Scientific Research in Information Systems: A Beginner's Guide

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net/publication/258100402
Scientiﬁc Research in Information Systems: A Beginner's Guide
Book · January 2012
CITATIONS READS
280 6,678
1 author:
Jan Recker
University of Hamburg
336 PUBLICATIONS 11,462 CITATIONS
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Contents
Part I Basic Principles of Research
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Understanding Your Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 The Ph.D. Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 What This Book Is About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Information Systems Research as a Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Principles of Scientific Inquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 The Scientific Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3 Essential Concepts in Information Systems Research . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Part II Conducting Research
3 The Research Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.1 Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.1.2 Specification of Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.1.3 Justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.2.1 Observation, Induction, and Deduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.2.2 Selecting a Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.3 Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 The Role of Literature in the Research Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.5 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4 Theorising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.1 What Is Theory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.1.1 Definition of Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.1.2 Building Blocks of Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
ix
x Contents
4.1.3 Nomological Nets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

4.2 Types of Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.3 Theorising as a Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3.1 An Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3.2 Practical Suggestions to Theorising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.4 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5 Research Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.1 Quantitative Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.1.1 The Focus on Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.1.2 Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1.3 Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.1.4 Measurement Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.1.5 Quantitative Method Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.1.6 Survey Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.1.7 Experimental Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.2 Qualitative Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.2.1 Data Collection Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.2.2 Data Analysis Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.2.3 Case Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.2.4 Action Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.2.5 Grounded Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.3 Mixed Methods and Design Science Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.3.1 Mixed Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.3.2 Design Science Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.4 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Part III Publishing Research
6 Writing IS Research Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

6.1 Strategising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.1.1 The Publishing Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.1.2 Key Publishing Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
6.1.3 Co-authorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
6.1.4 The Pre-submission Lifecycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6.2 Structure and Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.2.2 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.2.3 Research Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.2.4 Research Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.2.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.2.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.2.7 Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
6.2.8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.2.9 Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Contents xi
6.3 Handling Reviews and Revisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

6.3.1 Understanding Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.3.2 Managing Revisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.4 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
7 Ethical Considerations in Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.1 The Role of Ethics in Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.2 Ethical Issues in Conducting Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
7.3 Ethical Issues in Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
7.4 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8 Instead of a Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Scientiﬁc Research in Information Systems: A Beginner's Guide

Book · January 2012

Investigating digital entrepreneurship View project

ThreadNet... View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Part I Basic Principles of Research

Part II Conducting Research

3 The Research Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.1.3 Nomological Nets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Part III Publishing Research

6 Writing IS Research Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

6.3 Handling Reviews and Revisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

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