Influence Diagrams in Information Systems Research

A major difficulty facing researchers in information systems (IS), management science and social science is coping with complexity. Systems such as business organizations are highly complex. Cause and effect are difficult to establish in system enquiry, and often the effect of a particular factor cannot be easily isolated from that of others. In IS research, for instance, it is difficult to determine whether higher computer usage leads to more profit or whether higher levels of profit lead to more computer usage, or whether such observed correlation is due to other factors. This problem is, however, not new or limited to IS research alone. In this paper, the author proposes the use of influence diagrams as a tool to cope with complexity and causality in IS research.