research
Research Commentary: Transformational Issues in Researching IS and Net-Enabled Organizations
Information Systems Research
Research in Information Systems: An Empirical Study of Diversity in the Discipline and Its Journals
Journal of Management Information Systems
Towards a research agenda for information technology
CITC5 '04 Proceedings of the 5th conference on Information technology education
Designing On-Line Mediation Services for C2C Markets
International Journal of Electronic Commerce
An Analysis of Diversity in Electronic Commerce Research
International Journal of Electronic Commerce
Information Asymmetry in Information Systems Consulting: Toward a Theory of Relationship Constraints
Journal of Management Information Systems
Information Asymmetry in Information Systems Consulting: Toward a Theory of Relationship Constraints
Journal of Management Information Systems
Editor's comments: does MIS have native theories?
MIS Quarterly
The social life of categories: An empirical study of term categorization
Applied Ontology - Ontologies and Terminologies: Continuum or Dichotomy?
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In this paper we argue that a large gray area of information systems research exists, whose relevance to the information technology artifact is subject to significant debate even among IS scholars who support the essential role of the IT artifact. As we explain, not explicitly addressing this gray area can have negative, although often inadvertent, effects on the innovative nature of IS research; we explore this danger through three pitfalls. We then propose a stance of strategic ambiguity to deal with the gray area. Strategic ambiguity calls for deliberately withholding judgment on the relevance of research in the gray area and acceptance of gray-area research provided it meets the excellence required by professional journals. We believe that strategic ambiguity benefits innovative IS research without harming the essential role of the IT artifact.