本研究針對臺大管理論叢25 周年研討會之主題，挑選資訊管理學報與臺大管理 論叢兩刊進行內容分析。然而台灣資管領域仍有多本代表性期刊，如電子商務學報、
管理評論、管理與系統、中山管理評論與管理學報等，未來可納入內容分析的對象進 行探討。再者，儘管本研究採納並延伸國內外主流期刊中的分類架構進行文章分類，
然而並未針對研究議題與產業應用之領域進行探討。建議後續研究可針對議題作為分 析的構面，更甚者將資訊科技的發展對於研究主題的影響進行分析。在議題分類的限 制上，目前用人工分類的方式僅針對單一子類別進行描述性統計的分析，建議後續學 者引用關聯法則等分析技術，針對多類別間的關聯進行分析與探討。最後本研究之主 軸在於探討資訊管理領域研究在台灣的發展，所以分析的對象並未含括其他國家的刊 物，因此建議未來之研究可將台灣的資訊管理研究發展現況與其他國家的資訊管理研 究之發展進行比較。
Information Management Research in Taiwan: Historical Retrospect and Future Outlook
1. Introduction
The information management (IM) field in Taiwan has evolved for more than forty years. With the rapid change of information technology (IT) in different periods, research issues and methodology of the IM field have also continually varied. Based on the existing literature, prior studies primarily focused on the development of the IM field are not quite enough. Furthermore, the data periods or time windows used in the prior studies are out-of-date. As the IM field has become a matured discipline, the number of IM articles has increased year by year. Nowadays, many novel research issues in the IM field, such as virtual community, cloud services, and big data, should be discussed and considered. The development issues in the IM field should also be re-addressed. This study selects two representative journals in the IM fields in Taiwan– Journal of Information Management and NTU Management Review for a review study. Following the analysis method of the past studies, we analyze the topics of these two journals’ published articles across the past decade and discuss the future directions of IM research.
2. Research Method
This study selects a total of 381 IM-related articles, in which 359 articles are from Journal of Information Management and 22 articles are from NTU Management Review during the 10-year period from 2005 to 2014. This study adopts content analysis to analyze these articles and makes comparisons between the two journals. Based on the results of content analysis, this study attempts to explain research trends and developments of the IM field from four dimensions: Human, Systems, Management, and Research Method. The categories and issues in each dimension that are used to classify each article are as follows.
Eldon Y. Li, University Chair Professor, Department of Management Information Systems, National Chengchi University
Laurence Fang-Kai Chang, Assistant Professor, Department of Information Management, Da-Yeh University
Alan Chien-Lung Hsu, Associate Professor, Department of Marketing Management, Takming University of Science and Technology
Chien Hsiang Liao, Assistant Professor, Department of Information Management, Fu-Jen Catholic University
The Human dimension contains 4 categories: Person, Group, Organization, and Society.
The Person category contains the issues of (1) User Behavior; (2) User Attitude; (3) IT Employees; (4) User Performance; and (5) Human-Computer Interaction. The Group category contains the issues of (1) Group Performance; (2) Group Process; and (3) Group Support. The Organization category contains the issues of (1) Business Processes; (2) Innovation; (3) Organizational Learning and Performance; (4) Organizational Factors (Culture, Structure, Scale); (5) Organizational Strategies; and (6) Organizational Resources Management (Knowledge Management). Finally, the Society category contains the issues of (1) Legal issues; (2) Political issues; (3) Ethics issues; and (4) Societal issues.
Next, the System dimension contains 4 categories: Concept and Method, System Development, System Application, and IT and Tools. The Concept and Method dimension contains the issues of (1) Information System Development Methodology; and (2) Information System Development Strategy. The System Development dimension contains the issues of (1) Requirement Analysis and Model Development; (2) System Development Process and Project Management; (3) System Design issues; (4) System Implementation; (5) System Evaluation; and (6) User Training, Education, and Usage. The System Application dimension contains the issues of (1) Intelligent Systems (Expert Systems, Artificial Neural Networks, Intelligent Agent Systems, etc.); (2) Decision Support Systems (Executive Information Systems, Executive Support Systems); (3) Network Communication Systems;
(4) Intra- and Inter-Organizational Information Systems; (5) Other Application Systems (Distance Learning Systems, Customer Relationship Management Systems, Marketing Systems, Accounting Systems, etc.); and (6) IT Applications in Industries. The IT and Tools dimension contains the issues of (1) IT Infrastructure Construction; (2) Information Security Techniques; (3) Emerging IT; and (4) Analysis Models and Tools. In addition, the Management dimension contains only one category of Management-related issues. It contains the issues of (1) Economics issues; (2) Information System Performance Evaluation; (3) Information System Strategic Planning; (4) Decision Making; and (5) Other Management issues.
Finally, the Research Method dimension also contains one category: Research Method and Theory. It contains the issues of (1) Conceptual Model Analysis; (2) Mathematical Model Analysis; (3) Case Study; (4) Action Research; (5) Ethnography; (6) Grounded Theory; (7) Database Analysis; (8) Literature Review; (9) Field Study; (10) Descriptive/
Evaluation; (17) Laboratory Experiment–Software; (18) Concept Implementation/Proof of Concept; (19) Simulation; (20) Focus Group; (21) Delphi; (22) Interview; (23) Network Analysis; (24) Meta Analysis; and (25) Content Analysis.
3. Conclusions and Discussion
This study provides an overview of the development of the IM field, highlighting the importance of research trend and its timeline. Through analyzing JIM articles, the study discovers the concern of IT applications has gradually moved away from IT applications in enterprises towards individual consumer’s attitudes and behaviors regarding the use of electronic business or emerging technologies, such as mobile communications and social media. IM research issues have switched focus from organizational applications to user behavior models. The research issues discussed in JIM encompass various emerging issues and theory validation topics; the journal is thus highly valued by IM scholars in Taiwan.
The research methods adopted by the scholars are mostly field survey and analyses of large secondary data from databases. More and more scholars adopt design science approach to validate emerging technologies. Moreover, the research emphasis of IM scholars has moved away from intra-organizational IT applications to individual living and mobile applications. The validation method of technology introduction has advanced from traditional conceptual validation to multi-criteria validation methods. Finally, the quality criteria of IM articles are also improving–such as reliability of dataset and validity of measurement.
4. Recommendations
Since the Industrial Revolution, people's workplaces have shifted from home to the production environment or working office. There has been distinct spatial segmentation between home and office. However, with the help of Internet of Things (IOT) and computing capabilities, now this spatial segmentation has been broken. People not only can complete their office’s tasks at home, but also remote control intelligent home appliances at their office. This is subverting the traditional management thinking and methods. This study encourages future researchers to follow this innovative trend (i.e., IOT) and catch related research topics and applications. For practice, managers should rethink their business models and IT applications by IOT, and thereby increasing profits for company. Future researchers could identify a research gap in the existing studies or seek for possible research ideas based
5. Limitations and Future Research
This study conducts content analysis of Journal of Information Management and NTU Management Review. However, there are other IM-related journals not being included into our journals basket, e.g., Journal of e-Business, Management Review, Journal of Management & Systems, Sun Yat-Sen Management Review, and Journal of Management.
Researchers are encouraged to expand our journal basket in the future. Foreign journals could be included to enable a comparative analysis. In addition, the scope of our content analysis does not include research issues and industrial applications. Perhaps future studies could focus on the analysis of various research issues and the impact of IT on industries.