Abstract
Most of the major successes in IS field have occurred outside the scope of academic research (and of consulting activities). The central thesis of this paper is that such a “crisis of relevance” of IS research is (also) due to the quaint epistemological status that the discipline inherited from social sciences. Two epistemological approaches, in fact, are being put in practice in IS field research today: positivism and interpretivism. These are glorious and consistent approaches, but they are both rooted in a nineteenth-century, old-fashioned vision of science (the former to carry on its tradition, the latter to criticize and subvert it). Furthermore, positivism and interpretivism, by their own basic assumptions, deny validity to each other’s outcomes, and this results in a sort of “epistemological apartheid” that causes further damages to the discipline.
Is a different epistemological approach possible? A new one, seeking to better receive the extraordinary amount of complex, original contributions that the last century has supplied about the question «how do we know?»?
Lingua originale | English |
---|---|
Titolo della pubblicazione ospite | Interdisciplinary Aspects of Information Systems Studies |
Pagine | 23-29 |
Numero di pagine | 7 |
Stato di pubblicazione | Pubblicato - 2008 |
Pubblicato esternamente | Sì |
Evento | Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (ItAIS) - Venezia Durata: 3 ott 2007 → 4 ott 2007 |
Convegno
Convegno | Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS (ItAIS) |
---|---|
Città | Venezia |
Periodo | 3/10/07 → 4/10/07 |
Keywords
- Claudio Ciborra
- Konrad Lorenz
- innovation and IS
- learning organization
- moods