This paper starts out with the discussion of two metaphysical assumptions on which IS research can be based, namely positivism and constructionism. While positivism believes in the existence of an objective and measurable world, constructionism holds that the world is a social construct. Depending on the metaphysical basis, the IS researcher chooses a methodological approach. Traditionally, pos...

Case studies and ‘‘small-N comparisons’’ have been attacked from two directions, positivist and incommensurabilist. At the same time, some authors have defended small-N comparisons as allowing qualitative researchers to attain a degree of scientificity, yet they also have rejected the case study as merely ‘‘idiographic.’’ Practitioners of the case study sometimes agree with these critics, disav...

A great deal of research works in the field information systems security has been based on a positivist paradigm. Applying the reductionism concept of the positivist paradigm for information security means missing the bigger picture and thus, the lack of holism which could be one of the reasons why security is still overlooked, comes as an afterthought or perceived from a purely technical dimen...

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 ...

in his perspective “navigating between stealth advocacy and unconscious dogmatism: the challenge of researching the norms, politics and power of global health,” ooms argues that actions taken in the field of global health are dependent not only on available resources, but on the normative premise that guides how these resources are spent. this comment sets out how the application of a predomina...

In relation to health promotion and education, the use of post-positivist and constructivist approaches has been gathering strength in recent years. Despite this emerging tradition, little has been done to explore what this sort of approach actually represents, particularly in terms of health promotion in schools, professional organizations and wider society. Acknowledging this, it is suggested...

A set of research methodologies has been explored for use in the general field of IS research; each being appropriate for different aspects of research study depending on the domain and philosophical position of the researcher. Consensus has not been reached on one framework classifying all research approaches suitable for IS. Attempts at such classifications are usually framed around different...

ABSTRACT A recently published dataset of Middle East and North Africa (MENA)–focused scholarship in journals selected to represent the disciplinary “core” political science sheds empirical light on key publishing trends, from balance between quantitative qualitative studies growth experimental “large-N” statistical methods. Cammett Kendall’s (2021) analysis shows that 2001 2019, MENA-focused de...

This paper is about the shaping of law understood as a positivist enterprise. Positivist has been object contentious debate. Since 1960s, and with surfacing revisionist histories, it suggested that abstraction doctrine criminal due to its categorisation in early histories. However, argued here positivism was hardly an intentional master plan autocratic social control. Rather, important recognis...

BACKGROUND Van Belle et al. argue that our attempt to pursue realist evaluation via a randomised trial will be fruitless because we misunderstand realist ontology (confusing intervention mechanisms with intervention activities and with statistical mediation analyses) and because RCTs cannot comprehensively examine how and why outcome patterns are caused by mechanisms triggered in specific conte...