Empirical Research in Information Systems: 2001–2015

While several studies have cast retrospective looks at IS research in order to define its boundaries, relatively little evidence exists regarding the main topics that IS researchers have empirically studied. In an effort to improve existing knowledge on this subject, the present paper first develops a relatively high-level, but sufficiently fine-grained framework that incorporates all constructs and relationships that have been examined by IS researchers. Then, it identifies all empirical papers published in four top IS journals (Journal of AIS, Journal of MIS, Information Systems Research, and MIS Quarterly) between 2001 and 2015 (a total of 1,361 papers), as well as the constructs and relationships they have studied, and incorporates them, as well as the number of times they were studied, onto the framework. The results provide an overall, yet a relatively fine-grained view of empirical research that has been published in these journals between 2001 and 2015, and can be useful for IS researchers by enabling them to identify potentially interesting and fruitful research areas.