Benbasat and Zmud’s theoretical article argues that the IS research community is making the discipline’s identity ambiguous.  For IS to be a distinct scholarly discipline, it must have boundaries, and research must be conducted within the discipline’s intellectual core.

The authors argue that IS has theoretical rigor, respected journals, accredited academic departments, and a professional society, but no dominant design.  The inclusion of interdisciplinary theories, methods, and topics has prevented a central character from being established.

The authors then define the IT artifact as the application of IT to enable or support some task embedded within a structure that itself is embedded within a context.  Its nomological net increases the understanding of the IT artifact and binds it to its subdisciplines.  Together, they define the set of core properties of the IS discipline:  a) The IT artifact, b) IT managerial, methodological and technical capabilities, c) Usage, d) Impact, and e) IT managerial, methodological, and operational practices.

This article was published to teach writers not to commit errors of exclusion or inclusion.  They must include the IT artifact and at least one of the elements associated with its immediate nomological net, and exclude research models primarily belonging to other disciplines.

I agree with the authors that the identity of the IS field is ambiguous.  The purpose of the article was to reveal their development of its core properties. The article’s strength is the complex, but convincing argument, showing why core properties are needed.  Its weakness is that it does not rigorously justify the core properties themselves.  The authors state that the reason for an unambiguous identity is so institutions in the organizational field continue to invest in IS; but don’t explain the current perceived identity or why it is important that the identity be unambiguous on an academic level.