USE OF THEORY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH IN BRAZIL: SOME PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS

Abstract

Theories have multiple roles in a field of knowledge, from the understanding of the causes of a phenomenon to the prevision of its behavior. Thus, analyzing the use and the role of theories in an area of knowledge is a way to understand its genesis and to discuss points to be explored. The objective of this paper is to analyze the use of theories in Information Systems (IS) research in terms of frequency and diversity. We analyzed all papers published in RESI and JISTEM, the two main IS journals in Brazil, from their founding (2002/2004) to 2014, comprising 396 articles. The Gregor taxonomy for analyzing theories (2006) was used; this taxonomy considers different roles of theories, such as analyzing, explanation, prediction, explanation/prediction, design and action. A group of 32 articles cited 18 different theories and each theory was cited by up to two articles. These results were compared with the research of Lim et al. (2009), which identified the most commonly used theories in MIS Quarterly and Information System Research journals: 70% of the 386 analyzed articles employed at least one theory, and the 10 most cited theories are present in 90% of the articles. A much smaller number of papers in national journals use theories (5.3%) and a lower number of different theories are used (18) compared to the papers in American journals (70% and 154). Even considering the differences among the journals, the lower use of theories in Brazilian IS research gives cause for concern.