ABSTRACT:

Based on a review of several bodies of work within the MIS literature, this paper concludes that significant progress has been made toward the development of MIS as a field of scientific research. The subject matter of the MIS research literature exhibits a close correspondence to the research frameworks of Mason and Mitroff (1973). Ives et al. (1980), and Nolan and Wetherbe (1980). This suggests that a significant degree of consensus exists among MIS scholars concerning the body of phenomena that is the subject matter of MIS research. Moreover, though an MIS paradigm is unlikely to arise in the near future, the MIS literature does exhibit some of the elements of a paradigm as defined by Kuhn (1 970a). To further facilitate the evolution of MIS as a scientific discipline, an MIS law is proposed. This law states that the success of any MIS will tend to be inversely related to the degree of friction that exists between MIS users and MIS developers in the processes of MIS development and use. It is argued that an MIS research program that explores the conditions under which this proposed law holds or does not hold will add focus to future MIS research, and thus accelerate the evolution of MIS as afield of scientific inquiry.