What literature review is not: diversity, boundaries and recommendations

摘要

In Orlando the EJIS Board decided to implement a policy change that I had proposed in my last editorial addressing the IS community (Rowe, 2012), asking authors (starting January 2013) to explicitly classify their papers as belonging to one of the following categories: 1. Literature review 2. Theory development 3. Research essay 4. Ethnography and narrative 5. Empirical research 6. Issues and opinion (and Response). Aiming at giving continuous feedback and thoughts on the evolution of genres that we support and on related expectations for IS research, this editorial focuses on literature reviews. This choice stems from our strong belief in the need to stimulate genre diversity in order to continue to produce new knowledge, rather than to replicate or marginally extend the use of well-known empirical models. There is a healthy level of diversity in a field (Benbasat & Weber, 1996), which, we think, should include at least all these genres, and is at risk with the increase in the institutional pressures to publish (Loos et al, 2010). In this spirit, I offer a few words on the need for more theoretical work in IS research as well as a briefing on EJIS's activity in relation to its editorial policy change.