Action Research and Design Science Research – More Similar than Dissimilar

During the past few years there has been a discussion within the information systems community related to the similarities and differences between action research (AR) and design science research (DSR). Some believe the two research paradigms are similar and that they can be matched in ways that can improve the quality of research. Others argue that AR and DSR are based on fundamentally different research paradigms, making a mixed approach difficult. From the viewpoint of doing intervention based software process improvement (SPI) research, the combination of AR and DSR can typically be a critical success factor. Using van Fraassen’s philosophy of science as a starting point, this paper argues how paradigmatic differences between AR and DSR can be overcome by designing AR/DSR based SPI research along the philosophy of constructive empiricism. The idea is illustrated by an empirical example of the evolution of an AR/DSR based SPI research method. The significance of the paper is a support to the group of IS researchers arguing the case of similarity between AR and DSR by pointing out a way of overcoming the paradigmatic criticism made by researchers arguing the case of dissimilarity.