Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to explore the possibilities of ‘qualitative research
methodologies’ for research in Information System development. The reason
for choosing these methodologies is the fact that they have to deal with
‘wicked’, ‘ill structured’ and ‘messy’ characteristics of their subject. These characteristics
are also typical for the IS development problems.

The different aspects of an IS development methodology can be described
with the model of Seligman, using different ‘ways of’ modelling, -working, -
controlling, -thinking and -supporting. In general, IS development is about creating
different models on different levels of abstraction (product), using other
models to guide the design process (process). The general strategy applied
here is; if a development problem is too complex, it is split up into smaller
pieces to make it manageable.

Qualitative research differs from quantitative research in several aspects. In
general, qualitative research is subjective, holistic, interpretative and inductive
in nature, whereas qualitative research is objective, reductionist, experimental
and deductive. Qualitative research has different paradigms; a spectrum
starting with a ‘mechanical machine’ paradigm and ending in the more interpretative
paradigms.

The inductive, interpretive and holistic nature of quantitative methodologies
makes concrete modelling as is known in information system development
very difficult or even impossible. Qualitative research is therefore not
very useful to ‘study way of working’ and ‘way of modelling’ since these aspects
can be studied using (meta) models, and thus a more positivist (quantitative)
research is in place. Qualitative research is very useful however to study
the ‘way of thinking’; for instance exploring how a philosophy of a methodology
is applied in a certain situation; compared to the philosophy that is described
in the textbooks.

On a more concrete level; the different research methodologies which are
classified as qualitative have been studied. “How can these be applied to study
information systems?” Each methodology has its own advantages and drawbacks,
but they share a similar basis in the used paradigm. Because of this
similarity, it is primarily the research goal and the research context which determines
which methodology is to be used.