Topic Selection & ISR Fit (isr-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• You have a phenomenon, dataset, or analytical model but are unsure it is an ISR question
• The idea may be "IT-adjacent" rather than genuinely about the design, use, valuation, or impact of IT
• You are choosing between ISR and a neighboring venue
• A colleague says "interesting, but is this IS, or just OB/econ/CS done with IT data?"

The ISR fit test

ISR is receptive to phenomena on the design, management, use, valuation, and impacts of information technology, examined at multiple levels of analysis — individuals, groups, firms, networks, societies, and nations. Pressure-test on four dimensions:

1. IT-artifact centrality. The IT artifact (a system, platform, algorithm, digital infrastructure, data product) must shape the mechanism, not just supply the setting or the data. If you could swap "IT" for "any tool" and the story survived, fit is weak.
2. Sociotechnical framing. ISR prizes work where the social and the technical co-constitute the phenomenon. Pure-technical (a CS systems paper) or pure-social (an OB paper that happens to use platform data) questions sit at the edge of fit.
3. Intradisciplinary potential. ISR explicitly values work that bridges IS silos — integrating behavioral, design-science, economic, and organizational perspectives — over single-paradigm contributions.
4. Level(s) of analysis. Name the level(s) and whether the contribution is within-level or cross-level.

Choose your genre early — ISR houses two co-equally