Design science research in Europe

European Journal of Information Systems (2008) 17, 470–475. doi:10.1057/ejis.2008.44 Design science research – relevant and rigorous?! Design-oriented research has a long tradition in Europe. While design science research is the dominating IS research paradigm in the Germanspeaking countries (Lange, 2006; Wilde & Hess, 2007; Becker et al., 2008), a large number of design-oriented researchers can also be found in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Italy, and France, just to name the biggest communities. In many other European countries, however, designoriented IS research is less visible. While behavioural IS research aims at ‘truth’, i.e., at the exploration and validation of generic cause–effect relations, IS design science research aims at ‘utility’, i.e., at the construction and evaluation of generic means–ends relations. Both behavioural research and design research are paralleled by ‘meta’ research: Social sciences and design science reflect the respective processes, products, roles, etc. in order to provide guidance for researchers and to specify the respective approach’s rigour. For behavioural IS research, statistical significance is established as a clear and common measure of its results’ rigour – but the relevance of these results varies. Since design-oriented IS research is aimed at the construction of ‘better’ IS-related problem solutions, utility for practice is established as a clear and common measure of its results’ relevance – but the rigour of its construction and evaluation varies. In behavioural research as well as in design research, researchers aim to reach the ‘Pasteur quadrant’ (Stokes, 1997), i.e., to combine the highest standards of rigour with a high level of relevance (Winter, 2007). As a consequence, high-quality design science research has not only to be relevant, but also to be rigorous. The rigour of design-oriented IS research, however, is less well defined and less commonly accepted than its behavioural counterpart. Methodology research in social sciences has matured over decades. Methodology research in design science, in contrast, is still struggling to amalgamate findings from engineering (which is even denied ‘science’ status by some), computer science, management, and also from social sciences into a consistent methodology. The discussion of design science and design research for IS has gained momentum with the help of the DESRIST conference series (Chatterjee & Hevner, 2006; Chatterjee & Rossi, 2007; Vaishnavi & Baskerville, 2008), with special tracks on design research at major IS conferences as well as with special issues of IS journals on design research – like this special EJIS issue. Most IS design science research contributions refer to Simon’s foundational ‘Sciences of the Artificial’ (1969), Nunamaker et al. (1990), Walls et al. (1992), March & Smith (1995), and to the Hevner et al. MISQ paper (2004). While numerous contributions have been made to the justification of design, the typology of artefacts, or specific problem solutions, rigour-related aspects are not yet sufficiently standardized across the IS design science research community. One example is the lack of a commonly accepted reference process model for design research: proposals include ‘build – evaluate – theorize – justify’ (March & Smith, 1995), ‘identify a need – build – evaluate – learn and theorize’ (Rossi & Sein, 2003), ‘develop/build – justify/evaluate’ (Hevner et al., 2004), or ‘problem European Journal of Information Systems (2008) 17, 470–475 & 2008 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved 0960-085X/08