Information Systems as a Foundational Discipline for Contemporary Business

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Information Systems as a Foundational Discipline
for Contemporary Business

• ISECON 2004
• Newport, Rhode Island

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Scope Agencies

• Undergraduate education
• IT field includes
• CE
• SE
• CIS/MIS
• Agencies
• ABET
• AACSB
• Regional Accreditors

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Crisis

• 1967 Ackoff
• Database
• 1989 Banville and Landry
• Internet
• 1996 Benbassat and Zmud
• WWW
• 2002 Baskerville and Meyer
• 2003 Benbassat and Zmud
• Dot Bust

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Culminating Crisis

• 2002 Ives et. al
• Response to AACSB
• 2003 Hirscheim and Klein
• body of knowledge

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Alternative Perspective

• Information Systems is a foundational discipline
  for business
• In the 21st century, in mature economies,
  business facilitated by information technologies
  has become mainstream.

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Snapshot

• 1998-2002 E-commerce sales increased by 1000 (US
  Census, 2004)
• Comparison retail sales increased 23
• 2001-2002 E-commerce sale increased by 29
• Comparison retail sales flat
• Note does not include B2B EDI sales.

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Local Response

• Database driven websites the core
• Redesigned the required introductory course.
• Database
• Web
• Glue

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Key Ideas IS

• Data description separated from data
• Data content separated from presentation
• Mode of thinking and expression unique to
  computer systems.
• Alan Kay and Ted Nelson argued for students to
  create their own systems.

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How do others see it?

• Constituencies
• Students
• Faculty in other business disciplines

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Are students credible?

• Shawn Fanning
• Larry Page/Sergey Brin
• Jerry Yang/David Filo
• Bill Gates
• Survey of audience

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Exposure of Students vs Faculty (N12)
No experience lt 2 gt Hands on
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BUSINESS FACULTY AND STUDENT AVERAGE SCORES
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DISCIPLINE/MAJOR FACULTY AND STUDENT AVERAGE
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Summary of Students vs Faculty (N12) Scores
Unimportant lt 2 gt Important
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IS Future

• Zuboff Maxmin
• The revolutionary potential of the new
  technologies will be ignited only when they are
  married to a new commercial destiny expressed in
  a new enterprise logic.

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Questions?
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