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2016 | Buch

Enacting Research Methods in Information Systems: Volume 1

herausgegeben von: Leslie P. Willcocks, Chris Sauer, Mary C. Lacity

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This edited three volume edition brings together significant papers previously published in the Journal of information Technology (JIT) over its 30 year publication history. The three volumes of Enacting Research Methods in Information Systems celebrate the methodological pluralism used to advance our understanding of information technology's role in the world today. In addition to quantitative methods from the positivist tradition, JIT also values methodological articles from critical research perspectives, interpretive traditions, historical perspectives, grounded theory, and action research and design science approaches.

Volume 1 covers Critical Research, Grounded Theory, and Historical Approaches. Volume 2 deals with Interpretive Approaches and also explores Action Research. Volume 3 focuses on Design Science Approaches and discusses Alternative Approaches including Semiotics Research, Complexity Theory and Gender in IS Research.

The Journal of Information Technology (JIT) was started in 1986 by Professors Frank Land and Igor Aleksander with the aim of bringing technology and management together and bridging the ‘great divide’ between the two disciplines. The Journal was created with the vision of making the impact of complex interactions and developments in technology more accessible to a wider audience. Retaining this initial focus, the JIT has gone on to extend into new and innovative areas of research such as the launch of JITTC in 2010. A high impact journal, JIT shall continue to publish leading trends based on significant research in the field.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Overview

This series of three volumes on research methodologies follows on from an earlier collection of two volumes we edited entitled Formulating Research Methods in Information Systems. The original plan was to put together from 20 years of contributions to the Journal of Information Technology (JIT) a single volume on research methods and practices. However, as we read our way through the JIT issues starting with the most recent, we were quite startled to discover a very rich vein indeed on this theme going back as far as 1990. It became quite impossible to entertain the idea of omitting so many great papers with so much to say. Instead we decided to produce a more comprehensive text that would be of service to information systems (IS) scholars, PhD researchers and students, both as a reference and also as a re-presentation of valuable work and knowledge that was highly relevant, but, unsystematized and un-themed, would likely be overlooked.

Once we made this decision, the task then became to make a judicious selection that fulfilled these aims. Leaving many papers out was never going to be an easy process, but once we focused on the task, we were pleased to discover that we were more or less unanimous on which papers we needed, and how they should be classified.

Leslie P. Willcocks, Chris Sauer, Mary C. Lacity

Critical Research

Frontmatter

1. Information Technology as Disciplinary Technology: Being Critical in Interpretive Research on Information Systems

Abstract

The collection, analysis and interpretation of data are always conducted within some broader understanding of what constitutes legitimate inquiry and valid knowledge (Henwood and Pidgeon, 1993). It is the methodology adopted by a researcher that is the dominant influence on the research process and findings, rather than the methods employed, which remain data collection techniques (Putnam, 1983, Llewellyn, 1993). By discussing methodology, we reveal our choices of method and define the way these choices fit the research problem (Dobbert, 1990). However, choices in research methodology can not be unproblematically explained away simply by recourse to a researcher’s beliefs and philosophical assumptions (cf. Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Chua, 1986; Guba, 1990; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991).

Bill Doolin

2. What Does It Mean to be ‘Critical’ in IS Research?

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to explore what it means to conduct ‘critical’ research in IS. In order to begin this, it is necessary to look beyond the scope of IS inquiry itself to other disciplines, especially organizational analysis. A preliminary review is made of the state of critical thinking in the fields of information systems and organization. In addressing the question ‘what is critical research?’ the paper shows how definitions have changed and broadened over time.

Carole Brooke

3. Critical Perspectives on Information Systems: An Impression of the Research Landscape

Abstract

Klein and Hirschheim (1991) predicted that the future of information systems (IS) research would

… belong to methodologies that are able to combine a high level of formal rationality with a sufficient level of communicative rationality under emancipatory conditions (p. 15).

Carole Brooke

4. To Reveal Is to Critique: Actor-Network Theory and Critical Information Systems Research

Abstract

This paper examines some of the issues for critical researchers of information systems (IS) arising from the post-modern turn (Lyotard, 1984; Seidman, 1994). The emphasis of the paper is to explore the increased interest and significance of research styles that have been developed within this genre and their application to IS research. The paper will approach this issue by giving particular attention to an examination of the relevance of research informed from an actor-network theory perspective. We see actor-network theory as an important addition to a broader critical research project (Alvesson and Deetz, 2000).

Bill Doolin, Alan Lowe

5. The Rationality Framework for a Critical Study of Information Systems

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between information systems (IS) and organizational processes from the perspective of the rationality of actors and their actions. The terms rational and rationality that are used in theoretical writings and in everyday life denote a multiplicity of meanings. The idea of reason has been connected with the disposition of actors to give rational grounds for or logical explanations of their beliefs and actions. Similarly, the actions by which actors achieve desired ends are regarded as rational. Furthermore, organizational processes that embody and are governed by rational actions are considered rational. More generally, an increase in the rationality that characterizes modern organizations and society is called rationalization. This paper explores the relationship between IS and organizations within the light of the progressive rationalization of organizational processes.

Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic, Marius Janson, Ann Brown

Grounded Theory Approaches

Frontmatter

6. Using Grounded Theory Method in Information Systems: The Researcher as Blank Slate and Other Myths

Abstract

Grounded theory method (GTM) was developed in the field of sociology during the 1960s (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) and has been adopted in many fields of research, including information systems (IS). The use of GTM in IS studies echoes the progress of interpretive research from insignificance in the 1980s (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991) to its current mainstream status in the IS community (Markus, 1997; Klein and Myers, 2001). Grounded theory research has been published in the major journals of IS and the methodology has gained enough support to have its own special interest group within the Association of Information Systems.

Cathy Urquhart, Walter Fernández

7. On Emergence and Forcing in Information Systems Grounded Theory Studies: The Case of Strauss and Corbin

Abstract

Grounded theory method (GTM) (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1990; Charmaz, 2006) is characterized by the continuous interplay between the collection and analysis of data in order to generate theory that is firmly grounded in empirical phenomena (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998). The method is now an accepted research approach in the information systems (IS) discipline (Urquhart et al., 2010; Matavire and Brown, 2011). That said, there are many debates around the application of GTM, and the method is contested (Duchscher and Morgan, 2004; Bryant and Charmaz, 2007). Important debates relate to the underlying epistemology (Mills et al., 2006), role of prior theory (Jones and Noble, 2007), and coding procedures (Kelle, 2007). As a result, there are now different strands of GTM, which differ in various aspects, including induction, deduction, and verification (Heath and Cowley, 2004; Matavire and Brown, 2011). Bryant and Charmaz (2007) argue strongly that GTM can be seen as a ‘family of methods’, and we would concur with that view. Mills et al. (2006) write that GTM ‘can be seen as a methodological spiral that begins with Glaser and Strauss’ original text and continues today’ (p. 25). Specifically, they use the terms ‘traditional’ and ‘evolved’ in order to distinguish the work of Glaser from that of Strauss, the two co-founders of the method.

Stefan Seidel, Cathy Urquhart

Historical Approaches

Frontmatter

8. The Use of History in IS Research: An Opportunity Missed?

Abstract

History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today. Henry Ford’s edict on history has, in a sense, become a cliché derided by some as the ignorant spoutings of a self-opinionated, but highly successful entrepreneur, and praised by others for its forthright condemnation of the way historians described the past. It is perhaps ironic that Henry Ford has himself become a historical icon, and that ‘Fordism’ attached as a label to the kind of industrial organisation he put into place and espoused.

Frank Land

9. Seizing the Opportunity: Towards a Historiography of Information Systems

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, a stream of research in IS has been promoting historical perspectives on organisational information systems (McKenney et al., 1995, Mason, 1997a,b; Bannister, 2002; Porra et al., 2005; Land, 2010). The adoption of historical sensitivity is likely to be helpful in a field that is often driven by the ‘awesome potential’ of advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs). We often lose sight of issues as we are blinded by the glare of technology (Bannister, 2002; Land, 2010). If we acquire a historical dimension we may avoid regurgitating ideas with little awareness of their historical context, and being victims of IT fads and fashions (Westrup, 2005) which often damage the potential competitive advantage of firms. A lack of historical consciousness means that concepts and themes are often repackaged several years on, with little thought given to their historical context and origin (Bannister, 2002).

Nathalie Mitev, François-Xavier De Vaujany

10. History and IS — Broadening Our View and Understanding: Actor-Network Theory as a Methodology

Abstract

The call for a historic turn in IS studies is mirrored in business studies generally and is the explicit recognition of the predominance of presentism and universalism in research. It is an implicit but unstated assumption that the present is the product of an extended, unproblematic and universally shared past (Booth and Rowlinson, 2006). ‘Presentism results in research being reported as if it occurred in a decontextualized extended present’ (Booth and Rowlinson, 2006: 6). This critical assumption centers the present as if it were a stable entity stripped of its messiness and uncertainty leading to the observation that, ‘Most of our mainstream journals [organizational studies, in this case] are written as if they apply to some disembodied abstract realm’ (Zald, 1996: 256).

William Bill Bonner

Titel: Enacting Research Methods in Information Systems: Volume 1
herausgegeben von: Leslie P. Willcocks
Chris Sauer
Mary C. Lacity
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-29266-3
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-29265-6
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29266-3