The author’s experience first as a practitioner of more than twenty-five years standing and then as an academic dealing with business people as well as students-to-be and their parents, is that the capacity of people outside the discipline to ‘recognise’ IS has been steadily decreasing for some years. Anecdotal evidence from other academics strongly supports this view. Students signing up for undergraduate courses appear to have little or no background on which to base their understanding of the topics IS addresses. Nor is it easy to identify promising career lines that are specific to IS, and it appears in this regard that the lack of any concept of the elite IS professional is a critical problem for the profession. While it was originally anticipated that CIO positions might fill this gap, it now seems that the vast majority of these positions require strictly management skills (Earl and Feeny, 1994).

One way to illustrate the visibility issue is to consider the IS field’s poor performance during the Y2K crisis. While the media influence on the presentation of events was strong, it was notable that the public discussion was led by a small number of self-appointed experts, rather than professional bodies such as the ACS (Australian Computer Society), and that decisions on acceptable mitigation practice were taken by a range of commercial and governmental organisations apparently without formal input from IS bodies. One of the most frequently cited ‘authorities’ on Y2K was Dr Yardeni, an economist with Deutschbank, whose perceived expertise was related to the presentation of a variety of estimates on the likelihood of various types of economic meltdown throughout the period of apparent crisis. His use of figures such as a ‘70%’ probability of a Y2K-triggered recession (Dr Yardeni, quoted in Anon., 1998) revived memories of the economist who claimed high status as an authority on the grounds that he had successfully predicted 11 of the last four recessions. What became evident throughout the course of the crisis was a lack of IS theories and frameworks on which to base an assessment of the impact of minor changes to internal data and process structures. IS was effectively relegated to the role of providing low-level technical solutions rather than explanatory insights.

A number of papers in recent years have expressed concerns with IS and its directions (e.g. Benbasat and Zmud, 2003; Hirschheim and Klein, 2003; Weber, 2003; Lee et al., 2002; Lucas, 1999; Markus, 1999; Paton, 1997). Whether explicitly or implicitly, they share a concern with the visibility of the discipline, and a worry that its very real achievements may be lost in something of an IS diaspora, as topics, researchers and findings become spread as the fragments of a once coherent discipline. Two leading theorists state, for instance: ‘we feel that some underlying structural patterns in IS are in definite need of attention because they could portend trouble in the longer run (possibly even in the shorter run)’ (Hirschheim and Klein, 2003, p. 239). This is, if anything, a mild conclusion, given that they also comment that the field is in ‘a state of fragmentation, and [suffers from] a number of significant communication gaps’ (Hirschheim and Klein, 2003, p. 241). Their paper notes other issues including a major ‘disconnect’ between IS and organisational management. They highlight management’s willingness to set IT issues aside as being peripheral to organisational interests, and suggest that this must be a serious concern for the discipline (Hirschheim and Klein, 2003, p. 251). A further claim is that management sees IS research directions as problematic, and as ‘devoid of any practical relevance’ (Hirschheim and Klein, 2003, p. 253).

The most frequent reaction to the perceived problems has been to suggest that IS needs to focus on identifying and consolidating its core body (or bodies) of knowledge in the interests of establishing and maintaining field coherence (Benbasat and Zmud, 2003; Hirschheim and Klein, 2003). While it seems certain that this would generate considerable benefits within the field, this paper takes a different tack, arguing on Bourdieu’s principles that IS needs to consider its relations with external parties as critical. What is required is an increase in visible cultural capital, in the form of concepts and ideas that relate directly to external interests. It is argued that theory development and research at the portfolio or organisational level, where IS structures shape and constrain organisational possibilities and are beginning to be influential in broader societal terms, is the most promising way to achieve this. Put in the broadest terms, the loss of IS visibility reflects a lack of significant cultural capital in the form of publicly accessible ideas; this can best be addressed through developments at the level of general theory.