WHAT DOES THE BEST IS RESEARCH LOOK LIKE? AN ANALYSIS OF THE AIS BASKET OF TOP JOURNALS

In 2007 the Association for Information Systems announced that “a basket” of six journals should be considered as the top journals in the IS field. This list of journals was adopted based on a recommendation from the IS Senior Scholars Forum. One notable feature of the AIS list of journals is that it recognizes the topical, methodological, and geographic diversity of the IS field. For example, the list includes two European journals. Using bibliographic analysis, we classified all the research articles that have been published in the AIS basket of journals over a ten-year period, from 1998 to 2007. Using the classification framework and criteria of Chen and Hirschheim (2004), all articles were classified based on their paradigmatic and methodological approach. Our study thus provides a comprehensive overview of the research that has been published in the top six IS journals over the past decade. It also shows how the US-based journals differ from their European counterparts. Hence, the contribution of this article is that it is one of the first to analyze the AIS basket of top journals. It provides some insight into what kind of research has been published in these outlets. As this list is now being used in tenure and promotion cases in research-oriented universities around the world, we believe our findings will be of wide interest to the IS research community