Deferring Generalizability: Four Classes of Generalization in Social Enquir

Generalization in information systems research is important because of the highly applied and vocational nature of the field. However, the concept is often inappropriately and narrowly confined to one or two views of research. This paper develops the concept of generalizability as a two-stage process. The first stage involves creating a general case from a base case (or cases). The second stage involves applying the general case to a goal case. The predominant concern in the information systems literature regards only stage one generalization. This neglect of the stage two generalization process leads to oversights in the nature of qualitative generalization. These oversights include varying standards of criteria that apply to different classes of generalization.