The wisdom nexus: Guiding information systems research, practice, and education

Abstract

“Wisdom” has been at the heart of practical, philosophical, and spiritual disciplines since antiquity and is now increasingly receiving organizational as well as academic attention in scholarly areas that include psychology and organizational studies among others. However, practical wisdom has not received adequate focus in the information systems (IS) discipline. In this commentary, we make the case for a systemic focus on the role of wisdom in IS research, teaching, and practice. We introduce underlying theoretical concepts of wisdom; review relevant key research linking wisdom and IS; propose a framework to link wisdom with IS research, practice, and education; and discuss the implications of the framework and illustrate how it can be used to generate research opportunities for IS. We conclude that wisdom, whose goal is the common good, can provide a foundation to discover, view, understand, and resolve myriad issues that lie at the nexus of wisdom and information technologies.