---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: ISR March 2001 (12:1) - Content and Editorial Notes Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 17:19:46 -0500 From: Ron Cenfetelli cenfetelli@COMMERCE.UBC.CA To: ISWORLD@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE

The March issue will be on its way to subscribers shortly.

INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH, Volume 12, Number 1, March 2001

Research Commentary. Technology-Mediated Learning: A Call for Greater Depth and Breadth of Research Maryam Alavi and Dorothy Leidner

A Foundation for Flexible Automated Electronic Communication Scott Moore

Alignment between Business and IS Strategies: A Study of Prospectors, Analyzers, and Defenders Rajiv Sabherwal and Yolande E. Chan

Cognitive Support for Real-time Dynamic Decision Making F. Javier Lerch and Donald E. Harter

A Conceptual Model and Algebra for On-Line Analytical Processing in Decision Support Databases Helen Thomas and Anindya Datta

Research Report. A Reexamination of IT Investment and the Market Value of the Firm: An Event Study Methodology Kun Shin Im, Kevin E. Dow, and Varun Grover

*Abstracts for the above are available at http://www.isr.commerce.ubc.ca/current.html

Editorial Notes: With the March 2001 issue, Information Systems Research begins its twelfth of service to the Information Systems community. In 2000, ISR received 158 new manuscripts, an increase of 14% over 1999. Furthermore, there were 71 submissions to the ISR Special Issue on Electronic Commerce Metrics. The goal of this special issue is to stimulate empirical research and theoretical development so that knowledge about the measurement of electronic business activities may advance. I would like to congratulate the editors of this issue - Detmar Straub, Donna Hoffman, Charles Steinfield, and Bruce Weber - for the fine job they have done in promoting the Special Issue, and look forward to seeing it in print.

E-business and e-commerce are undoubtedly the most prominent research topics IS researchers have been pursuing recently. ISR has been receiving an increased number of submissions on this topic as have many other IS journals, as well as computer science, marketing, logistics and marketing publication outlets. Calls for yet another special issue on e-business seem to appear on ISWORLD with increasing frequency. This multidisciplinary focus on a very interesting phenomenon leads to the question of what the contributions of the IS research community should or would be in e-business, or put differently, do we have areas of specific expertise that distinguishes our research from those of others? Historically, there have been several research streams in the IS literature that have contributed to our understanding of e-business. One of the first papers on interorganizational systems was published in the MIS Quarterly (special issue 1983). The Communications of the ACM in the 1980's published papers by IS academics about "markets versus hierarchies" and on how IT supports the customer life cycle, the latter a precursor of B2C e-commerce related topics. Information Systems Research had an empirical study on the enablers of interorganizational linkages in 1990, its first year of operation. Papers on electronic data interchange have appeared in several IS publications during the last decade. In recent years, IS academics have made significant contributions to the economics of e-business as well as using economics to understand behavior in electronic markets.

The challenge we face as members of the IS field is not only to built upon these research efforts, as we are bound to, but also highlight our unique contributions to the understanding of e-business. Several times in the past year our editors decided not to consider for review manuscripts about e-business because of the lack of an IS or IT component in the work submitted. (Interestingly, a commentary by Orlikowski and Iacono that will appear in the June issue of ISR is about the lack of IT in IT research). Though we are not likely going to converge on a view of what our contributions should be, nor need to, we nonetheless have to distinguish our work from that of other colleagues in other disciplines, e.g., those in marketing or supply chain management, who are studying the same phenomena. I believe we would be better off as an academic discipline if we are perceived to bring a new and different perspective to e-business research, one that is based on investigating the value added by IT and IS to new ways of conducting business, and the design and development of IT and IS to make the conduct of such business more effective and efficient.

The third commentary in the series "A Research Agenda for the Next Decade" appears in this issue. Alavi and Leidner in their commentary entitled "Technology-Mediated Learning: A Call for Greater Breadth and Depth" propose a research program to investigate how information technologies influence student learning, the delivery of degree programs, and the design of institutional infrastructures to support such activities. A while ago there was a discussion on ISWORLD about the lack of interest on the part of IS research journals on such topics. This is an opportunity for me to assure the IS community that ISR is interested in receiving manuscripts about IT-supported learning as well as the teaching of IT-related knowledge. I would like to hear from you about these commentaries: do you find them of value and what other topics would you like to see discussed in future commentaries?

I am pleased to inform you that five new associate editors, Ritu Agarwal, University of Maryland, Mayuram Krishnan, University of Michigan, Sudha Ram, University of Arizona, Al Segars, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Joe Valacich, Western Washington University, have joined our editorial board. Two of our associate editors, Steven Kimbrough and Arie Segev, are stepping down in March. I thank them for enriching the IS field significantly in many ways, including their research contributions, and service on editorial boards.

Ron Cenfetelli, an MIS doctoral student at UBC, has joined the ISR Editorial Office as an assistant to the editor. Ron has an MBA (2000) from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and a B.S. in aerospace engineering from Purdue University. Ron will gradually take over the duties of Geneviève Bassellier who is focusing her energies on her doctoral thesis research and teaching.

Izak Benbasat

Information Systems Research Dr. Izak Benbasat, Editor-in-Chief Genevieve Bassellier, Ph.D. candidate, Managing Editor Phone: 604 822 9552 isr@commerce.ubc.ca http://isr.commerce.ubc.ca

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