Leveraging Market Research Techniques in IS: A Review and Framework of Conjoint Analysis Studies in the IS Discipline

Abstract

With cloud and mobile computing, information systems (IS) evolve towards mass-market services. While user involvement is critical for IS success, the IS discipline lacks methods that allow integrating the "voice of the customer" in the case of mass-market services with individual and dispersed users. Conjoint analysis (CA), from marketing research, allows for understanding user preferences and measures user trade-offs for multiple product features simultaneously. While CA has gained popularity in the IS domain, the existing studies have mostly been one-time efforts and no cumulative research patterns have been observed. We argue that CA could have a significant impact on IS research (and practice) if it were fully developed and adopted as a method in IS. From reviewing 70 CA studies published between 1999 and 2019 in the IS field, we find that CA can be leveraged in the initial conceptualization, iterative design and evaluation of IS and their business models. We critically assess the methodological choices along the CA procedure to provide recommendations and guidance on "how" to leverage CA techniques in future IS research. We then synthesize our findings into a “Framework for Conjoint Analysis Studies in IS” that outlines “where” CA can be applied along the IS lifecycle