Karen Holland Mitchusson
Memphis State University

Paul John Steinbart
Saint Louis University

ABSTRACT:

This article reports the results of a content and citation analysis of the first five years of the Journal of Information Systems (JIS), the official journal of the Information Systems/Management Advisory Services (IS/MAS) section of the American Accounting Association (AAA). Since it can be viewed as the premier outlet for accounting information systems (AIS) research, an analysis of the contents of JIS not only provides information about the journal, but also may provide insights into the nature and directions of AIS research in general.

Across all ten issues, the two most frequently addressed research topics were (1) organizational and managerial issues involving the use of information systems and (2) issues concerning internal control and the auditing of information systems. This reflects the underlying focus of AIS research on transaction processing and the need for accountability. There was an increase in later issues, however, in the number of articles that examine expert systems and database topics. This suggests that the series of commissioned articles appearing in the first five issues of JIS, some of which addressed those topics, are influencing subsequent research.

Two other trends concerned research methods and citations. Across all ten issues, the majority of articles either used the survey research method or were descriptive or prescriptive in nature. In later issues, however, there was an increase in the relative number of articles employing experiments and modeling to address specific research topics. In addition, articles appearing in the later five issues of JIS contained an increasing proportion of citations to nonaccounting journals. That finding, together with the finding that the list of most frequently cited authors included both accounting and IS researchers, underscores the multidisciplinary nature of research published in JIS.