information systems (is) and the process of distinguishing information systems ontology have been the center of challenge during the 50 years of is development. the importance of this challenge is emergent in direct link between knowledge development process in is and the is ontology. in other words, theorizing and efforts to falsify theories, which have been developed, is influenced by the way...

Critical realism is emerging as a viable philosophical paradigm for conducting social science research, and has been proposed as an alternative to the more prevalent paradigms of positivism and interpretivism. Few papers, however, have offered clear guidance for applying this philosophy to actual research methodologies. Under critical realism, a causal explanation for a given phenomenon is infe...

In this paper, I attempt to demonstrate the structure of Sellars’ critical direct realism in the philosophy of perception. This position is original because it attempts to balance two claims that many have thought to be incompatible: (1) that perceptual knowledge is direct, i.e., not inferential, and (2) that perceptual knowledge is irreducibly conceptual. Even though perceptual episodes are no...

Although different strands of “post-approaches” and “post-theories”, for example, grounded theory and structuration theory, have gained popularity in Information Systems (IS) research they are not without problems. We present critical realism as an alternative philosophical underpinning for IS research. Critical realism starts from an ontology that identifies structures and mechanisms through w...

Realist evaluation has gained prominence in the field of recent years. Its theory-driven approach to explaining how and why programmes work or not makes it attractive many novices, early career researchers, organizations implementing various globally relevant policymakers programme implementers. While realist seeks be pragmatic, adopting principles methods that can used help focus an evaluation...

Graduate outcomes are becoming increasingly prominent within higher education (HE) policy, driven by national governments keen to demonstrate ‘value for money’. The majority of HE policy in this area uses narrow economic metrics, such as employment status and salary, often derived from surveys graduates. This paper critical realist philosophy develop a set foundational concepts (graduate functi...