Under What Conditions is IS Research Relevant to Practice? An Analysis of IS Scholars Who Are Mentioned or Cited Often in Trade Magazines and the General Media

The issue of rigor and relevance has been a longstanding topic of discussion and debate within many subfields of business. Among disciplines that are far more established than information systems (IS), including marketing, management, and accounting, scholars continue to debate whether the research produced has any direct value to managers and employees in organizations. Not surprisingly, in disciplines that are much younger – such as information systems – the same issues have arisen. We bring scientometric, empirical methods to bear on the question. Defining relevance as the mention of IS research and IS researchers in mainstream business magazines and general newspapers, we employ a host of methods to identify the extent to which IS research and researchers are mentioned in the mainstream media – or not – and we identify individuals who are most frequently mentioned or cited. Although we find that scholarly IS research is largely ignored in these outlets, we do identify a dozen IS scholars who have maintained a very strong public presence in trade magazines and newspapers