Critical Research in Information Systems: The Question of Methodology

Considerable ambiguity surrounds the question of empirical research methodology in critical information systems (IS) research, as is the case with other critical social sciences. While some research methods and techniques are closely related to the positivist research approach (experiments, surveys, and statistical equation modelling) and others to the interpretivist approach (qualitative case study, ethnography, discourse analysis and action research), the critical approach is not identified with specific critical methods and typically relies on the appropriation of interpretivist methods (such as critical ethnography). The criticism of the critical research approach in IS, even among its followers, has often focused on the lack of distinctly critical research methods and even the neglect of methodological issues (Klein 1999, McGrath 2005). This paper questions the notion of and the arguments behind the quest for ‘critical research methods’ defined in opposition to positivist and interpretivist methods. Instead the paper argues that it is a critical research methodology – understood as an overall strategy of conceptualising and conducting an inquiry, engaging with studied phenomena and subjects (participants), as well as constructing valid knowledge – which clearly distinguishes critical from other research approaches. Starting from critical investigative concerns and specific requirements and challenges of critical empirical enquiry, the paper proposes a framework for a critical research methodology.