《MISQ1999_2301_KleinMyers》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《MISQ1999_2301_KleinMyers（28页珍藏版）》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、Klein & Myers/Evaluating Interpretive Field StudiesASET OF PRINCIPLES FOR CONDUCTING ANDEVALUATING INTERPRETIVE FIELD STUDIES ININFORMATION SYSTEMS1SPECIAL ISSUEBy: Heinz K. KleinSchool of ManagementState University of New YorkBinghamton, New York 13902U.S.A.hkkleinbinghamton.eduMichael D. MyersDepa
2、rtment of Management Scienceand Information SystemsUniversity of AucklandPrivate Bag 92019AucklandNEW ZEALANDm.myersauckland.ac.nzAbstractThis article discusses the conduct and evaluationof interpretive research in information systems.While the conventions for evaluating informationsystems case stud
3、ies conducted according to thenatural science model of social science are nowwidely accepted, this is not the case for interpre-tive field studies. A set of principles for the con-duct and evaluation of interpretive field researchin information systems is proposed, along withtheir philosophical rati
4、onale. The usefulness ofthe principles is illustrated by evaluating threepublished interpretive field studies drawn fromthe IS research literature. The intention of thepaper is to further reflection and debate on theimportant subject of grounding interpretiveresearch methodology.Keywords: IS researc
5、h methodologies, interpre-tivist perspective, critical perspective, casestudy, field study, ethnography, hermeneuticsISRL Categories: IB01, AI0802, AI0803, AI0102,AI0108, AI0112, AI0116IntroductionIn recent years, interpretive research has emergedas an important strand in information systemsresearch
6、 (Walsham 1995b). Interpretive researchcan help IS researchers to understand humanthought and action in social and organizationalcontexts; it has the potential to produce deepinsights into information systems phenomenaincluding the management of information systemsand information systems development
7、. As theinterest in interpretive research has increased,however, researchers, reviewers, and editors haveraised questions about how interpretive fieldresearch should be conducted and how its qualitycan be assessed. This article is our response tosome of these questions and suggests a set of prin-cip
8、les for the conduct and evaluation of interpre-tive field research in information systems.Purpose and MotivationThe conventions for evaluating information sys-tems case studies conducted according to theMIS Quarterly Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 6794/March 1999 671Allen Lee was the accepting senior editor for
9、 thispaper.Klein & Myers/Evaluating Interpretive Field Studiesnatural science model of social science are nowwidely accepted. One of the key contributions ofthe research methods stream in IS research hasbeen the formulation of a set of methodologicalprinciples for case studies that were consistentwi
10、th the conventions of positivism (Benbasat etal. 1987; Lee 1989; Yin 1994). As a result, casestudy research is now accepted as a validresearch strategy within the IS research commu-nity. The principles proposed in this stream ofwork have become the de facto standard againstwhich most case study rese
11、arch in IS is evalu-ated. However, while the criteria are useful inevaluating case study research conductedaccording to the natural science model of socialscience, the positivist criteria suggested are inap-propriate for interpretive research. Several con-ferences (Cash and Lawrence 1989; Lee et al.
12、1997; Mumford et al. 1985; Nissen et al 1991),workshops (Baskerville et al. 1994; Davies et al.1993; Lee at al. 1992; Orlikowski et al. 1991),journal contributions (Harvey and Myers 1995;Lee 1991; Walsham 1995a, 1995b), and a mono-graph (Walsham 1993) have addressed them-selves to qualitative resear
13、ch and shown how thenature and purpose of interpretive research dif-fers from positivist research (see also Orlikowskiand Baroudi 1991). This paper takes this workfurther, and a set of principles are proposed forthe conduct and evaluation of interpretive fieldresearch in IS.This paper can be seen as
14、 a response to the call“to discuss explicitly the criteria for judging qual-itative, case and interpretive research in informa-tion systems” (Lee et al. 1995, p. 367). Therefore,just as principles and guidelines for case studieswere provided by analyzing them from the philo-sophical perspective of p
15、ositivism (Lee 1989), sothis paper will do the same for interpretive fieldresearch, but from the philosophical perspectiveof hermeneutics. Also, just as suggestions weremade for researchers who wished to undertakeresearch employing the case research strategyand offered “criteria for the evaluation o
16、f casestudy research” (Benbasat et al. 1987, p. 369), sothis paper does the same, except that we focuson interpretive field research.The set of principles proposed in this paper isderived primarily from anthropology, phenome-nology, and hermeneutics. We readily acknowl-edge that there are many other forms of interpre-tivism that are not necessarily hermeneutic (suchas postmodernism or deconstructionism). Wecaution, therefore, that the particular set of prin-ciples suggested here applies
