Information Systems Research Thematics: Submissions to a New Journal, 1987–1992

The flow of manuscripts through the editorial offices of an academic journal can provide valuable information both about the performance of the journal as an instrument of its field and about the structure and evolution of the field itself. We undertook an analysis of the manuscripts submitted to the journal Information Systems Research (ISR) during its start-up years, 1987 through 1992, in an effort to provide a foundation for examining the performance of the journal, and to open a window on to the information systems (IS) field during that period. We identified the primary research question for each of 397 submissions to ISR, and then categorized the research questions using an iterative classification procedure. Ambiguities in classification were exploited to identify relationships among the categories, and some overarching themes were exposed in order to reveal levels of structure in the journal's submissions stream. We also examined the distribution of submissions across categories and over the years of the study period, and compared the structures of the submissions stream and the publication stream. We present the results with the goal of broadening the perspectives which individual members of the IS research community have of ISR and to help fuel community discourse about the nature and proper direction of the field. We provide some guidelines to assist readers in this interpretive task, and offer some observations and speculations to help launch the discussion.