An Historically-Grounded Critical Analysis of Research Articles in IS

Keywords: Research Articles, History of Scientific Articles, Argumentative Strategies, Academic Writing, Academic Legitimacy, EJIS, MISQ

In order to explore scientific writing in IS journals, we adopt a combination of historical and rhetorical approaches. We first investigate the history of universities, business schools, learned societies and scientific articles. This perspective allows us to capture the legacy of scientific writing standards which emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. Then, we focus on two leading IS journals (EJIS and MISQ). An historical analysis of both outlets is carried out, based on data related to their creation, evolution of editorial statements, and key epistemological and methodological aspects. We also focus on argumentative strategies found in a sample of 436 abstracts from both journals. Three main logical anchorages (sometimes combined) are identified, and related to three argumentative strategies: 'deepening of knowledge', 'solving an enigma', and 'addressing a practical managerial issue'. We relate these writing norms to historical imprints of management and business studies, in particular: enigma-focused rhetorics, interest in institutionalized literature, neglect for managerially grounded rhetoric, and lack of reflexivity in scientific writing. We explain this relation as a quest for academic legitimacy. Lastly, some suggestions are offered to address the discrepancies between these writing norms and more recent epistemological and theoretical stances adopted by IS researchers.

Introduction: History and academic writing

Scientific articles are the main outlet for researchers in all scientific fields, including in Information Systems (IS: an explanation of all acronyms is provided in Appendix 1) research.

But where does the practice of scientific writing come from? Are there some historical imprints in our scientific rhetoric? Revisiting the history of scientific writing helps realize how writing norms have become invisible. We argue that this secular legacy is made of subtle academic norms which have led to limited forms of rhetoric for IS journals and have created a ‗legitimacy trap' whereby new fields such as IS become caricatures of established ones to gain scientific legitimacy.

Academic writing in social sciences and more specifically management science, is rarely explored [START_REF] Muller Mirza N | Literary writing as a research tool[END_REF][START_REF] Forgues B | Writing up the research[END_REF]. In this article, we propose to investigate the design of research articles in the field of IS. The purpose is descriptive rather than normative.

We do not provide a list of ‗good' practices; instead we propose a critical reading of existing forms of writing.

In order to better understand the norms of contemporary writing, we first go back to the history of universities in Europe and the US. The emergence of business studies is investigated from the perspective of long-term academic history. We trace the emergence of scientific articles through the history of learned societies in Europe. This allows us to better understand the standards that started emerging in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. Richardson (2000:923) recommends choosing journal articles that -exemplify the mainstream writing conventions of your discipline. How is the argument staged? Who is the presumed audience? How does the paper inscribe ideology?‖ Using this technique, we investigate research articles published in Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ) and the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS). We complete an historical analysis of both outlets, before conducting a study of their scientific rhetoric. We thus identify three argumentative strategies (‗deepening of knowledge', ‗solving an enigma', ‗addressing a practical issue'). We relate these strategies and their evolution to the norms of scientific writing, and to how management science and IS have sought academic legitimacy. Finally, we discuss attempts to go beyond these argumentative norms to start addressing possible discrepancies between these norms and epistemological stances researchers have developed more recently in management studies and IS.

The genealogy of research articles: universities, learned societies and peer-review systems

In this section, we revisit the history of universities, more specifically how business and management studies emerged within universities in two European countries (France and the UK, the two countries in which we have working experience, and in order to show variation across Europe) and in the US; we then focus on the history of European learned societies, the history of academic journals and of scientific writing.

From medieval to modern universities: the emergence of academic knowledge

There is a large amount of literature on the history of academic knowledge (Engwall & Zamagni, 1998) as well as the history of management science [START_REF] Hatchuel | Rebuilding management: a historical perspective[END_REF]Bouilloud & Lécuyer, 1994).

Universities first appeared in Europe in the 11 th and 12 th centuries [START_REF] Verger | Les universités au Moyen Age[END_REF][START_REF]Histoire des universités[END_REF]. The advent of university education marked a fracture. Knowledge which for a long time had remained with the clergy as trustee (Le [START_REF] Goff | Les intellectuels au Moyen Age[END_REF] left monasteries and cathedral schools to enter new communities which subsequently took the name of universitas [START_REF] Verger | Les universités au Moyen Age[END_REF]. Teaching was then centred on scholasticism, the analysis and presentation of authorized texts in a phase of lectio, followed by a phase of debate disputatio (Sère, 2007:1):

-The Master ends the debate by presenting an argumentation for a resolution, a process named determinatio. The essence of disputatio is of a dialogical training, even perhaps agnostic, within a determined knowledge framework with extremely codified rituals‖.

Academic knowledge increased during these very rhetorical and dialectical exercises (Le [START_REF] Goff | Les intellectuels au Moyen Age[END_REF] in theology, art and canon law, eventually joined by medicine.

Applied knowledge was kept away from European universities for a long time. This kind of knowledge was considered suspect. Economics and management were totally absent in the University of the Middle Ages. One should avoid any anachronism: managerial practices, as well as the words which designate them, came much later with the industrial revolution [START_REF] Richardson Hg | Business training in medieval Oxford[END_REF]. However there were traders and bankers from the early Middle Ages, and they were more and more influential in the expanding cities all over Europe. Commercial techniques, accountancy, foreign languages had to be mastered. All three were seen as dissociated. The idea of a management syllabus which would eventually unite the three is very recent. These competencies could not be taught in noble places like universities. Bankers' and traders' children were being trained commercially in scholae minores, primary schools (Le [START_REF] Goff | Marchands et banquiers au Moyen Age. Paris: Editions Que Sais-Je? LIDDY ED[END_REF]. European universities remained in the hands of the clergy for centuries. This left an enduring legacy in academic symbolism and vocabulary (e.g. chairs and ceremonial gowns).

In France, the fracture really appeared with the revolution and the dissolution of universities which took place in 1793 [START_REF]Histoire des universités[END_REF]. The Convention favoured top tier vocational schools such as ‗Ecole Polytechnique' created in 1794 in which knowledge focused on design and engineering practices. The positivist revolution of the 19 th century and the evolution of pedagogical methods (with case studies introduced in law schools) were a first step towards some form of applied academic corpus. In England some features of the medieval university remained, despite partial reforms. In France the modern university was really born with the 1808 decree which founded the imperial university; secondary schools, high schools, universities structured the new pedagogical landscape. As the industrial revolution progressed, the first business school in Paris was created in 1819 [START_REF] Maffre P | Les origines de l'enseignement commercial supérieur en France au XIXème siècle[END_REF].

Rapidly absorbed by the Chamber of Commerce, it first trained groups of business and industrial executives. Nevertheless, the teaching of management was still absent from the academic landscape while economics, following law, was progressively accepted in universities.

The end of WWl brought a reflection in terms of industrial management. Management courses were developed in French engineering schools (e.g. Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures) in the 1930s. The first university-based schools of management were the Instituts d'Administration des Entreprises created in the 1950s. This led to the advent of academic courses in management [START_REF] Gouadain | Les enseignements de gestion dans les universités avant et après la création des IAE[END_REF]. The content of courses was initially influenced by practices and knowledge developed in the US [START_REF] Locke Rr | Management and higher education since 1940. The influence of America and Japan on West Germany[END_REF]. One of the first actions of the Fondation Nationale pour l'Enseignement de la Gestion created in 1966 was to send students with scholarships to train in the US [START_REF] Gouadain | Les enseignements de gestion dans les universités avant et après la création des IAE[END_REF].

In contrast, the UK and other European countries followed a different trajectory, except for Germany whose -dual system‖, academic and vocational training, is a clear exception (see [START_REF] Kieser A | Organizational, institutional, and societal evolution: Medieval craft guilds and the genesis of formal organizations[END_REF]. Most business departments, which were private or hosted by universities, were structured according to a pure academic logic, and appeared after WW2 (Feingold, 2008;[START_REF] Gouadain | Les enseignements de gestion dans les universités avant et après la création des IAE[END_REF]. Manchester and London Business Schools were created in the 60s, progressively followed by the creation of business schools in most major universities (e.g. Lancaster, Warwick, Bath, and Nottingham) in the 70s and 80s, and finally joined by Cambridge and Oxford Universities in the 90s.

Outside Europe, universities first appeared in the American colonies in the 16 th century in Santo-Domingo, Lima and Mexico; they had a missionary role and taught mostly theology and canon law. In North America, local colleges first appeared in the 17 th and 18 th centuries starting with Harvard, Williamsburg and Yale [START_REF]Histoire des universités[END_REF]. Before the Civil War (1861-1865), the US academic model remained close to the English model and trained limited elite. Unlike self-governed European universities, American universities remained dependent on political authorities, founding congregations or private bodies. Academics were first and foremost the transmission vectors of past knowledge; research was very marginal [START_REF]Histoire des universités[END_REF].

The environment in which the first US business schools were established was the development of practical education during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, influenced by the philosophical movement of pragmatism [START_REF] Pierson Fc | La recherche en systèmes d'information : de l'histoire au concept[END_REF]. In the period 1860-1940, while academic education in Europe became essential for social promotion and national identity but still mostly concerned elites, the US aimed at mass education of the middle class (but kept away ‗unwanted minorities'). Vocational education and courses which were still judged unacceptable in European universities were introduced e.g. finance and business; the Wharton School of Finance was opened in 1881 at the University of Pennsylvania and the Harvard Business School in 1908[START_REF]Histoire des universités[END_REF].

In the UK, universities were not considered as an appropriate place for professional education [START_REF] Sanderson M | The universities and British industry[END_REF] well into the 1960s. The predominant philosophy of education during the 19 th century and the first half of the 20 th century was that universities should provide a liberal education -to cultivate the mind and form the intelligence‖ (Sanderson, 1972:5). Some departments of commerce were created for instance at Birmingham and Manchester universities, the new ‗civic' universities, in the early 1900s, under pressure from industrialists, but with limited success [START_REF] Keeble S | The ability to manage. A study of British management, 1890-1990[END_REF].

The impetus came from the US. [START_REF] Locke R | The collapse of the American management mystique[END_REF] argues that the ‗mystique' of American management was that management was seen as the decisive factor both in US military success in WW2 and post-war prosperity. In the context of the Cold War, -post-war business and government leaders [viewed] the reform of business education as a matter of national preparedness‖ (Gleeson & Schlossman, 1992:11). The transformation of US business schools from pre-war vocational to post-war academic institutions can be traced to the Ford Foundation Report and the Carnegie Corporation Report, both published in 1959. Both believed that, in order to support the capitalist system, the US domestic economy had to stand as an example of managerial success before the world [START_REF] Cullen P | Conflicting logics in the business school field: academia, practice and identity[END_REF]. To gain legitimacy, US business schools adopted a new model of business education which Locke describes as: -the application of science to the solution of managerial education‖ (Locke, 1989:1). The research model embraced was that of the sciences, and entails a strong publishing record in peerreviewed journals, supported by the institutionalized tenure system, leading to academics tailoring their research to the requirements of these journals.

In the UK, a similar report entitled -British Business Schools‖ was published in 1963 [START_REF] Franks | British business schools[END_REF] which incorporated advice from industrialists and academics, British and American.

Franks recommended that they should be part of a university. This recommendation echoes that of Joseph Wharton when he chose the University of Pennsylvania as the home of the first US business school [START_REF] Cullen P | Conflicting logics in the business school field: academia, practice and identity[END_REF]see also Tiratsoo, 2004). One purpose of business education was the transmission of skills and techniques, and Franks refers to operational research, linear programming, decision theory and computer science.

*** TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE *****

The origin of business schools is characterized by a conflict between business as an academic field seeking legitimacy from established academic fields by adopting their research methods and language (mathematics, economics); yet this move towards academic rigour alienates the business practitioners who provide the students and funding [START_REF] Cullen P | Conflicting logics in the business school field: academia, practice and identity[END_REF]. The emergence of French, UK and US academic systems and business studies is summarized in Table 1.

In the field of IS, teaching and academic courses started appearing in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the US and the UK. In France, Reix played a major role in the institutionalization of the IS field in the late 1970s as a specific discipline distinct from computer science (Reix & Rowe, 2002;[START_REF] Reix R | Vingt-cinq ans de recherche en Systèmes d'Information[END_REF].

In the lapse of ten centuries, universities went from the teaching of abstract knowledge based on scholasticism (recursive development of knowledge) to more practically grounded and linear knowledge (demonstrated to a legitimating audience, i.e. learned societies and academics). Debate became more technical, with variations depending on the discipline. The quest for knowledge, obtained through the search for generalization (hypothetico-deductive methodology) or through examples (case studies or action research), became commonplace in management science. Research articles, a communication medium which only emerged slowly, are related to the objective of demonstrating and spreading academic knowledge.

Learned societies played a major role in their advent.

Development of learned societies and scientific publications: A European

System

The writing of scientific articles emerged in the 17 th century in Europe [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF] primarily through learned societies (Kronik, 1976;[START_REF] Fjällbrant N | Scholarly communication: historical development and new possibilities[END_REF]. Learned societies federated enlightened aristocrats, specialized scholars, academics, interested clergymen, and many non-scientists all over Europe. The Royal Academy was founded in London in 1660 and the French Académie des Sciences in 1666 with others soon following in Ireland, Sweden and Russia. In the US, these learned societies appeared much later, in the early 20 th century, in particular with the American Council of Learned Societies for the Advancement of Humanities and Social Sciences set up in 1919.

As Fjällbrant (1997:5) explains: -these learned societies represented a move towards a cooperative organization for scientists, irrespective of political views or professional occupation‖. This centralization of experts gave them a real authority. This is intimately linked to the development of a system of evaluation by one's peers. Peer review long pre-dates scholary journals, the purpose of early peer review being related to censorship rather than quality control (Biagoli, 2002). As Zuckerman and Merton (1971:69) remind us:

-It did not appear all at once as an integral part of the social institution of science. It evolved in response to the concrete problems encountered in working toward the developing goals of scientific enquiry and as a by-product of the emerging social organizations of scientists‖.

During the 17th century, there were many media for the spreading of scientific knowledge developed by learned societies' members and academics: anagrams, letters, scientific books, journals, and almanacs [START_REF] Da | A history of scientific and technical periodicals. The origins and development of the scientific and technical press[END_REF][START_REF] Fjällbrant N | Scholarly communication: historical development and new possibilities[END_REF]. For anagrams, -a sentence announcing a discovery was encrypted into an anagram which was then deposited with an official witness. If any competitor publicly claimed the same discovery, the original scientist could then refer to his witness to unscramble the anagram, and in this way establish his priority!‖ (Fjällbrant, 1997:5). One of the most famous examples is Galileo who in 1610, wrote to Kepler the following anagram: smaismrmilmepoetalevmibunenugttaviras. -Kepler was unable to solve the anagram and Galileo later told him that it stood for altissimum planetam tergeminum observari (I have observed the uppermost planet triple). This referred to the rings of Saturn which Galileo had observed for the first time. By this means he was able to gain time to check his observations before making a public official announcement‖ (ibid).

Letters were also exchanged between scientists [START_REF] Da | A history of scientific and technical periodicals. The origins and development of the scientific and technical press[END_REF][START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF]. This was a method used for transferring news about research carried out by individuals and groups. They were often sent to a person who acted as a ‗gatekeeper' or a mailbox for transmitting news to other people (Fjällbrant, 1997:8). Academic books, journals, annotated calendars and almanacs completed the system. Books however represented a slow and costly diffusion of knowledge. Calendars and almanacs promoted a more anecdotal and pedagogical aspect of research.

Often supported by the learned societies, academic journals gradually supplanted other media.

They combined three decisive qualities: the quality of the contributions was controlled by peers and was often linked to experiments carried out in front of members of learned societies; a very low cost compared to books and a more efficient diffusion in terms of rapidity and scale. Nonetheless, from the 17 th to the late 18 th century, they still relied heavily on epistolary conventions [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF].

The first academic journal (in French), the ‗Journal des Savants', was published on January 5 th 1665 [START_REF] Da | A history of scientific and technical periodicals. The origins and development of the scientific and technical press[END_REF][START_REF] Fjällbrant N | Scholarly communication: historical development and new possibilities[END_REF][START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF][START_REF] Cocheris H | Histoire du journal des savants depuis sa fondation jusqu'à nos jours[END_REF]. The contents were -details of experiments in physics and chemistry, discoveries in arts and in science, such as machines and the useful and curious inventions afforded by mathematics, astronomical and anatomical observations, legal and ecclesiastical judgements from all countries, as well as details of new books and obituaries‖ [START_REF] Mckie D | The scientific periodical from 1665 to 1798[END_REF]. The Royal Academy started its own publication, the ‗Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society' on March 6 th 1665. As Fjällbrant (1997:7) explains:

-One of the aims of the Royal Society, London, was to report on scientific work.

Members of the society had seen and discussed a copy of the Journal des Savants.

They decided that a similar but more philosophical type of serial publication was needed to publish accounts and experiments presented at meetings of the Society‖.

The Philosophical Transactions was a monthly publication including articles, an evaluation space for books' assessment and a space for debate between scientists [START_REF]Scientific discourse in socio-historical context: the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675-1975[END_REF][START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF]. It was in fact the first serial publication of a learned society. For the many other academic journals which appeared between the 17th and 19th century, it was at the same time a model and a stimulus (notably for the Italian journal ‗Giornale de' Letterati'). Key aspects of academic journals founded in the 17 th and the 18 th centuries are summarized in Table 2.

***** TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE *****

This phenomenon of scientific journals led to a major stylistic fracture in that scientific writing broke away from literature. As Richardson explains (2000:925): ‖Since the 17 th century, the world of writing has been divided into two separate kinds: literary and scientific. Literature, from the 17 th century onwards, was associated with fiction, rhetoric, and subjectivity, whereas science was associated with fact, ‗plain language' and objectivity‖.

In particular from the last quarter of the 18 th century [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF], the archetypal structure of scientific writing started to become standardized (writing of introductions and conclusions), hypothetico-deductive, neutral (use of passive voice and low occurrence of personal pronouns), and distinct from other modes of writing of the time. Richardson (2000:927) describes the structuring effects of these prescribed writing formats as follows:

-how we are expected to write affects what we can write about‖. She uses the metaphor of building and architecture. The writer has to lean on solid foundations, use good scaffolding, and mobilize tested techniques and materials. These writing formats are rooted in clear rules, which discourage the abusive use of end of page notes and secondary arguments. Knowledge must be focused precisely, relying most often on hypotheses. Sometimes, even inductively built research is presented in a hypothetico-deductive format. From the 19 th century, the argument progressively became summarised in an abstract of at least 150 words, a practice that generalized during the 20 th century [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF]. A theoretical framework ex ante or ex post must now be present in an article. However this standard did not impose itself spontaneously; it occurred through long-term evolutionary processes in scientific communication [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF]. In particular, the increasing number of litigations led more and more scientists to publish, in order to date and disseminate their discoveries. Academic articles imposed themselves as instruments to manage litigations [START_REF] Da | A history of scientific and technical periodicals. The origins and development of the scientific and technical press[END_REF]. Compared to anagrams, their advantage was obvious: the anagram was a rather vague principle, the promise of a discovery. As for scientific books, they described a discovery and its modus operandi in too lengthy and detailed a fashion.

There is an obvious link to the evolution of academic knowledge outlined in section 1.1.

Breaking progressively away from scholasticism, academics communicated more and more in order to disseminate their research. The enrichment of authorized texts and of their writing (in the phases of lectio and of disputatio) gave way to an empirical and formal exercise in its modes of expression and validation. The resulting format of academic writing can be summarized as having four main objectives [START_REF] Ds | The influence of print on sociocultural organization and change[END_REF]:

-To claim the paternity of an idea; -To obtain social recognition for the author; -To assert priority in a discovery; -To establish an accredited community of authors and readers.

However, in the late 20 th century, the link between scientific writing and literature became more complex [START_REF] Van Maanen | Tales of the field: on writing ethnography[END_REF]; in particular with the postmodernist stream of thought in social sciences which critiques the modernist scientific mentality of objectivity and progress associated with the Enlightenment. The frontier disappeared between ‗facts' and ‗fiction', Van Maanen (1988:46) distinguishes three main styles of writing from scientific/modernist to postmodernist:

-

The -realistic style‖: uninvolved, impersonal, worried about neutrality in the presentation of the narrative. Researchers claim some omniscience.

-The -confessional style‖: researchers show all difficulties pertaining to the field and the backstage of the research. They promote some perspective, but in the end yearn to take their distance.

-

The -impressionistic style‖: the writing process is promoted. One faces a rather fragmented and raw narrative. Writing becomes a literary performance [START_REF] Muller Mirza N | Literary writing as a research tool[END_REF], promoting a dramaturgy very remote from academic norms.

One could add to this list ‗thought experiments' which describe an unrealistic experiment aimed at testing the internal coherence of an argument, its plausibility or even its relevance [START_REF] Brown Jr | Thought experiments since the scientific revolution[END_REF][START_REF] Ld | Imagine: Thought experiments in information systems research[END_REF]de Vaujany, 2008). Physics, like social sciences, has also mobilized this type of writing which moves away from usual writing norms. However, these experiments have scarcely affected a consensus built over centuries. Journals remain a major medium for scientific writing, including in management science. The format remains short and the purpose is to share some knowledge with a hypothetico-deductive stance. The exercise of reflexivity through the process of writing is rare.

Academic journals have accumulated advantages which explain their enduring predominance (Fjällbrant, 1997:4):

-Capacity of diffusion to a high number of heterogeneous readers.

-Detailed information (methods, tables, graphs and results) easily transmitted.

-Easily mobilized printed documents which include easily verifiable information.

-Establishment of a precedence of the academic work and thus of the researcher's merits.

They have also imposed the positivism of 19th century Europe when the quest for facts was at

The main stages in the design of a research article: a reflexive process

In this section, we illustrate the legacy of learned societies and a possible long-term historical imprint by examining current writing practices in the field of IS. Firstly, we ‗trace' the history of two major IS outlets: MISQ and EJIS. Then, we identify a small number of ‗argumentative strategies' (based on the logical anchorage of argumentation) which predominate, discuss their limitations and finally suggest alternatives.

Researchers have already studied several dimensions of IS journal articles (Chen & Hirschheim, 2004;[START_REF] Paré | Re-examining the causal structure of information technology impact research[END_REF]Introna & Whittaker, 2004). They have examined the distribution over time of positivist/quantitative vs. interpretivist/qualitative research in outlets such as MISQ and EJIS. In contrast, we focus below on the writing itself, the argumentative and rhetorical strategies as opposed to epistemological and methodological dimensions. Our aim is to put writing into perspective with the history of these journals and that of the broader history of the academic community.

Research approach: combination of historical and rhetorical analysis of MISQ and EJIS

Based on impact factors, MISQ is a top ranked journal in information systems and in management science. EJIS is a leading European-born journal. We were interested in contrasting the American MISQ and the European EJIS and possible differences in their historical imprint.

Our research method was twofold. Firstly, we carried out an historical analysis of both outlets.

We identified the date and context of creation, editorial policy, and key aspects of editorial dynamics. We collected editorial statements, seminal issues, and other documents. All documents used are detailed in Appendix 2. In addition, we carried out interviews with scholars who were involved in the creation of EJIS. Questions focused on the context of creation, people involved in the management of each journal, the competitive landscape and editorial policy.

Then, we focused on rhetoric. Rhetoric keeps attracting a wide audience in science in general [START_REF] Gross A G | Starring the text: The place of rhetoric in science studies[END_REF] -the use of the term ‗rhetoric' in the context of management knowledge seems to cover a number of implications and to range from the neutral to the pejorative and from the analytical to the throwaway. Sometimes, it is used simply as a synonym for language, sometimes, more disparagingly, to denote the particular types of language or ‗networks' in linguistic terms. Sometimes it is used to imply argument and/or logic.‖

The logical interpretation of rhetoric is the one we chose here. In line with Carter and Jackson Guided by this order, and the logical links among the different components, the readers infer the strength and uncover the weakness of the author's key claim‖ (Gross et al, 2002: 184).

The idea to investigate the rhetoric of scientific writing is not new, in particular in management studies [START_REF] Ej | The application of rhetorical theory in managerial research: A literature review[END_REF][START_REF]Rhetoric in management and management research[END_REF][START_REF] Huff As | Learning to be a successful writer[END_REF]. Huff Sequential coding and identification of the argumentative strategy(ies) through the reasoning sequences were carried out independently by the two coders. We chose the sentence as unit of analysis. In the MISQ sample we obtained a 71.43 % agreement for argumentative strategies and 64.41% agreement in the sequential coding between the two coders. In the EJIS sample, we obtained respectively 84% and 62.5%. We used Miles and Huberman‗s (1994) formula to obtain these scores i.e. number of agreements divided by total number of agreements and disagreements. The few disagreements concerning argumentative strategies were not full disagreements but different interpretations of similar perceptions. These were cases where one coder identified the strategy as ENIG and the other as mixed ENIG/PRACT; and other cases identified as DEEP by one coder and mixed DEEP/PRACT by the other coder. These tended to imply corresponding discrepancies in the coding of sequences.

More importantly, and beyond the agreement level between the two coders, the second coder never faced an instance where the proposed logical anchorages (or combination of logical anchorages) did not apply.

Historical analysis of EJIS and MISQ

Beyond MISQ was founded in 1977 [START_REF] Ives B | Editor's comments: Bridging research and practice[END_REF][START_REF] Rd | Vive les differences? Developing a profile of European information systems research as a basis for international comparisons[END_REF]. In 1976, the Society for Management Information Systems and the University of Minnesota's IS Research Center created a partnership around a shared vision. Its sponsors, editors-in-chief and board members were and still are mainly American (see editors and authors' statistics in Appendix 2). In the editorial statement of the first issue, [START_REF] Dickson G | Editor's comment[END_REF] suggested the following objective: -our major goals are to be managerially oriented and to offer something of benefit to the practitioner. At the same time, we intend to provide a vehicle for researchers working in the IS field to communicate with each other and with practitioners‖. But the managerial objective assigned to MISQ was not really reached [START_REF] Ives B | Editor's comments: Bridging research and practice[END_REF]. Introna and Whittaker (2004:110) found that it became steadily more academic in its focus under MacFarlan (1986-88) Nonetheless, according to De Vries (2004:3; see also [START_REF] Walsham G | Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method[END_REF], European IS journals -show more openness to non-traditional approaches. These journals tend to publish more interpretive studies than the American ones and the interpretive studies seem to be more open to other sciences and take more often a philosophical approach.‖ His study shows no difference between papers published in European and US journals in the application of positivist case study research.

For [START_REF] Dwivedi Y K | Investigating the research approaches for examining technology adoption issues[END_REF], there are also some subtle differences between American and European journals, in particular EJIS and MISQ. They focused their study on research about IT adoption and showed that two main research methods were used, survey and case study methods. 74% of the articles employed surveys. This is similar to previous findings [START_REF] Farhoomand A F | Scientific progress of management information systems[END_REF][START_REF] Mingers | Combining IS research methods: towards a pluralist methodology[END_REF][START_REF] Jj | Studying Information Technology in organizations: Research approaches and assumptions[END_REF]. The remaining 26% of the research used case studies. No other methods were employed. Like [START_REF] Mingers | Combining IS research methods: towards a pluralist methodology[END_REF], Choudrie and Dwivedi (2005) found that: -ISR published research that employed survey methods, while ISJ tended to publish case studies. MISQ and EJIS published articles that utilised both surveys and case studies‖ (see Figure 2). It can be argued that, surprisingly, both for MISQ and EJIS, the pattern of post-19 th century academic journals (see [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF] has remained constant:

-Affiliation to a learned society, with an academic focus;

-Use of a classic peer-reviewed system;

-Use of common categories: book reviews, research notes and essays;

-Linear modes of writing;

-Domination of replication-oriented work (even for case-study oriented research).

Nonetheless, the use of interpretive case-study research is more common in EJIS;

-Rigour is more present than innovation. To establish itself (in particular compared to computer science or economics), IS has chosen the ‗hard way';

-Low use of personal pronouns and active voice;

-High use of citations;

-A call for managerial implications and practitioner-oriented research, but the readership remains highly academic and influenced by academic objectives (tenure, promotion, network-building around a model or set of questions).

The historical imprint is evident. Both MISQ and EJIS follow a long-term historical imprint, which they contribute to reinforce by reproducing and exhibiting scientific models. Lee et al (2007:xv) have suggested that -a plausible explanation for the current situation is that the IS discipline has acted with the zeal of a neophyte (…) and might have tried too hard in its pursuit of legitimacy.‖ They used the q-r theory (quality-rigour) elaborated by [START_REF] Ellison G | Evolving standards for academic publishing: A q-r theory[END_REF] and Swanson ( 2004):

-Social norms develop over time regarding what is considered acceptable quality.

Specifically, there will be a shift toward an emphasis on methodological rigor (r) instead of on a submission's contribution (q). The search for legitimacy and the accompanying debates over rigor and relevance can be seen as contributing to a trend of higher norms for what is considered acceptable r quality‖ (Lee et al, 2007:xvi).

Combined with an increased focus on methodological rigour, this has led to a situation where the IS field appears to -eat its young‖ (Robey 2003:355). Lyytinen & King (2004:222) evoke an -anxiety‖ leading to the view that, in order to survive, the IS field had to draw on a model of research attributed to the natural sciences. This is very similar to business studies seeking academic legitimacy (see Section 1.1); in fact IS as a management sub-discipline may also be anxious to establish itself within business and management studies. The historical perspective offered by our research (based on scientific writing rather than scientific practice itself) can be seen as a confirmation and deeper explanation for this. We explore below rhetorical and writing strategies in MISQ and EJIS and try to relate them to this historical imprint.

Rhetorical analysis of EJIS and MISQ

After several iterations of coding abstracts, one of the co-authors developed a coding scheme based on the search for the logical anchorage of argumentations. The key question we tried to answer was the following: What was the root of the sequence of themes identified by the sequential coding? We suggested three core possibilities and three possible intermediary combinations (see Figure 3).

**** FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE ****

Each core possibility corresponds to an argumentative strategy: ‗deepening of knowledge' (DEEP), ‗solving an enigma' (ENIG), and ‗addressing a practical issue' (PRACT) (see Table 4). In each case, the logical anchorage and ensuing line of argument are different (see [START_REF] Gefen | Trust and TAM in online shopping: An integrated model[END_REF][START_REF] Venkatesh | User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view[END_REF].

For ‗solving an enigma', the logical anchorage is an institutionalized research question. It is more rupture-oriented than the previous logical structure. This strategy addresses a scientific enigma (which can be theoretical, methodological or epistemological) and proposes alternative theories or concepts. It starts from a recurring and institutionalized research question, described as an enigma or a paradox (e.g. the -productivity paradox‖). This enigma is characterized by an absence of consensus as to its solution. The strategy attempts to show a weakness in the literature. But the difference with the first strategy is that the target is an unsolved problem rather than an intrinsic discrepancy in a model. A literature review is then fundamental to justify and assess the proposed alternative. We also found some papers which developed an Enigma argumentative strategy focused on an emerging research question. In that case, the paper aimed both at shedding light on the importance of the new research question (which could be combined with PRACT) and criticizing potential theoretical alternatives. For ‗addressing a practical issue', the logical anchorage is an audience of practitioners and a (recent) managerial issue. If strategies 1 and 2 can also be found in other social sciences (economics, sociology…) the last strategy is more specific to management science and its aspiration to ‗actionability' [START_REF] Da | The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action[END_REF]. One of the difficulties is to show that the practical question is academically legitimate. Another difficulty is to achieve the development of knowledge, framework, or concept which is actually actionable. Top-ranked journals do not always facilitate this task. Some journals are explicitly orientated towards practitioners, e.g. MISQE. Though these journals are more liberal about argumentative structures, they are not as valued by academics. This is emblematic of the ongoing tension between the academic and vocational models which Cullen ( 2006) argues has existed from the beginning of business schools. The business school requires its faculty to possess academic legitimacy through traditional academic scholarship. Yet it risks alienating its second audience, the practitioners. There may also be epistemological problems e.g. incompatibilities between textuality and actionability and questions around the formalization of actionable knowledge and its applicability.

Our analysis of MISQ and EJIS (see Figure 4) shows that some articles combine argumentative strategies. We identified three combinations: ENIG-PRACT, DEEP-PRACT, and DEEP-ENIG (see an example in Appendix 3).

We did not find any paper which straddled the three streams (DEEP, ENIG and PRACT). We believe it unlikely that a single paper can be of practical relevance, as well as explore alternative theories to solve an institutionalized research question and also extend a model or literature. The combination of two argumentations is difficult enough. A twofold rhetoric is logically problematic (how can one extend existing theories and develop alternative theories at the same time? how can one satisfy both academic and practitioners audiences?). The integration of all streams into a single rhetoric is even more difficult, if achievable. It could be due to the difficulty of combining three temporalities: contemporary (short-term) managerial issues (PRACT), medium-term academic issues (extending current theories with DEEP) and long-term academic issues (regenerating theories with ENIG). It could also be due to a search for parsimony, from a rhetorical (elaborate a clear line of argument) or a scientific (have a well focused research design) point of view.

**** FIGURE 4 ABOUT HERE ****

The total number of articles is different in each journal (see Figure 1). Percentages in Figure 4 show that the vast majority of articles in MISQ and EJIS from 2003 to 2009 were found to mobilize the DEEP or ENIG argumentative strategies. The percentage of articles with a PRACT strategy, as well as with the mixed category DEEP-PRACT, is higher in EJIS.

We then correlated these patterns to changes of Editors-in-Chief. The results are summarized in Figures 5 and6. As Figure 5 shows, there is a clear shift from the DEEP to the ENIG argumentative strategy in MISQ from 2005. The same trend applies to the two mixed strategies DEEP-PRACT and ENIG-PRACT. One may interpret this as resulting from editorial changes. Articles treating ‗blue ocean' issues (see [START_REF] Straub | Editor's comment. Type II Reviewing errors and the search for exciting Papers[END_REF] have been openly sought after by editors-in-chief in recent years and this can be classified as an ENIG strategy.

However senior editors for the relevant periods would have to be consulted to confirm this. In What was the expected contribution? How is the nature of managerial knowledge understood?

It is also clear that there is very little ‗recursive' rhetoric, probably because of the peer-review system. We found very few discussions of, or responses to previous articles, this does not stimulate debate and controversy. Most of the time authors are absent (no -I‖ nor -we‖), passive voices and nominal (versus verbal) expressions are heavily present in the abstracts (see also [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF].

This exploratory work has, of course, several limitations. It is centred on two specific journals and a wider range would allow a more refined analysis. Including other US and European (and French) journals may reveal different argumentative strategies, perhaps away from seeking scientific legitimacy. Previous work [START_REF] Desq | La spécificité de la recherche francophone en systèmes d'information[END_REF] Another limitation of our paper is that we have reconstructed argumentative logics from where it is supposed to be expressed the most clearly: the abstract. One may obviously question its degree of representativeness. It may be difficult to fully apprehend the argumentative strategy if one concentrates on the often highly standardized plan in the abstract (see Section 2.1); on the other hand, the logic may be too diffuse if one follows the sequence of the arguments in the text itself. The abstract allows access to an explicit ‗meta' representation of the argumentation in the article.

Discussion: How can we move beyond the three argumentative strategies and current norms of writing?

Management researchers, and IS scholars in particular, have sought legitimacy in reaching the standards of other reference academic disciplines and imitating the scientific procedures of more prestigious fields [START_REF] Lee A | Increasing the number of A+ published papers in the Information Systems discipline: Improving the journal review process[END_REF]. Standards expected in peer-reviewed scientific journals, the type of writing required, and in particular the logical designs explored here, result from a long history that is difficult to dissociate from the history of universities, learned societies and academic journals [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF]. However, pursuing academic knowledge can be envisaged through rigorous as well as literary writing, as shown in the field of organisation theory: "for better or for worse, the strength of organization theory lies not in the rigor of its prose but in the tenacity of its poetry" (Basboll & Graham, 2006:197).

Academic writing is accompanied by an evaluation process which contributes to its validation and its convergence towards a format, legitimized by learned and academic communities.

Whether one aims at deepening the understanding of a variable, looks for a better solution to an institutionalized issue or a model, or articulates the development of an answer to a managerial or societal issue, the research article respects the same canonic rules in both quantitative and qualitative research. The canon rests on objectivity and unengaged writing, starting with a methodological and/or theoretical literature review, followed by a presentation of results and a discussion. Scientific writing must not resemble literary writing styles. The case of IS journals is typical. The writing is unreflexive and the writing process is not reconstructed in the article itself. The discussion concerns the technical process of the research rather than the modalities of its restitution. Based on a study of social sciences in general, [START_REF] Richardson L | Writing: a method of enquiry[END_REF] reaches similar conclusions:

-I consider writing as a method of inquiry, a way of finding out about yourself and your topic. Although we usually think about writing as a mode of ‗telling' about the social world, writing is not just a popping-up activity at the end of a research project.

Writing is also a way of knowinga method of discovery and analysis. By writing in different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to it‖ (Richardson, 2000:923).

( [START_REF]Appealing work: an investigation of how ethnographic texts convince[END_REF] [START_REF] Knights D | Management lives[END_REF] suggest the use of lived experiences, which is a way to come back to 17 th century observational articles (see [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF]. [START_REF] Bg | A fantasy theme analysis of Peter Senge's learning organization[END_REF] uses fantasy theme analysis, dramatic building blocks of the rhetorical vision of the learning organisation.

Experiments in critical management education could also be drawn upon. [START_REF] Sinclair A | Teaching managers about masculinities: are you kidding?[END_REF] uses a range of experiences that do not normally enter the business school, specifically about gender and leadership. Focusing on students' working experiences offers another approach, which is -so resolutely written out of standard management textbooks‖ (Grey, 2002:508) and very much out of journal articles.

These suggestions are quite remote from current articles in management science in general and in IS in particular. Writing is still seen as a means of dissemination rather than a research technique in itself. Electronic journals could offer a more dynamic environment for supporting alternative writing practices [START_REF] King Dw | Electronic alternatives to paper-based publishing in science and technology[END_REF][START_REF] Hendler | Reinventing academic publishing -Part 1[END_REF]Hovav and Gray, 2004) [START_REF] Huff As | Learning to be a successful writer[END_REF] between practitioners and researchers. Like the old ‗scholastic', the final product could be more circular (based on hypertext, virtual and wiki technologies) supporting exchanges between and across practitioners and academics (Bainbridge, 2008). It could bring more visible layers in the writing and would be more process than results oriented. But electronic publications have still not brought much change [START_REF] Fjällbrant N | Scholarly communication: historical development and new possibilities[END_REF][START_REF] Hook O | Scientific communications: history, electronic journals and impact factors[END_REF]Bainbridge, 2008), partly because of issues of standardization, access, copyright, plagiarism and intellectual property.

Academics are increasingly driven by journal rankings; the French Agence pour l'Evaluation de la Recherche et de l'Enseignement Supérieur or the US AISWorld rank the rare electronic journals as B or C. Rankings are becoming more and more important for academic recruitment and promotion worldwide; so is the power of top-ranked US journals to define legitimacy in management and IS studies, together with a tendency to exclude or ignore incursions of non-positivist analysis. This is still congruent with the dominance of the quantitative science-based model of US business research established in the 1950s. Norms in writing are stronger than ever, and there is a clear hegemony of English-speaking journals [START_REF] Meriläinen | Hegemonic academic practices: Experiences of publishing from the periphery[END_REF]. Management academics -are encouraged to write the sort of papers and perform the sort of research these journals favour‖ (Macdonald & Kam, 2007:647) leading to homogeneous research that -can impose a deadening uniformity‖ [START_REF] Harley S | Research selectivity, managerialism and the academic labour process: the future of nonmainstream economics in UK universities[END_REF]:1434). The more competition there is, the more peer reviewers -represent the primary stakeholders of the status quo‖ (Lyytinen et al, 2007:321). Furthermore, some competence and an inclination to explore different writing styles would help, but management researchers' current training is probably not appropriate.

We do not question the legitimacy of major IS journals, however we would suggest to be open to other types of outlets and writing that are in the making and to support their growth.

Concerning IS journals, one could envisage the following possibilities:

to become more productive‖ (Lyytinen et al, 2007:325). This should be accompanied by the development of legitimate writing formats and argumentative strategies which support the community dimension of research, address the issue of cumulativeness as well as relevance. A last but complex issue surrounding the use of literary and scientific writing which needs further research is the balance between rigour and coherence with respect to paradigms and epistemological stances.

This research emphasised an historical imprint of management and business studies on IS scientific writing. In congruence with the scientific standards that emerged from the 17 th to the 19 th century, current rhetoric is still heavily enigma-focused or based on an institutionalized literature; it neglects managerially grounded rhetoric, and suffers from a lack of reflexivity.

We relate this to a quest for academic legitimacy. How can we break this tendency? We offered some answers and raised other questions that will likely lead to new debates. What are the stakes? Perhaps first and foremost defining and claiming our own field with its own specificities and priorities.

impact of that use on decision making‖. It relies on 64 partner/ manager-level and 82 senior/staff-level insolvency professionals all involved in an experiment.

-RS4 (S5): With this original approach, new contributions are put forward: -The results show that users were more likely to adhere to recommendations of the KBS when an explanation facility was available. Choice patterns in using explanations indicated that novices used feedforward explanations more than experts did (…).‖ Current state-of-the-art research is extended by this work.

This string of reasoning sequences is very close to that describing the DEEP category. The logical anchorage is the literature (which is extended by this work about KBS).

ENIG: Second example of argumentative strategies ('solving an enigma')

An example of this rhetoric may be found in Weitzel et al.'s (2006) abstract below in which we show our sequential coding into several sequences S1 to Sn:

[This paper is motivated by the following question: What drives the diffusion of a communication standard and what diffusion results can we expect?] S1

[Past literature provides many instructive but mostly unrelated answers. Findings relate to startup problems, penguin effects [reluctance to move first for fear of failure], and tendencies toward monopoly, but substantial problems in applying the models to concrete standardization problems reveal that the dynamics are probably more complex. A single standard attracting a critical number of users does not ultimately guarantee adoption by a network. Not all diffusion results are complete nor do they provide standardization.] S2

[The conditions of specific diffusion behaviors are addressed by developing a formal standardization model that captures all fragmented phenomena in a unified approach. Drawing upon findings from other research, we incorporate the structure of the underlying user network as an important determinant for diffusion behaviors.] S3

[The approach allows us to disclose varying conditions that generate frequently observed standardization behaviors as special parameter constellations of the model. Using equilibrium analysis and computer simulations, we identify a standardization gap that reveals the magnitude of available standardization gains for individuals and the network as a whole. The analysis shows that network topology and density have a strong impact on diffusion of standards and that the tendency toward monopoly is far less common than thought.] S4

[We also report how the model can be used to solve corporate standardization problems.] S5

Its reasoning sequence is:

- -RS3 (S3): An evaluation of existing models underlines simplistic dynamics.

-RS4 (S4 and S5): A unified formal approach is proposed. It is elaborated with the help of a meta-analysis of results. The model is tested through a numerical simulation. The effect of the network topology is isolated.

The focus of the sequence is anchored in an institutionalized research question. The work aims at going beyond the fragmented literature dealing with the issue of communication standards' diffusion and addresses an enigma.

Other abstracts we also coded as enigma either developed radical alternatives or suggested the institutionalisation of a new research question (more relevant than previous ones).

PRACT: Third example of argumentative strategies ('practical issue')

An example of this rhetoric may be found in [START_REF] Bs | Reliability, mindfulness, and information systems[END_REF] abstract below in which we show our sequential coding into several sequences S1 to Sn:

[In a world where information technology is both important and imperfect, organizations and individuals are faced with the ongoing challenge of determining how to use complex, fragile systems in dynamic contexts to achieve reliable outcomes.] S1

[While reliability is a central concern of information systems practitioners at many levels, there has been limited consideration in information systems scholarship of how firms and individuals create, manage, and use technology to attain reliability.] S2

[We propose that examining how individuals and organizations use information systems to reliably perform work will increase both the richness and relevance of IS research.] S3

[Drawing from studies of individual and organizational cognition, we examine the concept of mindfulness as a theoretical foundation for explaining efforts to achieve individual and organizational reliability in the face of complex technologies and surprising environments.] S4 [We then consider a variety of implications of mindfulness theories of reliability in the form of alternative interpretations of existing knowledge and new directions for inquiry in the areas of IS operations, design, and management.] S5

Its reasoning sequence is:

-RS1 (S1): The issue of IS reliability is essential for IS practitioners.

-RS2 (combines S2 and S3): This issue is congruent with academic literature.

-RS3 (S4): The authors propose to use the concept of ‗mindfulness' in order to shed light on the studied phenomenon (through a literature review on cognition).

-RS 4 (S5): Implications for IS design and management. Editors in chief and editors

  indicating a new connection between literature and science, imagination and observation of facts. As E.L. Doctorow asserts in his famous quote: -there is no longer any such things as fiction or non-fiction, there is only narrative‖. The critical starting point is quite clear. As explained by Richardson (2000:924): "I was taught (…) not to write until I knew what I wanted to say, until my points were organized and outlined. (…) this static writing model coheres with mechanistic scientism and quantitative research. (…) The model has serious problems: it ignores the role of writing as a dynamic, creative process; it undermines the confidence of beginning qualitative researchers because their experience of research is inconsistent with the writing model; and it contributes to the flotilla of qualitative writing that is simply not interesting to read because adherence to the model requires writers to silence their own voices and to view themselves as contaminant‖.

  (2004)'s invitation for processual analysis of rhetoric in management research, we aimed at grasping the logical construction of a line of argument, the very process of rhetoric. This corresponds to a ‗middle course vision' in which -argumentative composition (…) consider[s] rhetoric, in conformity with the philosophical view of Aristotle as an off-shoot from logic‖ and which concentrates on the -discovery of arguments and of their arrangements‖(Whately, 1858:17-18).Our sample includes all articles (except opinion papers) published in MISQ and EJIS between 2003 and 2009 (see Figure1) where an abstract is provided. This period was chosen as we wanted to check the historical imprint against recent publications.**** FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE *******We identified ‗argumentative strategies', i.e. logical structures in the argumentation enacted in each article. Those correspond to what reviewers sometimes call the -core message of the paper‖, the -story‖ authors -intend to tell‖ or the -basic line of argument‖ (we use here expressions we found in reviews of papers we submitted in recent years). They are the -arrangements‖ of classic rhetoric, -the order of the components of the author's argument.

(

  2009) pointed out nine kinds of ‗conversations' in management writing: speculation, assertion, clarification, reiteration, adjustment, negation, synthesis, redirection and rebuttal.Each corresponds to a possible relationship with the expected audience.But where should we look for argumentative strategies? Most journals articles stick to standard structures (literature, methods, empirical results and discussion) which make it difficult to extrapolate the more subtle logical flow of the paper. The introduction may not be representative of the line of argument. The text itself may have some logical ruptures in the argument. What should be seen as the relevant span of the text? Are the introduction and the conclusion part of it? What about the discussion?For the present research, we retained a different option. We assumed that argumentative strategies appear explicitly in the abstract. Research has shown the presence of detectable ‗discourse-level' structures in academic empirical abstracts and has revealed major classes of arguments in theoretical abstracts(Liddy, 1991:79); abstracts components tend to conserve discourse rhetorical structures equivalent to the article[START_REF] Manning Ad | Abstracts in relation to larger and smaller discourse structures[END_REF][START_REF] Stotesbury H | Evaluation in research article abstracts in the narrative and hard sciences[END_REF]; and standards and guidelines for abstract writing recommend the inclusion of arguments presented in the text (ANSI/NISO, 1996). An abstract is thus supposed to be the mirror of the paper, as the paper should be the mirror of the research. Furthermore, there are examples of content analysis based on journal abstracts in order to examine changes of theoretical perspectives within a discipline (e.g. organization studies, see Usdiken, 2010) over several decades.To make the development of our classification as explicit as possible and to support communication and reflexivity amongst the co-authors, the second author interviewed the first author (and main coder) early in the writing of this article. Questions concentrated on the initial ideas for this research and the process of data selection and data coding. The transcript of this interview was then provided to the third author, which lead to further discussions. The explanation below relies heavily on this reflexive and iterative process.To analyze the argumentative strategies of MISQ and EJIS, we first applied ‗sequential coding'[START_REF] Bardin L | L'analyse de contenu[END_REF] to the abstracts. Sequential coding consists of identifying streams of sequences (S 1 to S n ) in the argumentation for each abstract. In order to differentiate between sequences, we used grammatical ‗pivots' in the argumentative flow (-yet‖, -however‖, -then‖, -so‖, -therefore‖…) and/or implicit changes in meaning. Our objective was to apply a ‗dynamic thematic coding', i.e. not identifying occurrences of topics in abstracts, but making sense of the dynamic logical flow in the argumentation. The abstracts of 188 MISQ and 248 EJIS articles were processed in this way, dividing them into series of sequences (see Appendix 3). We then identified logical ‗anchorages' in sequences along with streams of ‗reasoning' sequences (RS 1 to RS n ), i.e. possible coherent logical combinations of sequences, most of the time, one or two sequences; sometimes (more rarely), sequences were split up to identify two reasoning sequences (which means that a single sequence could include two logical moves present in our typical reasoning sequences linked to our argumentative strategies ENIG, DEEP or PRACT). . A set of codes corresponding to the logical anchorage of each paper was used to give meaning to each abstract.The set of logical anchorages (and the corresponding typical streams of reasoning sequences) was identified in an inductive way from a first sample of MISQ abstracts (year 2007) on which we applied our sequential coding. After several iterations to work out logical pivots for our coding, we identified three anchorages (‗audience-based': PRACT, ‗literature-based': DEEP or ‗enigma-based': ENIG) which we linked to typical streams of reasoning sequences.The coding process then consisted of pattern recognition of these streams and their corresponding logical anchorages. When faced with a string of reasoning sequences, we wondered which was the closest typical stream of reasoning sequences (DEEP, ENIG, or PRACT) or combination of typical reasoning sequences (see Appendix 3). With the wisdom of hindsight (and thanks to the transcript of the interview of the first author by the second author), it is clear that our own experiences did help to identify the literature-based anchorage.In particular the first author had just attended a conference workshop run by the Senior Editor (SE) of a major organization theory journal. At the end of the workshop (on how to publish in top tier journals), the SE mentioned what he considered a common expectation among reviewers: papers should adopt a logic in which the argument is based on the fulfilment of a gap in the literature, staged as follows: ‗here is the current literature; there is a gap in it. My paper fills this gap'. This resulted in much questioning by the first author (that led to the current paper): was it the only argumentative strategy? Was it a dominant one? Were there other ones? How did this emerge over time? What we subsequently saw as the logical flow of the various argumentations was also driven by our own knowledge of the journals, the European context of all co-authors, our own experience as reviewers, and our own historical knowledge of scientific writing. Part of the process was therefore abductive.We applied the resulting classification (and identification of typical reasoning sequences) to MISQ and later to EJIS. The mapping (based on what we saw as logical anchorages and their possible combinations) clearly ‗made sense', i.e. it was helpful for both initial coder and cross-coder (see below) to identify the argumentative strategies in the abstracts. In addition to the coding of 436 abstracts, a random sample of 31 abstracts (14 MISQ and 17 EJIS) was double-coded by the second author. None of the articles were investigated in extenso.

  Introna and Whittaker (2004:112-114) analysed MISQ editorial statements from 1977 to 2004 and found that quantitative, positivist research started dominating the journal with Benbasat as Editor-in-Chief; the theory focus grew with Zmud and Lee; and Weber aimed to establish the core of the discipline.De Vaujany et al (2008) analysed editorial statements of IS journals from 1997 to 2007 (including MISQ and EJIS). They noticed a surprising stability, both from a lexicometric and a thematic point of view in the topics covered. There was no European specificity in their sample. All these elements reflect a search for academic credibility and point to a search for legitimacy by IS researchers.

  contrast, EJIS seems to be oriented towards DEEP rather than ENIG strategies. The results for EJIS (Figure6) show a more constant pattern. However, they also show a clear decrease (by half) of the ENIG strategy compensated by ENIG-PRACT.**** FIGURES 5 AND 6 ABOUT HERE *****For both journals, the historical imprint is obvious. Both MISQ and EJIS publish mainly pure rhetorical articles, targeting institutionalized research questions or literature. The number of papers targeting practical issues is very low. This does not mean that managerial issues do not appear in other argumentative strategies. It just means that they are in the background or implied. Papers rarely consist of a pure managerial contribution pointing at a problem of legitimacy. The very expression -managerial implications‖ is indeed clear. If in 20 pages, the terms -managerial implications‖ only appear on page 15, who was the expected audience?

  RS1 (S1): In the literature, there is still an obscure unexplained point: what encourages the diffusion of a standard, with what effects? -RS2 (S2): Past literature brought some (fragmented and desultory) answers.

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Number of investigated articles per annum in each journal NB The annual variations are mostly explained by the special issues.

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2. Distribution of research methods in articles about IT adoption (Choudrie & Dwivedi, 2005).

Figure 3 :

 3 Figure 3 : Three logical anchorages for argumentative strategies

FigureFigure 6 :

 6 Figure 4: Percentage of articles per argumentative strategy In both journals over the period 2003-2009

  The epistemological stances of management research may have evolved, but it still uses writing norms which comply with scientific writing standards. The realistic style prevails. If for positivists, an article is only an exercise in communication independent from the researcher, phenomenological, postmodernist or critical academics consider writing as an intrinsic part of the research process, during which understandability and plausibility are built, and the researcher's reflexive process is outlined.

the heart of scientific work. Postmodernist deconstruction or narratives as alternative ways of knowing and writing proposed in more recent critical management studies (e.g.

Grey & Willmott, 2005;[START_REF] Czarniawska B | Writing management: organization theory as a literary genre[END_REF]

have had limited impact, despite innovative attempts in critical journals such as Organization.

  EJIS was expected to be a forum for European IS research, defending a plurality of theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches. In their first editorial in 1991 (see Table3), Liebenau and Smithson proposed to -challenge the models developed and applied in US business schools and companies‖ and -demonstrate the fallacies of much of what is frequently preached‖. According to Galliers and[START_REF] Rd | Vive les differences? Developing a profile of European information systems research as a basis for international comparisons[END_REF]:

	-EJIS has steadily risen in reputation among IS journals‖. It was listed in the highest position
	for a non-US journal by Peffers and Tang (2003). Clearly, MISQ and EJIS have followed
	distinctive historical trajectories which are summarized in Table 3.
	; MISQ
	Executive was in fact created in 2002 specifically for practitioners.
	EJIS was set up in 1991 by the Operational Research Society (UK) which had realised the
	growing need for a European journal in MIS. The founding editor (Paul) and first co-editors
	(Liebenau and Smithson), as well as Whitley (involved in the creation in 1993 of the
	European Conference on IS) were at the London School of Economics and these initiatives

strengthened the institutional identity of its Department of Information Systems (as opposed to Operations Research). Similarly, ISJ emerged from Southampton University (Computer Science), and JSIS from Warwick University (Business School), but with little coordination between them (our interviews).

**** TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE ********

Chen and Hirschheim (2004)

examined EJIS and MISQ in terms of epistemological and methodological approaches from 1991 to 2001 and found that there was a dominance of positivist research, with quantitative and cross-sectional methods the most common in MISQ and survey methods in EJIS.

[START_REF] Paré | Re-examining the causal structure of information technology impact research[END_REF]

found that 91% of the studies in MISQ, ISR and EJIS focused on deterministic theories and variance models.

  Appendix 3 for examples of each argumentative strategy).For ‗deepening of knowledge', the pivot is a model, a specific stream of literature, a method or epistemological stance. It aims at overcoming some incoherence or gap in past knowledge; it is a classical strategy which supports cumulative progress in scientific production. A contribution is justified either through the import of another concept or theoretical framework or through an empirical approach. In the latter, fieldwork allows the construction or reconstruction of the missing concept and/or give coherence to the model. Much research about the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) uses this argumentative logic, while adding new variables

	**** TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE ****

  interpretivist perspective than American journals (represented by MISQ and ICIS) over that period. This is despite having established itself in the late 1980s, ten years later than American IS research.We were surprised not to find more marked differences between EJIS and MISQ. Perhaps this is due to editorial changes: more recently MISQ has welcomed a broader range of approaches than in the past, especially interpretivist and qualitative ones; and DEEP strategies are surprisingly dominant in EJIS. Perhaps the assumed difference between US and European approaches is more complex than it seems. Instead of being geographical, it could well be political, i.e. about the construction of centres and margins in the management field (Grey,

	2010:678, 681, 683):
	-The US journals now position themselves as ‗global', whilst institutional changes in
	business schools [tenure, global rankings] (…) make for an increasingly unitary scale
	of intellectual and reputational value. (…) The effect of this hierarchy is to render
	European journals [more conformist] (…) Rather than a continental
	convergence/divergence, there is a ‗centre' encompassing much US research and some
	European research and a ‗margin' encompassing much European and some North
	American research‖,
	This may well be the case for European journals such as EJIS (what about ISJ, TIS, SIM or
	SJIS?), which are aiming at increasing their global ranking. The danger is that the globalising
	claim to universality neglects cultural specificities and is inimical to intellectual innovation.

, using data from the two national journals Technology, Information et Société and Systèmes d'Information et Management from 1987 to 2001, has already shown that French IS research has had a less technical, more societal and

  bringing notions of criticality, reflexivity and focus on differences to enable readers imagine new possibilities. Some examples are Geertz (1988)'s use of highly personalized styles, and E.E. Evans-Pritchard's highly visual ‗slide show' style Joerges and Guillet de Monthoux (1994) use fiction as a point of entry as it opens up the possibility of new insights in a way business case studies may not. Knights and

	of writing.
	Interesting examples in management studies include Linstead and Grafton-Small (1992)'s
	exploration of reading organizational cultures; Calás and Smircich (1991)'s elaboration on
	writing organizations; Czarniawska (1997)'s dissection of organizational narratives; Jeffcut
	(1993)'s reflexive analysis of genres of writing on organizations; Rosen (1985)'s dramaturgy
	(see also Geelan & Taylor, 2001). Grey and Sinclair (2006:449)'s writing on organizations
	suggests different forms of writing to address aesthetic, moral and political concerns; they
	provide several illustrations of reflexive and ‗fantasy' writing intended to question the writing
	itself: -what are our texts doing? What are our ways of writing accomplishing in political
	terms? How is authority claimed and what assumptions made the writing possible?‖
	Czarniawska-

  . The Journal of the AIS and Communications of the AIS have longer word limits closer to traditional monographs; this is useful for writing complex in-depth intensive case studies which are not easily publishable in journals; they also support innovative writing such as insertion of active hyperlinks enabling a less linear reading. IS electronic journals could support new argumentative strategies, based on direct interactions and collaborations between academics and practitioners. The legitimate research questions, research topics and managerial issues could emerge during the (co)-elaboration of papers. Scientific writing would then look more like an open, never-ending process, with argumentative strategies such as: proposal of an issue by practitioners; reinterpretation based on empirical material and theories by academics; reinterpretation by practitioners and use of further empirical material; discussion of a relevant research question etc. This type of process might lead to fruitful ‗conversations'

Table 3 : A comparison between MISQ and EJIS MISQ EJIS

 3

	Date of creation	1977	1991

Table 4 : Summary of the three typical argumentative strategies

 4

	Argumentative	Reasoning sequence	Reasoning sequence	Reasoning sequence	Reasoning sequence
	strategy	1	2	3	4
			There is incoherence,
			weakness or a gap in
	DEEP		the literature		Here is my proposal,
	Deepening of	Here is the literature	("However", "Yet",	I prove it	which I justify, to fill
	knowledge		"Nonetheless"…). One		this gap
			or several models
			is/are incomplete
		Here is an enigma.
	ENIG Solving an enigma	a paradox (a research question institutionalized by a community of	There is no satisfactory answer in the literature	I prove it	Here is my proposal, which I justify, to solve the enigma
		researchers)
				I present a device
	PRACT Addressing a practical issue	Here is a problem which leads to difficulties for practitioners or society	I show that this problem makes sense with respect to the academic literature	(e.g. model, framework of analysis, etc.) in order to supply some elements of answers which are more or	Setting up of the device (survey, case study, action research, intervention research, meta analysis…) and amendments
				less actionable

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the clear and constructive reviews from the associate editor, the senior editor and all the reviewers on the earlier versions of this article.

Their comments have substantially helped us improve our work. They also wish to thank Steve Smithson and Jonathan Liebenau of the London School of Economics for their time.

With these objectives in mind, how can we fit them into the argumentative strategies exposed through our analysis? Richardson (2000:942) offers suggestions of writing experiments in social sciences (see Table 5). Globally, they are about giving some visibility to the researcher's reflexivity in order to stimulate it. They are also about encouraging the selection of literary techniques for qualitative research. [START_REF] Huff As | Designing research for publication[END_REF] suggests seeing scientific writing as a conversation, which could break the linearity of the argumentative strategies we brought to light. She emphasizes the importance of rhetoric in managerial writing, and offers possible rhetorical archetypes. She remarks (Huff, 2009:287) that -the positivist tradition was an important part of many journal editors' training.

They may think they are rebelling, but they still continue to demand theoretic contributions in the classical sense (…) law-like statements independent of historical or situational context‖.

New forms of academic writing have been proposed and practiced in organisation studies from which IS researchers could gain inspiration in order to imagine new forms of argumentative strategies. This is strongly related to organisation theorists having engaged with the postmodern ‗linguistic turn' [START_REF] Kärreman | Taking the linguistic turn in organizational research[END_REF]. Postmodernism binds language, subjectivity, reflexivity, culture, social organization and power. It values the reflexive self and the co-production of social science. There is a -reflexive deficit regarding language‖; -language is seen naively as a mirror of an external social reality‖; therefore the rationale is to conceive the writing of journal articles as -speech acts oriented to reproduce wider social conventions in language usage‖ (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000:140, 143).

New writing practices have emerged as a result of postmodernism: -performance pieces‖, -readers' theatre‖, -museum displays‖, -choreographed research findings‖, -fine-arts representations‖, -hypertexts‖, -stories‖, -fictional ethnography‖ (see Banks & Banks, 1998), -poetic representations‖, -ethnographic dramaturgy‖, and -auto-ethnographic texts‖ in which authors write their lived experiences relating the personal to the cultural. Management authors such as Alvesson and [START_REF] Sköldberg | Reflexive methodology: new vistas for qualitative research[END_REF] suggest various forms of writing: -grounded fictionalism‖ (playfulness and imagination over rigour and empirical detail, creative ideas indicating multiple realities); -metaphoric data construction‖ (space made for bold interpretations of social phenomena); -literary data construction‖ (genres of writing and rhetorical devices guide the use of empirical material); -discursive pragmatism‖ (capture the richness of social realities through selective construction of practices, meanings and talk).

Anthropology and literary criticism have also been drawn upon to highlight the use of rhetoric -The addition of an -innovative writing‖ section. If local competences are insufficient, researchers from other fields could be called upon to work with IS reviewers; -After articles are accepted and printed in paper format, enable authors to open up the -conversation‖ [START_REF] Huff As | Designing research for publication[END_REF] with the full research community on an exchange research platform leading to some kind of -research 2.0‖, co-constructed between fellow researchers, authors and readers alike (see for instance http://www.geoscientificmodel-development.net/or http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/debate/nature04988.html) ; -For some papers, make available online authors' original submissions, as well as the AE-reviewers-authors' exchanges during the reviewing process, that lead to the published article. This might help illuminate the writing and reflecting processes that were at play. These are only some suggestions that may certainly be enriched and built upon.

We opted to write this paper using a standard format and argumentative strategy focused on an ENIG rhetoric: we revisit an institutionalized research question (how to write an IS article? How to communicate IS research?) and try to develop an alternative (rhetorico-historical) perspective. We could have chosen to write this piece reflectively and stayed closer to the research writing dynamics grounded in the academic background and experience of the first and third authors ( de Vaujany, 2008;[START_REF] Venters W | Reflexive evaluation of an academic-industry research collaboration: can Mode 2 management research be achieved[END_REF]. We could then have explained that our motivation was due to much frustration in reading what we thought were mainly DEEP argumentative strategies in top journal papers (a domination which is not confirmed by this research, to our surprise particularly for MISQ); and by what we see sometimes as rather unexciting papers in major IS journals (in fact, as witnessed through discussions with colleagues, many have given up reading regularly some of these journals). We could have written this piece as a conversation between the co-authors aimed at elaborating the argument of this paper, but we did not. Our choice of a standard format and argumentative strategy was no doubt motivated by what we thought would be a higher probability of satisfying reviewers and getting published.

Whether in terms of the underlying metaphors of writing formats, historical publishing practices or institutional pressures, a vast undertaking remains. There have been calls for changes in IS editorial policies to -recognise the value of innovative theory building, practical An example of this rhetoric may be found in [START_REF] Arnold | The differential use and effect of knowledge-based system explanations in novice and expert judgement decisions[END_REF]'s abstract below, in which we show our sequential coding into several sequences S1 to Sn:

APPENDICES

[Explanation facilities are considered essential in facilitating user interaction with knowledgebased systems (KBS). Research on explanation provision and the impact on KBS users has shown that the domain expertise affects the type of explanations selected by the user and the basis for seeking such explanations.] S1

[The prior literature has been limited, however, by the use of simulated KBS that generally provide only feedback explanations (i.e., ex post to the recommendation of the KBS being presented to the user).] S2

[The purpose of this study is to examine the way users with varying levels of expertise use alternative types of KBS explanations and the impact of that use on decision making.] S3

[A total of 64 partner/manager-level and 82 senior/staff-level insolvency professionals participated in an experiment involving the use of a fully functioning KBS to complete a complex judgment task. In addition to feedback explanations, the KBS also provided feedforward explanations (i.e., general explanations during user input about the relationships between information cues in the KBS) and included definition type explanations (i.e., declarative-level knowledge).] S4

[The results show that users were more likely to adhere to recommendations of the KBS when an explanation facility was available. Choice patterns in using explanations indicated that novices used feedforward explanations more than experts did, while experts were more likely than novices to use feedback explanations. Novices also used more declarative knowledge and initial problem solving type explanations, while experts used more procedural knowledge explanations. Finally, use of feedback explanations led to greater adherence to the KBS recommendation by experts-a condition that was even more prevalent as the use of feedback explanations increased. The results have several implications for the design and use of KBS in a professional decision-making environment.] S5

Its reasoning sequence is:

-RS1 (S1): There is a consequent literature about knowledge-based systems, the explanation provision and end-users.

-RS2 (S2): Nonetheless, the -use of simulated KBS‖ has limited potential contributions (a weakness is identified) -RS3 (S3 and S4): A specific research is designed to fill this gap. It aims at identifying the way -users with varying levels of expertise use alternative types of KBS explanations and the This string of reasoning sequences is very close to that describing the PRACT category. The logical anchorage is a practitioner's concern (or at least what is perceived as a practitioner's concern) about IS reliability. Implications are drawn for IS design and management.

Example of a hybrid logic: fourth example of argumentative strategy DEEP-PRACT

An example of this rhetoric may be found in [START_REF] Whitley | Doing the politics of technological decision making: due process and the debate about identity cards in the UK[END_REF] abstract below in which we show our sequential coding into several sequences S1 to Sn: [The U.K. Government, in presenting its proposals for biometric identity cards, made strong claims about the technology and science underlying the proposed National Identity Scheme.] S1 [In this paper, we use insights from science and technology studies (STS), particularly Latour's ‗Politics of Nature' argument, to analyse the parliamentary debates about the technological and scientific aspects of the proposals.] S2

[The authors were part of a team that produced a report that raised a series of perplexities about the Scheme in an attempt to counter the short-circuiting of discussion of these perplexities in the parliamentary debate.] S3

[The paper analyses the government's attempts at short-circuiting in light of Latour's argument and the introduction of perplexities by our report. It demonstrates the extent to which this form of STS can enhance political debate about technological decisions.] S4

RS1 (S1):

The UK government has developed a policy about biometric identity cards with some underlying assumptions about science and technology. There is a gap, something missing in our knowledge about the national identity scheme (NIS); RS2 (S2): Based on STS, these underlying assumptions are illuminated; RS3 (S3): Authors have been involved as actors in the debate, and use this experience to push further analysis and its implications; RS4 (S4): This work of deconstruction is used to demonstrate -the extent to which this form of STS can enhance political debate about technological decisions‖. This practical experience is used to stimulate reflexivity.

In this paper, two logical anchorages can be identified: practitioners (public managers or politicians) and the literature (interested in extending our knowledge of the NIS and also the applicability of a theoretical framework). Here, the authors of the abstract (and the paper) appear to adopt both rhetorical approaches and corresponding argumentative strategies. On the one hand, the authors were -part of a team that produced a report‖, they participated in the public debate, they insist on their action-oriented stance. On the other hand, they analyze their action (and the difficulties of this action) and suggest that their work show -the extent to which this form of STS can enhance political debate about technological decisions‖. The move from S2 to S4 thus epitomizes a hybrid reasoning sequence (combining two logical anchorages).

Birth and dynamics of universities

From the 12 th century with Sorbonne university.

From the 12 th century with Oxford university.

From the 17 th century with Harvard, Williamsburg and Yale.

Birth of business studies

Mainly in the 19 th century. First business school (affiliated to a chamber of commerce): Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris in 1819. First business department in universities in 1955 (Instituts d'Administration des Entreprises).

Mainly in post WWII period.

Major UK universities set up business department in late 20 th century.

From the early 20 th century.

Nature of knowledge taught

From scholastic to more grounded knowledge.

Grounded

Nature of the process of validation of knowledge

Firstly based on observation and more and more, on experimentation.

Replication and visibility of the research protocol are highly valued. Knowledge has to be demonstrated in front of learned societies' members.

Emergence of the first peer-reviewed journals. A community of peers validates knowledge.

Structure of journals

Collection of articles (more and more impersonal, in particular from the last quarter of the 18 th century). 17 th century and early 18 th century publications follow epistolary conventions [START_REF] Gross | Communicating science: The scientific article from the 17th Century to the present[END_REF] Focus on research articles, essays and book reviews. Publications can be replications of other published articles or extracts of books.

Key aspects of the initial editorial statements

Management and practitioners -oriented. [START_REF] Dickson G | Editor's comment[END_REF]