Situating Case Studies Within the Design Science Research Paradigm: An Instantiation for Collaborative Networks
A rigorous evaluation of an artifact is one of the fundamental aspects to be considered in Design Science Research projects. This evaluation part becomes even more difficult when a large variety of artifacts must be designed for a project. This can be a c
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INESC TEC – INESC Technology and Science, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias 378, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal {eric.m.costa,jsousa}@inesctec.pt 2 FEUP – Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias S/N, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal [email protected]
Abstract. A rigorous evaluation of an artifact is one of the fundamental aspects to be considered in Design Science Research projects. This evaluation part becomes even more difficult when a large variety of artifacts must be designed for a project. This can be a challenge for the field of Collaborative Networks, which involves knowledge from several scientific disciplines. Case studies are one of the evaluation methods in Design Science Research that are used for an ex-post evaluation of artifacts. However, we argue that this method can also be used for the ex-ante evaluation, mainly when multidisciplinary research is being carried out. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to present and discuss a multidisciplinary project of Collaborative Networks using case studies before and after the design of the artifacts. On top of the Design Science Research guidelines, this research is supported by knowledge from Business and Manage‐ ment Studies on how to effectively design and perform Case Study Research for artifact evaluation. Keywords: Design science research · Case study research · Collaborative networks · Multidisciplinary research
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Introduction
Design Science Research (DSR) is a well-established research paradigm within the Information Systems (IS) community [1, 2]. In Business and Management Studies (BMS) management is viewed, more and more, as a design science, in an attempt to balance description and prescription-driven research approaches [3]. However, there is still much to explore regarding the applicability of DSR in other research areas, especially in how it can frame multidisciplinary research. A particular challenge to the DSR approaches and methods occurs in the field of Collaborative Networks (CNs) that require the design of a large variety of artifacts, involving several scien‐ tific disciplines. To perform a good DSR project some fundamental aspects must be considered, such as the construction of a viable artifact [1], the rigorous evaluation of this artifact [4, 5], © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2016 Published by Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016. All Rights Reserved H. Afsarmanesh et al. (Eds.): PRO-VE 2016, IFIP AICT 480, pp. 531–544, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-45390-3_45
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and the knowledge contribution of the DSR project [2]. In fact, the evaluation of artifacts represents an essential element of DSR, but even so there is still a need for guidance and support on how to design this component of a DSR approach. Many DSR works point out case studies as one possible approach for the ex-post evaluation of the artifact [4–6]. However, in multidisciplinary research (for example in the intersection between IS and BMS) case studies can be used before the design of
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