IS emphasizes theory. Was it always this way?

Top journals in Information Systems emphasize the importance of theory. Because this construct is so central to IS, I began to wonder, how did the discipline get here? Was it always this way?

To investigate this question, I downloaded every abstract from the websites of MISQ, JMIS, ISR, and CAIS since the founding of each journal. Then I used a script to check which abstracts contained at least one occurrence of the word stem “theor” (e.g., theory, theoretical…). Using the resulting dataset, I plotted the fraction of abstracts mentioning theory across time to get the chart shown above. (Note: it shows a 5-yr moving average to smooth annual variation).

This admittedly coarse analysis seems to show that the emphasis on theory within IS has grown through time. In the late 80s, for instance, fewer than 10% of MISQ papers mentioned “theory” in their abstracts. Today, its closer to half. I think this is interesting because it suggests that the discipline’s focus on theory is a relatively recent phenomenon, rather than something that has always been central to publication in the field.

Looking at the graph I wonder … How did it happen? Why did things evolve this way? I plan to unpack this with more blog posts down the line.