Understanding and Evaluating Relevance in IS Research

This commentary examines two questions of interest to the relevance debate in IS research: why is relevance a problematic issue in IS research, and how can IS research relevance be assessed accurately and fairly. Answers to these questions are centered around the pluralistic and dynamic nature of IS research: that IS research is influenced by multiple stakeholder groups with conflicting perspectives, and continuous changes in this domain prevented the formation of a shared consensus of what IS research should be. Since such a consensus is unlikely to emerge, given the nature of the discipline, any evaluation of IS research relevance must take into account the target audience for that research and yardsticks appropriate for the intended stakeholder groups