Scientific Research in Information Systems A Beginner's Guide
This book is designed to introduce doctoral and other higher-degree research students to the process of scientific research in the fields of Information Systems as well as fields of Information Technology, Business Process Management and other related dis
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The Research Process
3.1
Research Questions
The Australian Ph.D. program lasts approximately 3–4 years, with the average closer to 4 years. Doctoral programs in other countries tend to last a little longer, up to 7 years in some North American programs. In most countries and across most individual cases, virtually all of the first year is dedicated to two challenges of doctoral study: 1. First, you will read the available literature to learn about methods and theories. This part is nicely structured – there is a set of relevant books and papers, and there are typically good classes, workshops, and tutorials to attend. So while this challenge is not to be underestimated, it is a problem with structure and one where considerable guidance is (typically) available. The very structure of this challenge comes with the expectation that you will master the relevant methods and theories. Your supervisors, colleagues, examiners, reviewers, and journal editors will expect you to understand and apply these methods and theories appropriately. Anything less will simply not be acceptable. This challenge (reading papers, learning about methods and theories) is largely domain-agnostic. This means that independent of the field of study or the specific phenomena of interest, we can learn about relevant theories in the field, and we can build capacities for utilising a research method or a set of methods well. 2. Second, you will formulate and develop your research questions and propose a plan to tackle them. This is a much more difficult problem, primarily because this challenge is not as structured but instead undefined and highly contextual. Formulating and understanding the research questions is by definition a domainspecific challenge. This means that this challenge pertains closely and directly to what we want to research, whereas the first challenge – methods and theory, pertains mostly to how we want to research.
J. Recker, Scientific Research in Information Systems, Progress in IS, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-30048-6_3, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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3 The Research Process
The difference between points one and two above is very important. One of the great scholars in Information Systems, Ron Weber, has put it much more aptly than I have [186]: I believe that the choice of research problem – choosing the phenomena we wish to explain or predict – is the most important decision we make as a researcher. We can learn research method. Albeit with greater difficulty, we can also learn theory-building skills. With some tutoring and experience, we can also learn to carve out large numbers of problems that we might research. Unfortunately, teasing out deep, substantive research problems is another matter. It remains a dark art.
The important point we are both attempting to make is that a good doctoral study starts and ends with the right research questions. Finding and specifying them (I am not even talking about answering them!) is by no means easy. Some of the problems I have witnessed related to the formulation o
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