[AISWorld] Most Influential Information Systems Papers - "pure science" value

[TPLIANG]

I concur with Merrill's comments.

Knowledge itself is beautiful asset​ of human beings. Knowledge includes those with short-term value (what, who and how to solve problems) and those that may not have immediate practical value (such as why and why not). There is a Chinese proverb "knowing is harder than doing." I believe what carries a discipline longer is its deep knowledge (in addition to its hands-on practice). These two types of knowledge should complement each other. 

-- 

Ting-Peng Liang 
National Chair Professor

2016-07-19 23:39 GMT+08:00 Warkentin, Merrill <m.warkentin at msstate.edu>:
Colleagues: Further to Kevin's response to Mike's medical analogy below (in the stream initiated by Samir), ...  Whereas physicians are practitioners (albeit with scientific training and perspective), I would argue that the true audience of much scientific research in medicine is other medical researchers who (in the best tradition of "basic science" or "pure science" rather than applied science or engineering) are truly building medical science knowledge piece by piece ("block by block").  The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake has value.  We never know which scientific discovery may someday have practical value, but even if a discovery does not have direct immediate value, it can add to our overall understanding of phenomena of interest.  Researchers in Physiology and Medicine, for example, have been awarded Nobel Prizes "for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell" and "for their discovery of G-prot
 
 eins
   and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells."  Some early Nobel-awarded discoveries led to later breakthrough cures for diseases and others did not, but we should not reject scientific discoveries with no immediate practical value.  (Similarly, early scientific discoveries about magnetism, electricity, and optics were motivated by pure curiosity, but led to the technologies that we now use every day!  I'm glad no one told them to quit chasing their crazy experiments.)

 The word "science" originated in Middle English to denote the pursuit of knowledge.  The English word "science" comes to us from Old French, from Latin scientia, from scire 'know'
 (source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=science )

 So as "teacher-scholars," we surely want to teach, train, and educate our students to be capable future IT professionals by imparting practical knowledge.  However, I would also argue that we should seek deeper nuanced understanding of information systems, including how they work, how they are built and used, how IT interacts with and influences individuals, groups, organizations, and society, and (plug in your favorite sub-discipline here).  All scientific discoveries, rigorously obtained, have value because they facilitate knowledge and discovery.

 Footnote: It is interesting to reflect on the early influence of SIM on our field, such as partially funding MISQ when they wrote "Executive Summaries" for each paper for CIOs to read! (remember the purple pages in our pubs back in the 80s and early 90s?), which has partially led to an ethos in our scientific discipline for always including "Implications for Practice" and similar requirements in our manuscripts that is often absent in other scientific disciplines.

 So, though my cybersecurity research findings may have practical value for organizations seeking to ameliorate the threats to their information, I think the basic knowledge my co-authors and I pursue (such as results from MRI), even if it has no immediate practical value, is equally important. Let's all continue to seek knowledge!

 Merrill Warkentin

 Mississippi State University

www.MISProfessor.us<http://www.MISProfessor.us>