Description

Subject

Consequently, Wirtschaftsinformatik researchers, who seek international competition, frequently find that their constructive research approach is rarely utilized by the international IS research community - largely dominated by US-American researchers and institutions. This development leads to individual researchers being pressed to higher conformity or even opportunistic action. For the Wirtschaftsinformatik discipline this might, eventually, imply the gradual adoption of the IS model.

Objective

This research project will compare the research programs and approaches of Wirtschaftsinformatik and Information Systems. In order to do so goals, methods and results of research in both disciplines will be examined and differentiated. Subsequently, accomplishments that have been achieved so far will be examined in both disciplines. The anticipated results should be of considerable importance for both approaches, i.e. Wirtschaftsinformatik, as well as IS. Through this comparative study we aim at contributing to the identification of unique strengths, as well as fostering the further development and synergistic integration of both disciplines.

This research project is funded by a research grant from the German National Science Foundation [Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (http://www.dfg.de )], Bonn, Germany. The research is being carried our jointly between Professor Ulrich Frank, Information Systems and Enterprise Modelling, University Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and Rolf Wigand, Department of Information Science, University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Both disciplines will be analysed and compared with respect to the following aspects:

Tasks

The IFWIS project includes a number of research tasks, which are presented in the following table.

Size of disciplines

In order to compare the research achievement of the disciplines it is necessary to view them in relation to each discipline’s size. The following data will be collected of both disciplines:

• Number of degree programs
• Number of students
• Number of graduates
• Number of professors
• Number of PhD students

Research subjects and objectives

An objective comparison of the disciplines requires analysing the research subjects and objectives. Based on a publication analysis typical research subjects and objectives will be identified and compared.

Identification and reconstruction of research methods

Research methods are likely to highlight a major difference between the disciplines. Hence, research methods will also be identified, reconstructed and compared as part of the publication analysis.

Historical development of the disciplines

In order to adequately assess the achievements of the disciplines it is not sufficient to only analyse research subjects, objectives and methods. Looking at the historical development of the disciplines will help to explain the current methodical and thematic orientation. This is even more relevant for fields of research, which have to compete with other more established disciplines. Hence, in the context of the IFWIS project a number of interviews will be conducted with researchers from IS and WI who have witnessed a long period of the respective discipline’s development.

Evaluation of research programs

We understand a research program to consist of research subjects, objectives and methods. An objective assessment or evaluation of a research program is hardly possible since the choices of research subjects and objectives represent fundamental value judgements. For this reason we aim at assessing the research program with respect to the long term research goals, which have been set by the discipline itself.

Evaluation of research results

Evaluation of research results is a fundamental part of the scientific competition. However, a single research project cannot provide a detailed evaluation of all research results of a discipline. Hence, the research results will be evaluated on a higher level of aggregation and with respect to two perspectives:

• From an epistemological view point general requirements for research results will be considered.
• Both disciplines claim to be oriented towards practice requirement and – in this sense – relevant; so, research results will also be evaluated from the view point of their relevance for practice.

Approaches for synergistic integration of both disciplines

On the basis of the project’s results, the last task includes the development of approaches for synergistically integrating the profiles of both disciplines. Here, two main objectives will be considered:

• improve the capacity of the research programs and
• establish a basis for a more effective international competition.