The past and future of The Journal of Strategic Information Systems: A conversation with Bob Galliers

Abstract

The Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) was first published in December 1991 by Robert D. (Bob) Galliers, its founding Editor-in-Chief (EiC), following an invitation to establish the journal by Butterworth Heinemann in 1989. Bob invited Sirkka Jarvenpaa to join him as co-Editor-in-Chief in 2000. In 2018, Bob and Sirkka jointly decided it was time, and after three and two decades at the helm respectively, announced they would both step down from their EiC roles at the end of that year. Bob and Sirkka, the Senior Editors and Elsevier endorsed Guy Gable to assume the role of Editor-in-Chief commencing January 2019. In this reflection, Guy interviews Bob Galliers on the ‘changing of the guard’; the journal’s past and future, and the topic of Strategic Information Systems more broadly.

We believe the history of JSIS as reflected in Bob's ruminations is insightful for the Journal's readers and the IS community. From the discussion we learn how an academic journal was guided to success by focusing on the vision, the strategic choices and actions, the team composition and the ability to adapt and lead in a constantly changing environment, where the technology developments challenge organizational structures, markets and society. A set of well-thought through strategic choices, initially made by Bob and later in collaboration with Sirkka and the rest of the editorial team, led the Journal to the top of the research field by gaining respect from scholars in the underlying research areas, i.e., IS management, Strategy and Organization Science.¹

Introduction

In this section, we give a brief overview of JSIS, its rationale, history and progress.

Work on developing The Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) started in the 1989–1990 academic year with Robert D. (Bob) Galliers², its Founding Editor-in-Chief (EiC), inviting Senior Editors and other colleagues from different regions of the world to form an international editorial team. A call for papers was circulated, and in December 1991 the first issue was published. In 2000, Bob invited Sirkka Jarvenpaa³ to become co-Editor-in-Chief. Following their decision to step down from their EiC roles at the end of 2018, I (Guy Gable) was endorsed by Bob and Sirkka, the Senior Editors, and Elsevier, to assume the role of EiC of JSIS commencing 1 January 2019.

Having now served over a year in the EiC role (with continuing strong support from Bob during that time) I approached Bob seeking his views on the journal’s past and future, and the topic of Strategic Information Systems more broadly. I write this article both as testament to Bob's and Sirkka's contribution to the Information Systems discipline, and as a partial record of this iconic journal. Bob's and Sirkka's contributions have been massive, defining and sustaining. Bob was early to recognise the strategic role information technology could play, in 1987 saying, ‘it appears that the application of information technology is at the threshold of a new era, opening up new opportunities by using the technology strategically for the benefit of organizations and businesses’ (Somogyi and Galliers, 1987, p.40). JSIS has been pivotal in the Information Systems (IS) field in claiming the strategic information systems research domain. This paper is based on an email conversation with Bob and presents a consideration of his and Sirkka's legacy and the achievements of JSIS over the last three decades. Together, Bob and I also speculate on the journal's future challenges.

The journal's direction has changed little since its inception. From the outset through to the middle of 2014, the journal’s mission was …

• Combining intellectual rigour with practical experience, this international journal integrates academic findings and research with the current experience of executives attempting to get the best out of their investment in information systems. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems emphasizes the need for IT systems to be driven by business requirements and publishes state-of-the-art review and developmental papers from around the world, in addition to case studies drawn from actual experience.

In September 2014, the aims and scope of JSIS were nudged in a slightly new direction …

• The Journal of Strategic Information Systems focuses on the strategic management, business and organizational issues associated with the introduction and utilization of information systems, and considers these issues in a global context. The emphasis is on the incorporation of IT into organizations' strategic thinking, strategy alignment, organizational arrangements and management of change issues. The journal publishes research from around the world which: • investigate the changing nature of business in the context of emerging IT; • discuss the justification and evaluation of information systems; • discuss the organizational implications of IT; • consider how organizations have been transformed as a result of the astute management and application of IT. […] A transdisciplinary, critical approach/perspective is welcome. Topics covered include: • organizational transformation on the back of IT; • information systems/business strategy alignment; • inter-organizational systems; • global issues and cross-cultural issues; and• the impact and significance of emerging IT

In the first JSIS editorial, Bob stated that, “Information Technology (IT) needs to be taken seriously; its management needs to be integrated into the mainstream activities of executives and we need to do much more in ensuring that IT ‘delivers the goods’ by providing the business and social benefits that we seek from it” (Galliers, 1991, p. 3). Celebrating the 20th anniversary of JSIS in 2012, the special issue editorial summarised achievements up to that time, and reaffirmed the relevance of the journal’s focus despite significant changes in the IT landscape since inception. Achievements included being recognized by the Association for Information Systems (AIS) senior scholars as one of the eight leading journals in the IS field and winning the Anbar Golden Page Award in 1999 for ‘‘Best Research Implications’’ in the Information Management category. Changes included “the advent of the Web; the dot.com bubble burst; the phenomenon of outsourcing and offshoring; the introduction of new information and communication technologies (social media, mobile computing, cloud computing), and the financial crises in Asia, Europe and North America that few predicted” (Galliers et al., 2012, p.85). A further decade later, the importance of strategically aligning IS with organisational prerogatives remains a vital topic (e.g., Marabelli and Galliers, 2017, p.348) and a key concern (Kappelmann et al., 2019).

On most measures, JSIS has performed well across its lifetime. In a recent Viewpoint article by Vidgen et al. (2019) “How well does the Information Systems discipline fare in the Financial Times’ top 50 Journal list?” the AIS Basket-of-eight⁴ (Bo8) journals stand up well, and JSIS in several respects surprisingly so, given that, unlike the others, it focuses on a particular subset of the field. Vidgen et al. introduce a new journal ranking metric, the HMJ-index, which is an equally weighted combination of journal H-index, median citations/article and Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Based on the HMJ-index, JSIS ranks 34th of the 55 journals in the study (the 55 were the FT50 plus the 5 Bo8 journals not in the FT50). Of the Bo8 - JSIS ranks equal 2nd with JMIS, behind only MISQ. Comparing the JIF of the 55 journals JSIS performs particularly well; it ranked 30th and 2nd amongst the IS journals. Data on the median citations per article of the Bo8 showed that JSIS is also equal 2nd^, with EJIS, again behind only MISQ.

Additionally, JSIS papers have regularly featured in the AIS Best Information Systems Publications Awards (https://aisnet.org/page/BestPublicationsAwar):

• 2019 - Aligning with new digital strategy: A dynamic capabilities approach (Yeow et al., 2018)

• 2017 - The role of transaction cost economics in information technology outsourcing research: A meta-analysis of the choice of contract type (Schermann et al., 2016)

• 2014 - From boundary spanning to creolization: A study of Chinese software and services outsourcing vendors (Abbott et al., 2013)

• 2012 - Firm-level benefits of IT-enabled resources: A conceptual extension and an empirical assessment (Jones, 2019)Nevo and Wade, 2011

• 2011 - Paradoxical effects of institutionalisation on the strategic awareness of technology in organisations (Baptista et al., 2010).

In 2020, JSIS retains its strong position in the Information Systems field. As I wrote in my first editorial as the new EiC, “The theme in 2019 is ‘steady as she goes’. The new team’s challenge will be remaining on the trajectory established by Bob and Sirkka, with the journal commencing 2019 at a high, with … CiteScore: 3.82; Impact Factor: 4.313; 5 Year Impact Factor: 4.820; Source Normalised Impact per Paper (SNIP): 2.079; SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): 1.707; SCImago: Q1; ABDC: A*; and continuing in the AIS basket-of-eight.” (Gable, 2019). In 2020, the CiteScore had risen to 6.26.