Towards automated analysis of fads and trends in information systems research: Concept, implementation and exemplary application in the context of business process management research

Information Systems (IS) research strives for the design of innovative as well as the investigation of existing methods and techniques for information management in organizations. IS methods and techniques can support the automation of operational tasks as well as management tasks in organizations. Furthermore, they offer considerable potential for the automation of research processes in IS research. This paper examines the potential and boundaries of automated analyses of fads and trends in the field of IS research based on a design-oriented research approach. A concept for automated trend analysis is developed and implemented in an innovative software tool. The proof of concept software is exemplarily applied for the investigation of fads and trends in Business Process Management (BPM) research as an important field in IS research. Moreover, the potential and boundaries of the presented approach are discussed.