Editorial—On the Intellectual Structure and Evolution of ISR

Scholars within fields frequently introspect about the evolution of their research disciplines, asking if the discipline is developing a cumulative research tradition, influencing scholarly work in other fields, and expanding its boundaries. In this spirit, I examine the intellectual structure and evolution of one disciplinary journal, ISR, over the most recent four-year period (2012–2015). I use a census of citation data and classify journals citing ISR and cited by ISR into the disciplines they represent. Analyzing 12,833 citations to ISR from 100 journals, and 7,731 citations from ISR to papers published in 67 journals I find that, consistent with prior studies, ISR reflects the multidisciplinarity of the information systems (IS) discipline, its boundaries are expanding to include new disciplines, and the journal draws extensively on other IS journals. I raise some questions for further introspection about the impact and visibility of IS research.