Reflections and opinions on 25 years with the ISJ

Abstract

Reflecting on 25 years as editors of the Information Systems Journal(ISJ), we analyse some statistics on the ISJ over this period. These include the origins of papers published in terms of author gender, geographical region and academic department, the type of research in terms of positivist or interpretive (and empirical, critical and descriptive, if the latter) and qualitative, quantitative, mixed or descriptive, research method and research category. The paper also consists of personal reflections on the ISJ discussing issues such as motivation for journal editing, impact of research on practice (and vice versa) and loss of control as the journal develops. We also use the ISJ lens to reflect on the discipline of IS as a whole. We hope therefore that this paper might also form part of a collection on the history of the IS discipline. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.