We are grateful to Richard Posner and Mark Kelman for their detailed comments on our article. Their objections come from opposite directions. Judge Posner complains that behavioral economics is not a "theory" and is indeed "antitheoretical"'; he invokes "evolutionary considerations"2 in the interest of providing a unitary account of both rational and "quasi rational" behavior, as well as bounde...

This paper attempts to discuss how qualitative (intensive) and quantitative (extensive) research strategies differ by contrasting epistemological and ontological aspects and how these beliefs and views fit with their different intellectual goals. Firstly, this paper discusses the importance of understanding philosophy in social science research and its relation to qualitative (intensive) and qu...

This paper indicates the influence of paradigms and theories on the development of South Africa’s National Water Resource Strategy, Second Edition. Five paradigms exist: positivism, postpositivism, interpretivism/constructivism, critical theories and the participatory paradigm. I use the PULSE3 framework for analysis that I developed to analyse the NWRS2. I found that positivism is the dominant...

Early problems associated with the development of computer systems led to the much cited ‘software’ crisis, which in turn has engendered an understanding of development that has sought a solution in terms of control and standardisation. However, systems still continue to disappoint and this paper proposes that two challenges provide one research avenue where greater understanding is required. T...

Information systems (IS) is a relatively new discipline with many researchers having their foundation studies in other disciplines. The IS discipline is moving towards some sense of its own identity and some agreement on what constitutes suitable foci of research. Coming from other fields of study, however, our researchers bring perspectives on particular modes of enquiry and methodological par...

The rationalist approach to strategizing emphasizes analytical and convergent thinking. Without denying the importance of this approach, this book argues that strategists must learn to complement it with a more creative approach to strategizing that emphasizes synthetic and divergent ways of thinking. The theoretical underpinnings of this approach include embodied realism, interpretivism, pract...

Most published research in information systems is underpinned by a positivist or empiricist philosophy. This generally involves the collection of quantitative data and its subsequent analysis using some form of statistical modelling, often multivariate such as regression. Alternative paradigms, such as interpretivism, often critique such statistical analysis on the grounds that the social world...

This paper is primarily targeted at doctoral students and other researchers considering using inductive approach as a research strategy. We present interpretive research designed to explore the interaction strategies between analysts and clients/users during requirements determination process and the factors that may be at work in such interaction. Using inductive approach can be treated as bot...

The methodological pluralism in IS research is topic of an ongoing discussion. Several claims have been made both in favor of methodological pluralism and against it. The debate focuses mainly the relationship between IS research methods (i.e. empirical/behavioural or constructional orientation) and the underlying IS research paradigms, especially positivism and interpretivism. As an integrativ...

Strategic decision-making process is a crucial part of strategy formulation and implementation. However, most inquiries into strategic decision-making process use quantitative methods. Even if there have been calls for more qualitative method for decision-making research, most researchers still predominantly use quantitative method as a main tool to find the results. This paper is aimed to chal...