How Autonomy is Used in Information Systems Research: Status Quo and Prospective Opportunities

Abstract

Autonomy is a central concept that allows researchers to investigate essential aspects such as job-related outcomes in Information Systems (IS) research. With the increase of mobile technologies, autonomy is increasingly gaining importance. Given the growing body of research in this area, this research presents the results of a systematic literature review. The results show in detail how autonomy has been used and identify fruitful avenues for future research. Specifically, we suggest that future research should contextualize autonomy to give it a pivotal theoretical significance for IS research. Moreover, future research should also acknowledge the multi-dimensional facets of autonomy to enhance its explanatory power.