Strategic signalling and awards: Investigation into the first decade of AIS best publications awards

Professional organizations for academics such as the Academy of Management and Association for Information Systems (AIS) create best publications awards to honour and promote exemplary contributions that align with the core values and priorities of their distinct fields. Despite the strategic importance of awards, researchers rarely investigate meaningful patterns implicit in the contribution characteristics of award-winning articles. We conduct a reconstructive study of the 10-year history of the AIS Best Publications Awards by outlining a framework that reveals contribution characteristics, demographic patterns, and citation histories of the award-winning articles. Comparing the AIS results to a complete sample of MIS Quarterly paper-of-the-year articles (1993–2015) demonstrates consistent patterns implicit in IS articles that win best publications awards. We develop a model that explains both how these awards shape patterns and discusses what changes might be needed as the field confronts new realities. Our analyses reinforce the importance of taking strategic actions to support the continuous development of the field and advance literature on change and evolving trends in academic fields.