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AIS Special Interest Group on
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Philosophy of science (R.
Hirschheim) Qualitative research methods (M.
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12th 
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AMCIS 2006
ACAPULCO
Jim Courtney,
Emmanuel Monod,
Mini-tracks:
Philosophical Foundations of IS” (PFIS)
Design Science for Philosophically-based IS ”
“Research
methods in IS”
SIG PHILOSOPHY AND EPISTEMOLOGY OF I.S.
The
“SIG Philosophy” has been launched during ICIS’02 Barcelona
Mission
The mission of the AIS Special Interest Group on
“Philosophy and Epistemology in IS” is to addresses the following needs:
·
To provide a
focal point for the debate of philosophical issues in IS research that
currently is dispersed over many conference proceedings, journals and books.
·
To strengthen
the exchange of ideas and community ties with other disciplines, especially the
human, cultural and social sciences, that seek to improve research and the
application of research results by drawing on the philosophical literature.
Background
Currently we can observe a growing methodological debate in IS research.
This debate appears to focus on epistemic issues, especially research methods
and techniques without relating to the broader issues of the philosophy of
science, epistemology and theory of knowledge. To overcome too narrow focus, it
will be necessary to link the debates in IS research to questions about the
very nature of research and science and their societal role in general. The
potential role of philosophy for improving IS research can be conceived broader
than just concerning issues of research methods.
Another concern is that even within the methodological
discussion of IS research the connections to the broader literature on the
philosophy of science are in danger of being overlooked. This raises the
spectre of isolation (solipsism), because some contributions in the IS
literature appear to imply that epistemology is the conceptualisation of IS
research methods and practices by IS researchers themselves. The contributions
from this insider view of epistemology are often very valuable, because they
tend to have a good grasp of the details of IS research problems. A second view
point compares the issues in IS research with those existing in other academic
disciplines and in the philosophy of science in general. The two view can
complement each other and would encourage debates about a wide variety of
issues, which include:
1. Is the classification of IS research into positivism,
interpretivism and critical adequate?
2. What types of knowledge should be the result of IS
research, e.g. theoretical, political-ethical, applicative, technical, or
other?
3. To what extent are IS theories based on explanation or
comprehension?
4. What is the role of the “design sciences” (sciences of
the artificial) for IS and how do they relate to descriptive and normative
frameworks of human and social aspects IS development and use?
5. How can epistemological and methodological pluralism
in IS research deal with the challenges of relativism, constructivism, and
conventionalism?
6. What does the “linguistic turn” in the human sciences imply
for IS research?
7. How should IS researchers and practitioners relate to
the projects of modernity, post-modernism and deconstructivism?
8. What are the key insights from interpretive sociology,
symbolic interactionism and “phenomenological revolution” in human sciences for
IS research?
9. What are the application insights from power theories,
the sociology of science, the sociology of knowledge, critical theory and
ethical theories in IS?
10. How can IS research benefit from alternative theories
of human action, meaning and culture across the human sciences, e.g. different
forms of functionalism (incl. behaviourism) and intentional theories of human
action?
11. In light of the above what is the potential status of
IS as a reference discipline?
Positioning
As far as we know, there are no similar SIGs in other
associations. Much work has been done by the IFIP 8.2 conferences about
research methods IS, the ISCO
(Information Systems Concepts) conferences (cf. the “Framework of IS Concepts”
Report) in IFIP 8.1, by the ECIS track on methodology , by the ISWorld website
on research and by the AMCIS Philosophical Foundations of IS mini-track.
However, none of these trends places a strong emphasis on philosophy of science
and epistemology like our proposed SIG will do. Our objective is to encourage
broad international membership in the SIG. In fact, this will be essential, as
so much valuable research in Epistemology and Philosophy of IS is conducted
outside of the
Membership Information
To become an official
member of the SIG, you will need to join the Association for Information Systems (AIS)
and select to join SIG philosophy. The cost for joining the SIG philosophy is
$10 per year.
Resources
about Philosophy and Epistemology of IS
Philosophy of science (R. Hirschheim)
Qualitative research methods (M. Myers)
research methods (A. S.
Lee)
Research design (D. Straub)
IS research methodologies (B. Galliers)