Scoping around and Reflecting on Boundary Conditions in Information Systems Research: the Case of Research on Small and Medium Organisations

When: Wellington 10:00 am-11:00 am Friday 14/10/2022

Where: RH206 Room capacity is 18 or ZOOM Join from PC, Mac, iOS or

Android: https://vuw.zoom.us/j/97733606047

This talk proposes an approach to carefully scope an IS research project around and continuously reflect on suitable boundary conditions depending on the project’s topic and goals, and illustrates our approach for research on small and medium organisations (SMOs). SMOs are a suitable illustrative example of the importance of boundary conditions as SMOs are of a fundamentally different nature compared to large organisations, yet IS research often implicitly assumes the latter as their context. Insufficient attention to boundary conditions may lead to IS research drawing on unsuitable theories, or making unreflected or too wide claims for accuracy or applicability. The approach builds on the extant boundary condition literature but makes the existing recommendations and guidelines more actionable for IS research throughout the entire research lifecycle. The approach also integrates extant thinking around boundary conditions for explanatory research with similar considerations from the design-oriented research literature. Other researchers can use the approach to explicitly scope their research around suitable boundary conditions at the beginning and reflect on them throughout their project. The approach also enables researchers to carefully take into account the boundary conditions (or the lack thereof) of any theory they draw on and to include or exclude certain classes of their units of analysis or design contexts of interest (e.g., organisations or individuals) more clearly from their sample. Ultimately, researchers should thus be able to produce research outcomes that can make stronger validity or fitness claims for more clearly delineated classes of their chosen unit of analysis or design contexts.

Biography

Dr Andreas Drechsler is Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington's School of Information Management. His current research interests revolve around topics such as IT governance, business IT alignment, enterprise architecture, information security, project and #noproject management in small and medium organisations as well as Scaling Agile organisational contexts. He has published more than 30 papers on these and other topics in international academic journals and conferences.

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