INSTITUTIONAL THEORY AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Institutional Theory presents important contributions to organizational studies in relation to the investigation of influences that shape the structures, schemes, rules, norms and actor behavior. In the Information Systems (IS) area, the Institutional Theory application to examine phenomena such as innovation, development, implementation, and IS adoption is growing (MIGNERAT; RIVARD, 2009). This study presents an overview of the interface between Institutional Theory and the Information Systems area through a bibliometric research carried out in the Web of Science database. The investigation resulted in 128 publications and the bibliographic coupling procedure evidenced 5 clusters. The theoretical and methodological elements of the 20 most cited publications were also analized, in order to outline the perspective of investigation adopted by IS scholars when using the Institutional Theory. The results reveal that Institutional Theory has numerous applications in IS studies, 2 point out established research paths and suggest Institutional Theory applications that may be explored by IS researchers. Keywords: Institutional Theory; Information systems; Bibliometric; Bibliographic coupling.