Knowledge and Methods in is Research: From Beginnings to the Future

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the key challenges that the Information Systems research community needs to address in order to improve interpretive and critical research approaches in the next decade. In order to achieve this goal, a high level review of the principal trends in IS research methodology since the late 1960s set the stage for an analysis of challenges to be met in the next decade. The past trends in IS research methods are analyzed from the perspective of two questions: what is the implied concept of knowledge and what are the methods of inquiry preferred by various research methods schools? Even though the analysis attempted here should be viewed as tentative and preliminary, it leads to several provocative conclusions. The most significant of these concern the interrelationships between critical and interpretive research.