Déjà Vu or Art Nouveau? A comment on Demetis and Lee's “Crafting theory to satisfy the requirements of systems science”

In this commentary, we reflect on the arguments made in Demetis and Lee's inspiring article. We first affirm key attributes of systems science as conditions for more rigorous theorizing in IS. While several of these attributes are already firmly embedded within theories used in IS research, others presented in the article deserve closer consideration. We also give reasons why general systems theory (GST) has been neglected as a unifying theory in social science: empirical difficulties (as addressed by Demetis and Lee), suspicions about the usefulness of grand theory, and GST's core assumptions about goals and boundaries. Given these concerns, we question the wisdom of the déjà vu grand theoretic aims of GST to establish requirements for IS theories. Rather, we urge IS scholars to pursue art nouveau by adjusting some of the more limiting constraints of systems science. We specifically advocate a more trans-systemic approach to theorizing that moves away from a “containerized” view of organizations and leverages our presumed deeper understanding of IS artifacts. Our way forward advocates not only adopting requirements from systems science, but reciprocally imposing requirements on systems science to engage with IS artifacts.