CALL FOR PAPERS

Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS): Special Issue on the Literature Review in Information Systems Research (LRiIS)

Paper Submission: 28 February 2014

Guest Editors

• Mary Tate, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand  mary.tate@vuw.ac.nz
• Elfi Furtmueller, Austrian Science Foundation  elfi.furtmueller@amc.or.at
• Wasana Bandara, Queensland University of Technology w.bandara@qut.edu.au
• Joerg Evermann, Memorial University of Newfoundland jevermann@mun.ca

A review of past literature is a crucial endeavour for any academic research. An effective literature review can serve multiple purposes; methodologically analyze and synthesize quality literature; provide a firm foundation for a research topic and the selection of research methodology; demonstrate that the proposed research contributes something new to the overall body of knowledge or advances the research field’s knowledge base, and when relevant- propose a research agenda for the topic under investigation. With all these important target outcomes, clear guidelines and support processes are crucial for a comprehensive and accurate literature review. These may vary depending on the nature and purpose of the literature review. In addition, large, complex, contradictory, or heterogeneous literatures may need a more sophisticated treatment than the traditional “narrative synthesis”. While the importance of literature studies in the IS discipline is well recognized, little attention has been paid to the underlying structure and range of methods for conducting effective literature reviews.

It has been said that the narrative literature review popular in Information Systems research suffers from “the god trick” of “seeing everything from nowhere”; is subjective, such that two researchers may arrive at different conclusions based on the same general body of literature; and is backward looking, aimed at identifying “gaps” in previous literature with a view to suggesting hypotheses or propositions, rather than opening up new research questions or new areas of enquiry. There are also risks in our current approach which include: that predominantly subjective, narrative-based reviews are ineffective in building a genuinely cumulative tradition, with knowledge “piling up” rather than “building up”; and that valuable empirical knowledge can be “trapped” (for example, in case studies) in forms that make it difficult to extract and accumulate.

Our objectives in creating this special issue or section are to offer alternative perspectives, approaches, and techniques for analyzing and presenting research literature, AND to show how literature analysis techniques can be used to accumulate disciplinary knowledge, generate new research questions, and suggest new lines of research, as well as supporting the development of propositions and hypotheses. We are soliciting papers from all research perspectives. Note that this call does not include literature reviews in a particular subject area, unless the approach taken is novel and interesting.

Articles may adopt quantitative or qualitative approaches and use a range of perspectives, methods or techniques. Articles may address the whole life-cycle of a literature review from conceptualization through selection, analysis and presentation; or may offer insights that are specific to only one phase of the life-cycle. Both conceptual/theoretical articles, and applied/tutorial articles are welcome. We specifically invite submissions in the following areas.

Submissions to LRiIS Research

·         Perspectives, methods, approaches or practices for conducting or presenting  literature. These may include, but are not limited to: hermeneutics, soft systems analysis, grounded theory, historical perspectives, revisionist approaches, ontologies, stylized facts, case surveys, or other novel perspectives and methods.

·         Tutorials related to LRiIS, for example, tutorials in conducting meta-analysis, in-depth tool supported content analysis, Bayesian analysis, or other tool support

·         Workshop and Panel discussions and proceedings related to LRiIS

Indicative timeline

12 December 2013	First call for papers
28 February 2014	Paper submission
1 April 2014	Author notification – first round
1 August 2014	Author revisions due
1 September 2014	Author notification – second round
1 October 2014	Author revisions due
1 November 2014	Camera ready

 

To be considered for publication, papers must be submitted electronically by February 28, 2014. Papers that pass the initial screening will undergo no more than two rounds of revision. Papers not accepted by the end of the second round of revision will be rejected. Please contact the guest editors if you have any questions about the suitability of your manuscript.