1.0 Introduction: The Calm Before the Storm
Today, the field of Management Information Systems (MIS)—or Information Technology Management—is a cornerstone of modern business and a staple of any serious business school curriculum. It’s the established, common-sense discipline that studies how to design, build, and manage the technology that runs our world. We see it as a stable, essential, and well-defined profession, as fundamental to business as accounting or marketing.
This perception of stability, however, conceals a surprisingly chaotic and uncertain past. An astonishingly self-critical 1980 paper from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, “MIS RESEARCH: REFERENCE DISCIPLINES AND A CUMULATIVE TRADITION,” by Peter G. W. Keen, offers a rare, unfiltered look into the field’s tumultuous birth. The paper is not a polished history but a candid assessment written by a key figure actively trying to build the discipline. It reveals a field grappling with a profound identity crisis, one stemming from a failure to establish what Keen called “reference disciplines” to guide its research and a “cumulative tradition” to build upon its discoveries.
This article explores the most impactful takeaways from Keen’s historical document. In his honest critique, we find the foundational struggles over identity, theory, and hype that ultimately forged the discipline we know today and continue to echo in our current technological landscape.
2.0 Four Foundational Crises of a Fledgling Field
In his 1980 paper, Keen diagnosed a field in distress. Its core problem was its failure to build an intellectual foundation. He argued that several interlocking crises were preventing MIS from becoming a coherent academic area, each a symptom of this deeper struggle for legitimacy. Four of his observations stand out as particularly surprising from a modern perspective.
2.1 Takeaway 1: A Field Without an Identity
The most shocking revelation from the paper is that MIS began without a clear identity. In 1980, it wasn’t considered a true discipline but, in Keen’s words, a “theme rather than a substantive field.” It was seen as a “hybrid, applied field” that borrowed so heavily from other areas that it had no core of its own.
This lack of definition, Keen argued, was a direct result of having no “Reference Disciplines”—no established fields like economics or psychology to provide a model for what rigorous research looked like. Without this intellectual anchor, MIS was an object of scorn among more established academic departments. To researchers in those fields, the fledgling discipline looked “muddled, messy and fraudulent.” It was a stark contrast to today, where MIS departments are respected, integral parts of business schools. The field that now defines how businesses use technology began its life desperately searching for academic respectability.
“Perhaps MIS is only a theme. Perhaps, like Organizational Behavior and Business Policy, it is a convenient umbrella term for a hybrid, applied field which is more easily defined in terms of the MBA curriculum than research.”
2.2 Takeaway 2: The Paradox of Being “Too Interesting”
Counterintuitively, one of the biggest barriers to the development of MIS was that it was simply too exciting. The constant parade of new technologies, lucrative consulting opportunities, and “gee-whiz applications” created a powerful distraction. This is a direct consequence of lacking a “cumulative tradition”—a shared, long-term research agenda to anchor academics. Without a compelling intellectual mission to unite them, researchers were constantly pulled away from the slow, foundational work of building a real discipline.
This created a severe brain drain. According to Keen, the allure of short-term projects meant that “senior researchers desert the field and far too many of the rising stars quit to found a company.” The very real-world relevance that gave MIS its energy also threatened to undermine its intellectual foundations. This problem remains deeply relevant, as the pull of high-paying industry jobs and startup culture continues to draw top talent away from fundamental academic research.
“The senior researchers desert the field and far too many of the rising stars quit to found a company.”
2.3 Takeaway 3: The Missing “I” in MIS
Perhaps the most fundamental crisis facing the young field was that it could not even define its central subject: information. The paper argues with startling clarity that “MIS research has no theoretical base at present since it has no consensual definition of information.” Without a clear, measurable definition of its core concept, the entire field was built on shaky ground.
Researchers were forced to rely on weak “surrogates” to measure success, such as “user satisfaction” or “hours of usage.” But Keen wasn’t just identifying a problem; he was pointing toward a more sophisticated, human-centric solution. He argued that “information” should not be seen as a physical commodity but as something intrinsically linked to “organizational design”—a “process of exchange and negotiation.” This conceptual leap was critical, as it pushed the field beyond mere technical management and toward the strategic, organizational role it holds today.
“Until we have a coherent definition of ‘information’ we have nothing to measure. Surrogates for improved information, such as user satisfaction or terminal hours of usage, will continue to mislead us and evade the issue of a theory of information for MIS.”
2.4 Takeaway 4: The Timeless Trap of Chasing Tech Fads
The modern technology landscape is defined by a relentless cycle of hype, from the dot-com bubble to the current frenzy around AI. Keen’s paper reveals this is not a new phenomenon. He notes that while the field was beginning to mature, it was still dangerously susceptible to chasing the latest trend.
He points to a specific example of this, one that he found “distressingly familiar” even then, highlighting the rush to embrace the latest buzzword without critical examination. His cautious observation shows that the tension between substantive innovation and trend-chasing has been with the technology field since its inception.
“…the jump on the Office of the Future bandwagon is distressingly familiar.”
This observation from over four decades ago serves as a powerful reminder that the pressure to appear cutting-edge has always competed with the need for rigorous, meaningful work.
3.0 Conclusion: A Foundation Built on Introspection
Reading Keen’s paper today is a fascinating look at a now-mature discipline in its awkward and insecure adolescence. It reveals that the stable, essential field of Management Information Systems was not born fully formed but was forged in a crucible of intellectual uncertainty, institutional doubt, and, most importantly, courageous self-criticism. The field became what it is today not by ignoring its weaknesses, but by confronting them head-on.
This history leaves us with a vital question. As we navigate today’s rapid technological shifts, have we truly solved these foundational problems of identity, theory, and hype, or do they simply reappear in new forms?
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