Encyclopedia of Modern Artificial Intelligence: The Past, Present and Future:Exploring Tensions in Information Systems Research

In the Information Systems (IS) research field, scholars have examined the intellectual core of IS for decades (Jeyaraj & Zadeh, 2020). In doing so, they have examined the tensions when conducting IS research across five key areas; the diversity of IS research (Hirschheim et al., 2019), whether IS research can draw on other mature disciplines or serve as a reference discipline (Baskerville & Myers, 2002), the philosophical and methodological approaches adopted by IS researchers (Hansen et al., 2011), the role of theory in IS research (Grover & Lyytinen, 2015), and the discipline's relevance to practice (Rosemann & Vessey, 2008).These difficulties are further compounded by the rapid growth in research publications on digital transformation (DT), which includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, more recently, Generative AI (GenAI). which, since the beginning of the 21st century, have emerged as key opportunities for work organisations (McTaggart & Loonam, 2024). However, much of the existing literature is intended to support managers in addressing these important issues (Teki & Koroteev, 2019) rather than to guide researchers.

As good historical practice requires a dialogue between past and present (Wadhwani & Decker, 2017), to understand the tensions when conducting research on and with GenAI, we should first examine the nature of its development and the contexts in which it has occurred (Haenlein & Kaplan, 2019; Brown et al., 2024). Only by reflecting on this history can we expand our understanding of the IS field (Petter et al., 2012) and the challenges IS researchers face in conducting research in the GenAI Era (Grabis et al., 20225). This Chapter focuses on taking a step back to reflect on the challenges of conducting research in a field where IS researchers' approaches are often questioned (Bryant et al., 2013).