A critical realist script for creative theorising in information systems

Abstract

Research in information systems (IS) has been dominated by an epistemic script that leads to a variety of negative consequences related to the novelty, creativity, and nature of theory produced. While having matured as a field, theory and theorising in IS tend to lack diversity, struggle in balancing the role of reference theory and empirics, inadequately internalise the information technology (IT) artefact into theories developed, and lack clear relationships to what practitioners actually experience. Our premise is that critical realism (CR), based on specific ontological and epistemological foundations, affords the potential to establish alternative epistemic scripts that can enhance the theory product in IS research. We discuss the basic concepts of theory and theorising and relate these to the current state of theory developed in IS research. Next, we review the fundamental principles of CR and describe how a research script based on this philosophy of science addresses the negative consequences posed by the current dominant script. Lastly, we demonstrate the potential value of CR in terms of generating novel and substantive theory as manifest in two examples of published research that adopt the CR script.

Keywords:

• Critical realism
• IS theory
• theorising
• dominant epistemic scripts