Generalizing the Information Systems Artifact

Suppose that a successful information systems (IS) artifact is created by a scholar for use in a research study or by a practitioner for use in an organization; how may the IS artifact be replicated in, or generalized to, another setting? The overall utility of the IS artifact depends on a way to generalize it. To provide such a way, we engage in three things. First, we distinguish an information systems artifact from its better-known sibling, the information technology artifact, by noting that the former includes three mutually supportive subsystems: the technology artifact, the social artifact, and the information artifact, where all three need to be designed and developed for the generalized IS artifact to be successful. Second, we devise a procedure to generalize the IS artifact based on a thorough examination of, and analogy to, generalizing scientific theory. Third, we provide a real-world illustration, involving the generalization of an IS artifact from one setting (the “computer on a stick” for educational purposes in Haiti) to another setting (the “continuing medical education on a stick” in Nepal). The generalization procedure can facilitate the production of working design science artifacts in more than just the original setting.

Established process steps for design science research have not addressed the usability of technology artifacts beyond the original research setting. Building on what is already known about generalizing a theory from one setting to another and the idea of an artifact as the interface between an inner environment and outer environment put forth by Nobel Prize–winning social scientist Herbert Simon, we propose a procedure for generalizing an information systems (IS) artifact from one setting to another. We illustrate the treatment of the procedure by examining how an IS artifact (which itself consists of a technology artifact, information artifact, and social artifact) is generalized from the setting of Haiti to the setting of Nepal. The generalization procedure is a contribution to the practically oriented design science literature, which emphasizes the importance of the production of problem-solving artifacts. Specifically, our conceptualization of generalizing IS artifacts emphasizes the practical significance of design science research and the successful creation of artifacts that work in new settings in addition to the one where a research study originally created it. Design science researchers and practitioners may find the procedure and its real-world treatment and description a useful model to follow.

History: Jason Thatcher, Senior Editor; Walter Fernandez, Associate Editor.