Borje Langefors was appointed Professor in Information Processing at the University of Stockholm in 1965. He proposed a theoretical basis for IS based on ‘the infological equation I = i (D, S, T), where I stands for information, D data, S the recipient prior knowledge as result of the individual’s life experience, T the time, and i the interpretation process’ (Shen 2003). His early texts (Langefors 1963, 1966) were translated into English, although it is not easy to judge the extent of their impact on thinking in English-speaking countries. The ‘infological equation’ is reflected in Mason (2005:14), which refers to information as ‘data interpreted within a point-of-view’, and in this author’s own explanation of information as ‘data that has value [that] depends upon context’ (Clarke 1992). Both also appear to relate to Wiener’s conception of information as ‘data that an organisation could employ for the direction of its activities’ (Mason 2005). It is in stark contrast with Shannon and Weaver’s conception of information as ‘a measure of one’s freedom of choice when one selects a message’. That works brilliantly when applied to the transmission of data over a noisy channel, but very poorly in the contexts addressed by IS. Scandinavia has also had a long and strong association with the organisation and human behaviour aspects of IS, including from Niels Bjørn-Andersen, who, after completion of his PhD with Enid Mumford in Manchester, returned to Copenhagen in 1972.

In Germany, Wirtschaftsinformatik (roughly translated as ‘business data processing’ or ‘business informatics’) emerged within Betriebswirtschaftslehre (roughly, ‘business administration’) from the late 1950s and was influenced later much by Informatik (‘computer science’). The earliest claim that has been found for the establishment of IS is the Institute for Business Organisation and Automation at the University of Koeln (E. Grochla) in 1963. The first German-language doctoral thesis on an IS topic was in 1966 (Peter Mertens); the next in 1968 (Lutz Heinrich). The first chairs in German-speaking countries were at Linz in Austria (Mertens, 1968–69; Heinrich, 1970–2004), then at Karlsruhe, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Darmstadt, Muenchen and Speyer. The first full majors were at Wien and Linz in 1974–75, and in the 1980s large schools emerged in Berlin, Köln, Frankfurt-am-Main, Mannheim, Münster, Nürnberg and Saarbrücken. A national conference has existed since 1987. The leading German-language journal has been called Wirtschaftsinformatik since 1990, but was established as Elektronische Rechtanlagen (‘electronic computing systems’, 1959–72) and, between 1972 and 1990, was named Angewandte Informatik (‘applied computing’).

Wirtschaftsinformatik has had a sustained and strong orientation towards data processing and software development, with substantial practical work, but also a significant information management stream (Heinrich 1993; Avgerou et al. 1999; Mertens et al. 2002). Patterns in other German-speaking countries have been not dissimilar. Distinctions between the German and other styles are drawn out by this quotation: ‘To what extent will Anglo-American researchers adopt the prototypical IS approach being cultivated in Germany and to what extent will German IS research better adapt to the survey-oriented Anglo-American research culture?’ (Mertens et al. 2002).

In the United Kingdom, key appointments occurred in 1967: Frank Land at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Peter Keen at the London Business School (LBS). Together with Enid Mumford, already at Manchester, there were now three separate and rather different flavours. A key publication appeared in the same year: The Computer and the Clerk (Mumford and Banks 1967). This greatly influenced the conception and scope of IS in the United Kingdom, which has generally been attuned to a human-oriented interpretation of systems thinking that reflects the intrinsic ambiguity of the contexts in which information is used and IT applied, and the existence of a range of perspectives that need to be factored into analyses. This relatively ‘soft’ nature was noticeable in the contributions of Ronald Stamper at LSE from 1972, Peter Checkland at Lancaster and later Trevor Wood-Harper. The discipline in the United Kingdom has, however, come to reflect a wide diversity of approaches.

The history of the IS discipline in North America (and, to a considerable extent, the world as a whole) is associated by many people with the appointment of Gordon Davis to a chair at Minnesota in 1967. The context was accounting within a graduate school of business, but impregnated with systems thinking. The field was described as ‘management information systems’ (MIS). Mason (2005:21) traces the origins of that term at least as far back as a 1962 book by James D. Gallagher.

Davis had already published an introductory textbook on computers for business students (Davis 1965), but his key intellectual contributions were encapsulated in his ‘conceptual foundations’ text (Davis 1974; Davis and Olson 1984). Davis spent close to four decades at Minnesota, from 1967 to 2004. Many of the people whose doctorates he supervised have also been active supervisors and, by the time of his retirement in 2005, the ‘family’ had reached the fourth generation and a total count of more than 100.

The year 1967 also saw the appointment of Bill King at Pittsburgh, who brought an OR perspective, but grafted on from other disciplines as appropriate. MIS was established at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) by no later than 1968, also growing out of accounting, but with a strong ‘systems thinking’ emphasis (Mason 2005). Dan Couger published on systems analysis and development techniques—also in a manner imbued with systems thinking. Jim Emery published foundation textbooks (Emery 1969, 1971). Macfarlan and Scott Morton at Harvard Business School published on management aspects of IS from the late 1960s onwards.

Banker and Kauffman (2004) note that the journal Management Science started a column on ‘information systems in management science’ in 1967, edited by Harry Stern, and included IS in the first departmental structure of the journal in 1969. The Society for Information Management (SIM), which has always targeted the needs of the senior IS executive (in contemporary fashion, the chief information officer or CIO), was an important supporter from 1968. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), particularly through its Special Interest Group for Business Data Processing (SIGBDP) and The Institute for Management Science (TIMS) also provided support and considerable influence—from the computing and the operations research perspectives respectively. A perspective on the origins and evolution of MIS is in Dickson (1981).

In the United States, MIS has been imbued with a rationalist approach to systems thinking. Rationalism can be ‘bounded’, but ‘satisficing’ is still rational. There is limited scope for looseness and soft systems, little attention is paid to contexts that lack a single powerful entity that can dictate a requirements statement, and limited credence is granted to serendipity and what Ciborra called ‘bricolage’. Strategically successful IS have to be attributed to intelligent management and cannot be seen to be the semi-accidental result of complex interactions. Tensions between perspectives are in principle capable of being balanced out, but in many cases they are simply overridden in deference to some ‘greater good’. The greater good is by definition determined rationally, but from some particular perspective—generally that of the most powerful player or alliance of players.

Clearly, this stark juxtaposition of ‘hard US’ versus ‘soft British and Scandinavian’ philosophies in IS is an over-simplification that is subject to many qualifications, particularly in recent years as the level of trans-Atlantic communications, interactions and alliances has increased. In particular, a number of US writers have argued the case for interpretivism—for example, Boland (1978), Lee (1994) and Chen and Hirschheim (2004). Nonetheless, the tension between the ‘hard’ and the ‘soft’ exists; and it is not infrequent that the distinction is a regional one.