Choosing Qualitative Methods in IS Research

This book is about the use of qualitative methods in the conduct of information systems research. As the title suggests, it is concerned both with trends in the choice of qualitative methods and with issues with the use of these methods. The issues have been addressed on two levels. The section on individual issues considers specific issues encountered by individual researchers in the conduct of particular research projects. The section on issues for the profession considers issues that the IS profession is currently confronting and those it will have to address in the future.

Challenges to Qualitative Researchers in Information Systems

A conventional “trends” chapter on qualitative research in information systems (IS) would review the state of the art (the methods and findings) of such research, laud its achievements, criticize its shortcomings, and then specify what it should do in the future to add to its achievements and rectify its shortcomings. However, I will write this chapter unconventionally instead, so that the reader will be able to gain a sense of my own engagement with issues in qualitative IS research. Furthermore, although the editor of this volume originally commissioned me to write a chapter on trends, the chapter has evolved as a critical commentary on qualitative IS research. The chapter’s turn in this direction resulted from the editor’s guidance to me about how to account for the comments of the anonymous reviewers of the initial draft.

A Classification Scheme for Interpretive Research in Information Systems

Given the increase in the number of interpretive research articles being published in IS today, we believe it is timely to develop and explain a classification scheme of the literature. Such a classification scheme draws attention to the tremendous variety and breadth of interpretive research today, from the most abstract and general philosophical foundations to the most in-depth, detailed field studies. The explicit consideration of different types may contribute to a more effective division of labor among scholars with different research interests. It should also help interpretive researchers to better focus their work and to identify their research priorities.

Conducting Action Research

the goal of this chapter is to define and analyze these risks and to discuss their practical effects. An understanding and awareness of the risks enables the action researcher to manage these risks, particularly in terms of an academic career. In order to keep this analysis within a useful sphere, the discussion will be grounded in the context of a range of six actual action research cases.

An Encounter with Grounded Theory

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the practical and philosophical issues of applying the grounded theory approach to qualitative research in Information Systems. Over the past decade, we have seen a substantial increase in qualitative research in general (Klein, Nissen and Hirschheim, 1991; Walsham, 1995; Markus, 1997; Myers, 1997; Myers and Walsham, 1998; Klein and Myers, 1999; Walsham and Sahay, 1999; Trauth and Jessup, 2000; Schultze, 2000) and also an increase in the use of grounded theory (Toraskar, 1991, Orlikowski, 1993, Urquhart, 1997, 1998, 1999a, 1999b; Adams and Sasse, 1999, Baskerville and Pries-Heje, 1999, Trauth, 2000). Over the past three years, the most frequent request I have had from postgraduates is for some insight into the ‘how-to’ of coding and grounded theory

The Choice of Qualitative Methods in IS Research

In this introductory chapter I set the stage for the remaining chapters by discussing factors that influence the choice of qualitative methods for information systems research. In doing so, I provide examples from my own work as well as that of other qualitative researchers in the IS field. I consider these influencing factors in order to highlight the interplay between methodological choices and the context within which they occur. Just as decisions about information systems need to be considered within their contexts of use, so too do choices about qualitative methods for information systems research.

Mobius Transitions in the Dilemma of Legitimacy

While qualitative research can be analytic, rational and positivist (Myers ongoing), it tends to be associated within IS with more relativistic, descriptive and phenomenological approaches. This poses something of a problem in contrasting quantitative with qualitative approaches, because there is a contrast among qualitative works just as there are interesting differences amongst quantitative approaches. On the whole in this chapter, I take a position about the future of research that is descriptive and that questions the reification of many constructs upon which much quantitative research within information systems is based.

Analysis by Long Walk

Through this chapter I make two contributions. First, I provide both conceptual guidance and practical advice for information systems (IS) scholars who are involved in multi-method research, with a particular focus on conducting multi-method analysis. Second, and as a means to achieve the first contribution, I detail some of the principal components of multi-method research. Multi-method research is based on the premise that analysis of separate and dissimilar data sets drawn on the same phenomena will provide a richer picture of the events and/or issues than will any single method. While valued by many IS scholars, multi-method-based research to study the roles of information and communication technologies (ICT) in social organization is under-explored as a set of coherent techniques.

Doing Critical IS Research

Critical information systems (IS) research denotes a critical process of inquiry that seeks to achieve emancipatory social change by going beyond the apparent to reveal hidden agendas, concealed inequalities and tacit manipulation involved in a complex relationship between IS and their social, political and organisational contexts. It has its philosophical and theoretical roots in critical social theory (Held, 1980; Fay, 1987; Morrow and Brown, 1994). As a critical social researcher studies the social life of people in order to help them change conditions and improve their lives, so too does a critical IS researcher. By demystifying technological imperatives and managerial rationalism justifying a particular information system design, the critical IS researcher helps both IS practitioners and users understand its social consequences, envisage desirable alternatives and take action.

Reflexive Ethnography in Information Systems Research

To do fieldwork apparently requires some of the instincts of an exile, for the fieldworker typically arrives at the place of study without much of an introduction and knowing few people, if any. Fieldworkers, it seems, learn to move among strangers while holding themselves in readiness for episodes of embarrassment, affection, misfortune, partial or vague revelation, deceit, confusion, isolation, warmth, adventure, fear, concealment, pleasure, surprise, insult and always possible deportation. Accident and happenstance shapes fieldworkers’ studies as much as planning and foresight; numbing routine as much as live theater; impulse as much as rational choice; mistaken judgments as much as accurate ones. This may not be the way fieldwork is reported, but it is the way it is done (Van Maanen, 1988, p. 2).