A Dialectical Approach to Information Systems Research

Research in information systems, like other social sciences, has been criticised for its lack of rigour, deficiencies in the techniques used for evidence collection, the lack of generalisability of results and the poverty of theory development. This paper clarifies some of the key philosophical and methodological issues concerning the validity of information systems research. Issues relating to evidence collection, theory development and theory testing are addressed in turn. In terms of evidence collection, particular attention is paid to the treatment of human participants. At the theory development stage, the causal relationships constituted by organisational activity, and the role of knowledge in their construction, are considered. The analysis of theory testing questions the conventional separation of theory development and appraisal and argues that a sharp distinction between them it is not always constructive. The key issues identified are separated into ontological, epistemological and methodological considerations and then reformulated to provide a set of ‘requirements’ for IS research methodology. Having developed a clear statement of key philosophical and methodological issues, the tradition of dialectics is drawn upon to develop an integrated approach to research into human and social phenomena, and for exploiting the results to make robust generalisations. The development of dialectical research presented in this paper addresses evidence collection and generalisation in some detail, with particular attention paid to the distinction between studying human participants as objects and as subjects. An outline of initial work towards developing a method to facilitate theory development is also provided.