Emerald Management Reviews

Design/methodology/approach - A review of the literature of IS research relevance is presented to provide the background to the study. Describes an approach to IS research relevance based on three dimensions of relevance revealed as being of significance by Klein et al (2006) (importance, accessibility, applicability). Applies Klein et al's three dimensions of relevance as the starting point for characterizing research relevance and developing an approach to improve it by addressing the relevance of research to practice in the institutional and project governance perspectives and by applying the research life cycle approach to a scheme that is mainly based on the focus group method and a modified nominal group technique. Presents details of the seven steps involved in the applicability check method.

Findings - The results indicated that the importance of the research to the needs of practice was the most critical dimension for practice and the proposed solution allows this to be addressed through the agency of an applicability check conducted on the research in question.

Research limitations/implications - Future research may be directed towards other methods for improving the relevance of research and possibly target different phases of the research life cycle.

Practical implications - It is possible to embody the applicability check as an integral part of the research process to provide a useful means of guiding researchers along the way.

Originality/value - Provides a practical tool for assessing the quality of a research project in terms of its practical relevance.