Editor’s Comments

Abstract

This year marks MIS Quarterly's 50th year in operation.The editorials in Volume 50 will pay tribute to the journal's 50 years in multiple ways.We begin by taking a journey through the history of the journal through the lens of the editorials. 1 In writing this editorial, I cannot help but feel a bit nostalgic as I think about the people who paved the path for us to be able to have conversations about shifting research topics, new and improved research methods, or how to solve the latest "crisis" in the discipline.In the late 1960s, some very visionary scholars were planning the future of a discipline-a discipline they felt would be important to the future of organizations, but one about which no one knew.And, so, the journal's history does not start in 1977, but rather a decade before.A great deal of work had to go on behind the scenes prior to launching such an endeavor.First and foremost, we had to have a discipline. A Discipline Is BornIn the late 1960s, Gordon Davis, Gary Dickson, and Tom Hoffman were planning a new degree program that would focus on how organizations used information systems.In 1968, they started the first formal degree program in MIS at the University of Minnesota.In 1974, Gordon wrote the first textbook for MIS-Management Information Systems: Conceptual Foundations, Structure and Development (Davis, 1974).Gordon's foundational work served as a model for other programs, and between 1968 and 1977, new MIS programs were launched in schools including the University of Georgia in 1971 and the University of Arizona in 1974. 2 We take for granted that MIS programs around the world exist to train the next generation of IS scholars, but that was not the case in those early times.In the 1980s, the University of Minnesota and Indiana University ran summer institutes to train people in MIS and provide a mechanism for transitioning scholars from other disciplines to teach and perform research in MIS. The First Journal for the FieldAfter years of planning and preparation, a new journal was born in March 1977.It was made possible by a joint venture of the MIS Research Center and the Society for Management Information Systems (SMIS), which today is the Society for Information Management (SIM). 3Due to the relationship with SMIS, it was important that there was content in the journal for practitioners; at the same time, the journal was supposed to be a place for researchers to communicate their results.Prior to the launch of MIS Quarterly, the work of MIS academics was published in various places, and also often rejected from those places due to lack of fit.The need for a journal was significant, but funding would prove to be a challenge: "Recognize that we wanted a journal in which MIS Academics could publish while our primary source of funding was a society primarily of information systems practitioners.As a result, the vast majority of our readers would be practitioners.The task was to define a product that could satisfy both groups. One feature we used in the early days to build circulation was interviews with CEOs" (Dickson, 1982, pp.vi-vii).1 Although there will be occasional acknowledgement of events happening outside of MIS Quarterly, I apologize for any omission of people, programs, or publications.Please recognize that this is my personal journey, and your experience may be different.