Given the multi-disciplinary nature of IS research,
we adopted a rather broad view of IS affiliation, defining IS authors as those that satisfy one of the following criteria: published in an IS journal; listed in the
AIS directory; or published in a non-IS journal but
are clearly affiliated with
an IS department. We
First Period
could identify 8,362 articles published by 6,760 IS
authors from 1,901 institutions.
To examine changes in
productivity and research
impact in the last decade,
we compared the first half
period (1995–1999) to
the second one
(2000–2004). The overall
productivity of IS research
had a moderate increase of
14%, from 3,639.07 adjusted article counts in the
first period to 4,132.46 in the second period. The
impact of IS research, however, experienced a dramatic boost with the adjusted impact scores increasing
from 2,260.18 to 4,573.51. This important growth
rate of 102% provides a
strong indication for the
enhanced recognition and
influence of IS research.
While the overall productivity of IS research has
increased slightly, its impact
has doubled.
Figure 2. Average annual impact
by region.
REGIONAL ANALYSIS
We limited our regional
analysis to North America,
Europe, and Asia, as they
account for over 95% of
the publications. As
depicted in Figure 1, North America institutions
continuously dominated IS research in the last
decade with an annual productivity level ranging
from 423.25 to 572.89 and accounting for 58.2% to
69.4% of the global productivity. It is worth noting
that such results are somehow expected given that
the selected journals are predominantly U.S.-based.
Although North American productivity dropped
during 1995–1997 by 19.4%, it picked up again
gradually in 1998–2002 and in 2003 it experienced
a sharp increase from 460.38 to 572.89. The annual
productivity level of Europe remained relatively stable, ranging from 136.83 to 184.95 and accounting
for 18% to 24% of the IS research publications. The
Figure 3. Annual productivity
concentration rate by region.
biggest change occured in Asia with its annual productivity increasing from 50. 71 (6% share) in 1995
to 149.67 ( 16.5% share) in 2004. Asia is bridging its
productivity gap with Europe with a growth rate of
65% over the last decade compared to 8% for both
North America and
Europe.
Second Period
As for the overall
impact, North America
experienced a decrease in
the first period (from
374.54 in 1995 to 218.76
in 1999) and a boost in the
second (from 402.32 in
Asia 2000 to 742.97 in 2004).
The impacts of Asia and
Europe, on the other hand,
increased steadily. Consequently, the gap between
North America and the other two regions decreased in
the first period and sharply widened in the second.
The overall impact of Europe increased from 68. 5 in
1995 to 242.42 in 2004, while that of Asia increased
from 34. 16 to 176.11. Interestingly, while Asia was
able to bridge its productivity gap with Europe, it
could not reduce the impact gap, which actually
increased from 34. 34 in
1995 to 66. 31 in 2004.
The changes in overall
impact are largely due to
changes in productivity.
To control for the pro-
ductivity effects, we also
examined the annual
average impact ratios
(average adjusted impact
Asia score for a single publica-
tion). Figure 2 shows a
small decrease in the first period (1995–1999) but a
clear upward trend in the second (2000–2004). The
average impact of Europe improved the most (from
0.50 in 1995 to 1. 39 in 2004) with an average annual
growth rate of 13.9%, followed by North America
with 11% (from 0.71 in 1995 to 1. 38 in 2004), and
Asia with 10% (from 0.67 in 1995 to 1. 18 in 2004).
In 2004 Europe’s impact ( 1. 39) exceeded that of
North America ( 1. 38). Europe bridged its impact gap
with North America.
To examine the extent to which IS research productivity is evenly spread among academic institutions in different regions, we examined the regional
concentration ratios (percentage of the output of top
20 productive institutions). As indicated in Figure 3,
North America and Europe have more or less similar
concentration ranging from 29% to 44%, sharply
Average Impact
1. 6
1. 4
1. 2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
North America Europe
Concentration of top 20
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
North America Europe
