Citation Patterns in MIS: An Analysis of Exemplar Articles

The present research examines MIS exemplar articles, analyzing their citation patterns in MIS and other scientific fields. Using MIS Quarterly articles of the year and peer-nominated articles, we identified 36 exemplar MIS articles. In all, 421 journals contained articles that cited the exemplars. Our five findings are: (1) the MIS exemplars cover a wide range of themes, (2) the average lifetime for an exemplar article (as expressed through the citations made to the article) is 17 years, as compared with an 11 year expected life time for scientific journal articles, (3) the dominant life-cycle pattern for an exemplar takes the form of a bell curve, (4) exemplar articles that were conceptual in nature are not cited any more frequently than articles treating contemporary issues, and (5) conceptual contributions have a longer lifetime of citation activity than contemporary exemplars. Future research will more closely examine MIS and its reference disciplines, as is revealed through extensive citation analysis of the exemplars.

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