Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Interorganizational Information Systems (IOIS)

The development of interorganizational information systems over long timescales has not been of prime interest to IS scholars in the past. Recent studies revealed the need to account for the resilience of IOIS over extended periods of time. While these IOIS persist over time they are not free of any change. This seemingly paradoxical coexistence of change and persistence is at the core of this paper. A theoretical apparatus is needed that may account for both phenomena over extended periods of time. Against this backdrop the notion of evolution of IOIS is explored. The paper proposes the theoretical concepts of "natural drift" and "structural coupling" as a promising venue for an evolutionary perspective on IOIS. The paper finds that conceiving IOIS as structurally coupled systems offers a new and promising venue to account for long-term phenomena in IOIS studies.