Academic Departments of Information Systems Faculty in the U.S.

Information systems (IS) faculty are located in a variety of different departments in academic institutions. Both the theoretical basis of the discipline and the curricular needs of the professional business community influence departmental organization. Analyzing changes in the organizational home of information systems faculty in the 1980s and 1990s, we found that departmental structure did not reflect the establishment of IS as a fundamental theoretical discipline. The proportion of schools organizing information systems faculty in their own separate departments was relatively unchanged in 1995 compared to 1983, while the proportion of all IS faculty in separate IS departments decreased. There was no significant decrease in the proportion of IS faculty in departments of computer science and the proportion of faculty in management science departments and related fields increased through the mid 1990s. Changes in departmental location do reflect, however, the evolution of information systems in the business profession. There were significant increases in the proportion of schools and the number of faculty included with management, marketing, operations, interdisciplinary business, and finance departments and a significant decrease in accounting departments