Applying the WWII Sabotage Manual to the IS Discipline: Are We Self-Sabotaging?

Since the birth of humanity, sabotage – the intentional action aimed at weakening a particular entity such as a state, an organization, a group of people, or an individual – has been present in virtually all areas of life. In the management context, this concept gained attention in the early 19th century during the infamous Luddite movement, when workers sabotaged machinery to protest against their employers who replaced manual labor with technology. Sabotage also plays a critical role in wartime, but such actions are generally shrouded in secrecy. Recently, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) declassified the Sabotage Field Manual developed by the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the CIA) and used during World War Two to train prospective citizen-saboteurs in German-occupied Europe (Office of Strategic Services, 1944). In addition to instructions pertaining to direct physical sabotage – destroying and paralyzing critical equipment, resources, and industrial systems – the manual focuses on indirect sabotage performed by managers, supervisors, and other decision-makers to interfere with and impede critical production processes in organizations. We focus on the latter category of sabotage and compare the manual’s instructions with the key functioning principles within the information systems (IS) discipline. Information systems scholars have traditionally been concerned with the state and evolution of their discipline. For example, previous inquiries have examined the nature of the discipline’s publication venues, the practical relevance of academic research, and citation practices. We seek to productively contribute to that discourse by analyzing whether IS has successfully developed a robust scholarly system or has, perhaps inadvertently, engaged in forms of self-sabotage. To do so, we draw upon our observations and experience in academia as well as debates among IS scholars such as those in CAIS (Kautz, 2018). We discuss how several instructions in the Sabotage Manual relate to behaviors, academic activities, and debates in the IS discipline. For example, Instruction 1 recommends to: Insist on conducting all activities through formal channels and avoid shortcuts that might expedite decision-making. When it comes to IS research, this occurs when reviewers insist on impossible levels of generalizability, realism, and precise measurement control in quantitative research. Instruction 2 recommends to: Bring up irrelevant issues and ask endless questions. The debates among IS scholars on whether IS is a Science and the relevance of IS research are prime examples of this. Instruction 3 says to: Haggle over precise wording in every document. Our failure to agree on a common definition for “Information System” is an example here. Instruction 4 states: Express concern about jurisdictional issues and policy contradictions. IS scholars apply this instruction by questioning the origins of our discipline and whether it has a core theory. Instruction 5 is: Provide incomplete or misleading instructions during employee training. An example here is that faculty request that IS research should strive to influence other fields but then only reward IS core citations in T&P processes. These are just a few examples, and there are more relating to research, teaching, and service, which we have identified and will discuss in the presentation.