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The Power of a Good Story or the Great Potential of Information Systems History or Some Lessons from a Heroic Journey

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 223))

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Abstract

This paper is an essay about my journey as an information systems (IS) historian. In the paper, I briefly outline the past and the current situation with the environmental circumstances of history writing in the IS research field. I also highlight some lessons I have learned studying and applying the historical method over the past decade and a half. I do this in the context of a four-tiered research framework. I conclude that there continues to be a great need for written IS history and urge IS researchers to take upon themselves this important quest that will benefit future generations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am using TAM as an example for no other reason that I happened to have easy access to the numbers of published papers in that area that were useful for making a point. I could have just as well chosen several other similarly popular IS research topics that are over represented in academic journals.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. C.T. Bauer College of Business, Department of Decision and Information Sciences, Management Information Systems, University of Houston, Houston, TX, 77204, USA

    Jaana Porra

Authors
  1. Jaana Porra
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Correspondence to Jaana Porra .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Harri Oinas-Kukkonen

  2. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Netta Iivari

  3. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Kari Kuutti

  4. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Anssi Öörni

  5. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Mikko Rajanen

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Porra, J. (2015). The Power of a Good Story or the Great Potential of Information Systems History or Some Lessons from a Heroic Journey. In: Oinas-Kukkonen, H., Iivari, N., Kuutti, K., Öörni, A., Rajanen, M. (eds) Nordic Contributions in IS Research. SCIS 2015. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 223. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21783-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21783-3_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21782-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21783-3

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