Exploring the Scientific Impact of Information Systems Design Science Research

While design science research has established its position as a prominent field of research in the IS community, there is a lack of transparency regarding the impact of recent information systems design science research (IS DSR) papers. This lack of insight arguably poses challenges to an informed discourse and limits our ability to communicate the progress that IS DSR has achieved. Therefore, after mapping impactful IS DSR papers, we develop a scientometric study to address the lack of insights into factors that affect the scientific impact of IS DSR papers in top IS journals. In this study, we focus on active, IS-specific DSR areas and consider papers published in the AIS Senior Scholars’ basket of journals between 2004 and 2014. Specifically, we develop a model that explores factors that affect IS DSR papers’ scientific impact. Our findings show that theorization and novelty significantly explain scientific impact. We discuss our work’s implications and derive recommendations intended to shape future knowledge creation in IS DSR.