The field of information systems has historically suffered from a pre-dominance of behavioral approaches. As a result, it is not surprising that in spite of decades of research, dozens of conferences and journals and thousands of researchers, very few breakthroughs have been achieved. This paper advocates a technical approach that focuses on improving existing systems in organizations by viewing them from the point of roles i.e. functions fulfilled by IS in organizations. These are understood as: 1) supporting operations, 2) providing information, 3) supporting decision making, 4) providing knowledge, 5) supporting knowledge and clerical work, and 6) supporting organizational design. It is generally agreed that the field’s understanding of fulfilling roles “1”, “2”, “3” and “6” is mature while understanding of areas “3” (for unstructured decisions), “4”, and “5” are still incomplete. The challenges in these areas are difficult problems that we refer to as grand challenges and discuss in this paper.
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