Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTS. By Oscar Kempthorne. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1952. 631 pp. $8.50. This book by a teacher of statistics (as well as a consultant for \"experimenters\") is a comprehensive study of the philosophical background for the statistical design of experiment. It is necessary to have some facility with algebraic notation and manipulation to be able to use the volume intelligently. The problems are presented from the theoretical point of view, without such practical examples as would be helpful for those not acquainted with mathematics. The mathematical justification for the techniques is given. As a somewhat advanced treatment of the design and analysis of experiments, this volume will be interesting and helpful for many who approach statistics theoretically as well as practically. With emphasis on the \"why,\" and with description given broadly, the author relates the subject matter to the general theory of statistics and to the general problem of experimental inference. MARGARET J. ROBERTSON

The Design and Analysis of Experiments

Two paradigms characterize much of the research in the Information Systems discipline: behavioral science and design science The behavioral-science paradigm seeks to develop and verify theories that explain or predict human or organizational behavior The design-science paradigm seeks to extend the boundaries of human and organizational capabilities by creating new and innovative artifacts Both paradigms are foundational to the IS discipline, positioned as it is at the confluence of people, organizations, and technology Our objective is to describe the performance of design-science research in Information Systems via a concise conceptual framework and clear guidelines for understanding, executing, and evaluating the research In the design-science paradigm, knowledge and understanding of a problem domain and its solution are achieved in the building and application of the designed artifact Three recent exemplars in the research literature are used to demonstrate the application of these guidelines We conclude with an analysis of the challenges of performing high-quality design-science research in the context of the broader IS community

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Design science in information systems research

How has Japan become a major economic power, a world leader in the automotive and electronics industries? What is the secret of their success? The consensus has been that, though the Japanese are not particularly innovative, they are exceptionally skilful at imitation, at improving products that already exist. But now two leading Japanese business experts, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hiro Takeuchi, turn this conventional wisdom on its head: Japanese firms are successful, they contend, precisely because they are innovative, because they create new knowledge and use it to produce successful products and technologies. Examining case studies drawn from such firms as Honda, Canon, Matsushita, NEC, 3M, GE, and the U.S. Marines, this book reveals how Japanese companies translate tacit to explicit knowledge and use it to produce new processes, products, and services.

The knowledge-creating company : how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation

How to Do Things With Words

Design research (DR) positions information technology artifacts at the core of the Information Systems discipline. However, dominant DR thinking takes a technological view of the IT artifact, paying scant attention to its shaping by the organizational context. Consequently, existing DR methods focus on building the artifact and relegate evaluation to a subsequent and separate phase. They value technological rigor at the cost of organizational relevance, and fail to recognize that the artifact emerges from interaction with the organizational context even when its initial design is guided by the researchers' intent.

We propose action design research (ADR) as a new DR method to address this problem. ADR reflects the premise that IT artifacts are ensembles shaped by the organizational context during development and use. The method conceptualizes the research process as containing the inseparable and inherently interwoven activities of building the IT artifact, intervening in the organization, and evaluating it concurrently. The essay describes the stages of ADR and associated principles that encapsulate its underlying beliefs and values. We illustrate ADR through a case of competence management at Volvo IT.

Action design research

Information systems research has been criticized for having little influence on practice. One approach to achieving more relevance is to conduct research using appropriate research methods that balance the interests of both researchers and practitioners. This paper examines the similarities between two methods that address this mandate by adopting a proactive stance to investigating information systems in organizations. These two approaches, action research and design research, both directly intervene in real-world domains and effect changes in these domains. We investigate these similarities by examining exemplars of each type of research according to the criteria of the other. Our analysis reveals interesting parallels and similarities between the two, suggesting that the two approaches have much to learn from each other. Based on our analysis, we propose ways to facilitate cross-fertilization between the two approaches that we believe will be useful for both and for IS research in general.

https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=icis2005

Being proactive: where action research meets design research

This essay develops the philosophical foundations for design research in the Technology of Information Systems (TIS). Traditional writings on philosophy of science cannot fully describe this mode of research, which dares to intervene and improve to realize alternative futures instead of explaining or interpreting the past to discover truth. Accordingly, in addition to philosophy of science, the essay draws on writings about the act of designing, philosophy of technology and the substantive (IS) discipline. I define design research in TIS as in(ter)vention in the representational world defined by the hierarchy of concerns following semiotics. The complementary nature of the representational (internal) and real (external) environments provides the basis to articulate the dual ontological and epistemological bases. Understanding design research in TIS in this manner suggests operational principles in the internal world as the form of knowledge created by design researchers, and artifacts that embody these are seen as situated instantiations of normative theories that affect the external phenomena of interest. Throughout the paper, multiple examples illustrate the arguments. Finally, I position the resulting ‘method’ for design research vis-a-vis existing research methods and argue for its legitimacy as a viable candidate for research in the IS discipline.

http://www3.cis.gsu.edu/vvaishnavi/9220Sp07/Documents/truth-dare-Purao%202002.pdf

Design Research in the Technology of Information Systems: Truth or Dare

We survey metrics proposed for object-oriented systems, focusing on product metrics. The survey is intended for the purposes of understanding, classifying, and analyzing ongoing research in object-oriented metrics. The survey applies fundamental measurement theory to artifacts created by development activities. We develop a mathematical formalism that captures this perspective clearly, giving appropriate attention to the peculiarities of the object-oriented system developmenr process. Consistent representation of the available metrics, following this mathematical formalism, shows that current research in this area contains varying coverage of different products and their properties at different development stages. The consistent representation also facilitates several analyses including aggregation across metrics, usage across metrics, equivalent formulation of metrics by multiple researchers, and exploitation of traditional metrics for object-oriented metrics. We also trace the chronological development of research in this area, and uncover gaps that suggest opportunities for future research.

/pdf/product-metrics-for-object-oriented-systems-46709ig26q.pdf

Product metrics for object-oriented systems

Conceptual design is an important, but difficult, phase of systems development. Analysis patterns can greatly benefit this phase because they capture abstractions of situations that occur frequently in conceptual modeling. NaA¯ve approaches to automate conceptual design with reuse of analysis patterns have had limited success because they do not emulate the learning that occurs over time. This research develops learning mechanisms for improving analysis pattern reuse in conceptual design. The learning mechanisms employ supervised learning techniques to support the generic reuse tasks of retrieval, adaptation, and integration, and emulate expert behaviors of analogy making and designing by assembly. They are added to a naA¯ve approach and the augmented methodology implemented as an intelligent assistant to a designer for generating an initial conceptual design that a developer may refine. To assess the potential of the methodology to benefit practice, empirical testing is carried out on multiple domains and tasks of different sizes. The results suggest that the methodology has the potential to benefit practice.

Sandeep Purao

Papers

Action design research

Being proactive: where action research meets design research

Design Research in the Technology of Information Systems: Truth or Dare

Product metrics for object-oriented systems

Improving Analysis Pattern Reuse in Conceptual Design: Augmenting Automated Processes with Supervised Learning