Building Understanding of Information Systems Practice: Research in the Field

Field work is needed to bridge the gap which currently exists between information systems (IS) research and theory, and the practice of IS professionals in organisations. Examining how systems are developed and used, and the problems and concerns of IS professionals, provides the foundations for building understanding of IS practice. This paper examines some methodological issues raised by interpretive field work into one area of IS: systems analysis, also commonly called requirements engineering. The approaches used to tackle and resolve these issues, in particular that of the researcher’s intervention in the research context, have application to IS research in general. Given the lack of empirical reseach into IS practice and the continuing debate about interpretive IS reseach, the experiences from this research may assist IS researchers undertake interpretive field research.