Neuroscience provides a new lens through which to study information systems (IS). These NeuroIS studies investigate the neurophysiological effects related to the design, use, and impact of IS. A major advantage of this new methodology is its ability to examine human behavior at the underlying neurophysiological level, which was not possible before, and to reduce self-reporting bias in behavior research. Previous studies that have revisited important IS concepts such as trust and distrust have challenged and extended our knowledge. An increasing number of neuroscience studies in IS have given researchers, editors, reviewers, and readers new challenges in terms of determining what makes a good NeuroIS study. While earlier papers focused on how to apply specific methods (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging), this paper takes an IS perspective in deriving six phases for conducting NeuroIS research and offers five guidelines for planning and evaluating NeuroIS studies: to advance IS research, to apply the standards of neuroscience, to justify the choice of a neuroscience strategy of inquiry, to map IS concepts to bio-data, and to relate the experimental setting to IS-authentic situations. The guidelines provide guidance for authors, reviewers, and readers of NeuroIS studies, and thus help to capitalize on the potential of neuroscience in IS research.
This paper explores how a world-wide operating software solutions provider implemented environmentally sustainable business practices in response to emerging environmental concerns. Through an interpretive case study, we develop a theoretical framework that identifies four important functional affordances originating in information systems, which are required in environmental sustainability transformations as they create an actionable context in which (1) organizations can engage in a sensemaking process related to understanding emerging environmental requirements, and (2) individuals can implement environmentally sustainable work practices. Through our work, we provide several contributions, including a better understanding of IS-enabled organizational change and the types of functional affordances of information systems that are required in sustainability transformations. We describe implications relating to (1) how information systems can contribute to the creation of environmentally sustainable organizations, (2) the design of information systems to create required functional affordances, (3) the management of sustainability transformations, and (4) the further development of the concept of functional affordances in IS research.
This article discusses the role of commonly used neurophysiological tools such as psychophysiological tools (e.g., EKG, eye tracking) and neuroimaging tools (e.g., fMRI, EEG) in Information Systems research. There is heated interest now in the social sciences in capturing presumably objective data directly from the human body, and this interest in neurophysiological tools has also been gaining momentum in IS research (termed NeuroIS). This article first reviews commonly used neurophysiological tools with regard to their major strengths and weaknesses. It then discusses several promising application areas and research questions where IS researchers can benefit from the use of neurophysiological data. The proposed research topics are presented within three thematic areas: (1) development and use of systems, (2) IS strategy and business outcomes, and (3) group work and decision support. The article concludes with recommendations on how to use neurophysiological tools in IS research along with a set of practical suggestions for developing a research agenda for NeuroIS and establishing NeuroIS as a viable subfield in the IS literature.