The purpose of this chapter has been to provide a chronicle of the early years of the IS discipline in Australia, in the process identifying important themes. It is arguably inappropriate in a review of this nature to draw conclusions; this section accordingly focuses on key questions that confront the discipline early in the twenty-first century.

The first cluster of questions relates to the discipline’s intellectual survival. Is IS really a discipline? And does it matter if it isn’t? Is there a core? Is it so heavily dependent on technology and management fashion that it can never have the stable core necessary for a recognised discipline? Put another way, are IS academics destined to wander forever, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Hamlet, backstage bit actors to host discipline leads? Is IS not a discipline, but merely a research domain that needs to be viewed through the lenses of a variety of genuine disciplines? Has its value been ephemeral? Does it need to be absorbed by broader disciplines on either side of it? Does it need to continue to exist much as it does now, but with less energy wasted on existential angst?

In this author’s view, we need to be far less nervous, and far more positive about the quality of our work; to be far less internally focused, and far more outward-looking and professionally oriented; to be far less interested in ‘the IT artefact’, and far more committed to ‘information’ and ‘systems’ as the once and future core of the IS discipline. We need to be far less mechanistic in our outlook, and far more humanistic; and we need to be far less servile to corporations and the State, and far more socially responsible.

If IS is a discipline with a long-term future, further questions arise. In interview, Frank Land said, ‘We’re fragmenting intellectually and methodologically, and our language is becoming confused, because words are increasingly being used in method-specific senses.’ He sees this as leading to mistaken inferring and perhaps an outright inability to comprehend what someone from a different intellectual or methodological school of thought is trying to say. This author sees this as being a consequence of the dominance of rigour over relevance, and the resultant research technique-driven selection of research questions and even research domains.

If the discipline is intellectually worthy and sound, there remains the issue of economic survival. Can a still relatively young and politically weak discipline survive in the face of massively reduced government funding for institutions, new business models exposed to the vagaries of market conditions and a new mechanism for the distribution of research funds that is hostile to new and non-traditional disciplines? The market overreacted to the dot.com implosion—as markets do—and local demand for IT-qualified graduates could well exceed supply in the near future. The implosion in enrolments, however, confirmed the belief among university administrators that IS is ephemeral and/or unimportant. Will the recovery come soon enough and forcefully enough to ensure that IS survives as a distinct discipline? Political survival depends on many factors, but adjustment of the scope of the IS discipline, and maturation of its orientation, would deliver intellectual integrity, which would certainly help.

The first four decades of the IS discipline in Australia saw progress and growth achieved, but in a context of multi-dimensional change, uncertainty and adversity. The next decade promises more of the last three, but quite possibly more of the first two as well.