From the Editor-in-Chief of JMIS

It has been 30 years!  Journal of Management Information Systems is celebrating its jubilee. Over the three recent decades, our field of information systems and the journal have traveled a long and fascinating road.  The world, and its societies and organizations, have been transformed by information systems and by the technologies around which they are built.  Our working and personal lives have altered, have moved closer to each other, and are now lived on the global scene and at a far more rapid pace.  Indeed, our understanding of the life we lead has been changed by our ability to connect, by ubiquitous access to information and knowledge, and by the opportunities and challenges of cohabitation with the artifacts borne of information technologies.  It falls to our discipline to help the world to understand and meet the ever new challenges, and to develop and exploit the ever new opportunities.

As a leading journal in the field, JMIS has always aimed to meet the expanding role of IT with the expansion of the profile of our IS discipline.  Our scholarly field seeks to understand how systems can be organized, developed, and deployed effectively to manage information and knowledge toward specified outcomes, in order to support organizations, marketplaces, and products.   Within this disciplinary commitment, we should range widely, I believe.  The breadth of our scope should be matched by methodological pluralism, necessary to advance our knowledge and to advance our field. 

Several important sub-fields and research streams of IS have originated with the scholarly work published in JMIS.   Among the more important are these: scholarly assessment of the business value of information systems, real options theory in IS, design science, negotiation support systems, and service science.  We have been the early champion of economics research in our field and our authors have been consistently moving the needle in collaboration systems. Our recent initiatives include the innovative special issue on neuroscience and IS research, currently being completed by its authoritative Guest Editorial Board.  As IT moves to the ever new frontiers, we shall reach out across disciplinary boundaries to understand and develop the capabilities of information systems built around this technology conglomeration.

A top-ranked generalist journal, JMIS publishes works that make a significant novel contribution to the field of IS.   The thought leadership by our authors has been affirmed by numerous external distinctions, including the AIS Best-Paper-of-the-Year awards and the recent Prix Académique de la Recherche en Management-2013.

Profound thanks go to the entire IS community for the support JMIS has received over its first three decades. For all of us to share in the celebration, we have prepared a "JMIS Dozen,” a virtual special issue of twelve papers that illustrate the trajectory of our field and of the Journal.  You will find it at www.mesharpe.com/JMIS30years.htm.                

Let us move on to the 4th decade of JMIS.                                                                                    Vladimir Zwass                                                                                                               
Editor-in-Chief