Structural Equation Modeling

Introduction

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Interpretive Research in Information Systems

Philosophical basis of interpretive research


The ethnographic research tradition in anthropology is a valuable starting point for a consideration of the philosophical basis of interpretive case studies.

What is called data in interpretive studies are  constructions of  people of what they and their
compatriots are up to.


Van Maanen (1979), writing in the tradition of organizational ethnography, calls the interviewee's
constructions first-order data and the constructions of the researcher second-order concepts.

Second-order concepts rely on good theory and insightful analysis, and mere collection of in-depth case study data does not provide these concepts in itself. Examples of second-order concepts
in the IS literature, derived from interpretive case studies, include the 'automate' concept from the work of Zuboff (1988), and the concept of 'technological frames' in Orlikowski & Gash (1994).

A second feature of the anthropological tradition is its concern with 'thick description'. The ethnographer is faced with a multiplicity of complex conceptual structures, many of them superimposed upon or knotted into one another and which must be first grasped and then rendered
intelligible to others.

 An IS researcher can only access the subtleties of changing interpretation by the use of approaches based on 'thick' description.

The goal is not to generate truth or social laws, and this interpretive approach can be
clearly distinguished from the positivist tradition. This should not be taken to imply that interpretive work is not generalizable, although the nature of such generalizations is different in the two traditions. This point will be considered in some detail later.


In 'nonpositivism' facts and values are intertwined and hard to disentangle, and both are involved in
scientific knowledge; and 'normativism' which takes the view that scientific knowledge is ideological and inevitably conducive to particular sets of social ends. Either of these  two positions is open for the interpretive researcher to adopt.

 'internal realism' views reality-for-us as an intersubjective construction of the shared human cognitive apparatus, and 'subjective idealism' where each person is considered to construct
his or her own reality. The usual ontological stance for an interpretive IS researcher would involve one of these  two positions, particularly with regard to the human interpretations and meanings associated with computer systems.

 Mingers (1984) identified the existence of at least four substantively
different strands of thought in nonpositivistic research: phenomenology, ethnomethodology,
the philosophy of language, and hermeneutics.

For example, Zuboff (1988) drew on phenomenology, Suchman (1987) on ethnomethodology,
and Boland & Day (1989) and Lee (1994) on hermeneutics.


Reference

Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method
G WALSHAM
Department of Management Science, The Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster LAI 4YX, UK
Eur. J. Inf. Systs. (199S) 4,74-81