The struggle towards an understanding of theory in information systems - Information Systems Foundations: Constructing and Criticising - page 8

7. Scientific theory often, but not always, involves the use of mathematical tools and
logic, both for specifying and testing theory (Godfrey-Smith, 2003).
8. Epistemologically, knowledge for the building and testing of theories, can be gained
both empirically (the 'empiricist' tradition of Locke and Hume) and from thinking
(the 'rationalist' view of Descartes and Leibniz). Kant (1781) developed this inter-
mediate position: that thinking involves a subtle interaction between experiences
and pre-existing mental structures that we use to make sense of experience, and
others, including Schopenhauer and Popper, have followed in this tradition.
9. Naïve realism is not necessarily a part of a scientific perspective, and neither is a
theory-neutral view of observations of the real world (see Godfrey-Smith, 2003 for
a 'scientific realist' view).
This scientific view of theorising has been little recognised in information systems re-
search, usually because writers in the field confuse scientific views with positivism.
Researchers who use Dubin's principles for the formulation of theory are implicitly fol-
lowing a scientific-like prescription (e.g. Weber, 1997).
An exception in information systems is Lee (1989), who explicitly describes a scientific
methodology for case studies and provides a description of the scientific method that is
largely congruent with the perspective given above. A second exception is Cushing
(1990), who describes the role of frameworks, paradigms and scientific research in
management information systems in similar terms, and suggests that frameworks are a
precursor to the development of theory with generalisations and laws. Otherwise, the
richness of the discussions in the philosophy of science on the nature of theory has been
little recognised in information systems as a source for our perspective on theory.
From this discussion of scientific views of theory, we can draw several useful ideas for
information systems. Observation of phenomena can precede analysis and description
(Type I and Type II theory) and description of regularities (predictive Type III theory).
Scientific-type laws that allow both prediction and understanding can also be searched
for, but as they will have aspects of human social behaviour included, they are likely
to be cast in a probabilistic form (Type IV theory below). Insights for a new theory can
come from almost anywhere.
Interpretivism and constructivism
Intrepretivism and constructivism are related approaches to research that are character-
istic of particular philosophical world views. Schwandt (1994) describes these terms as
sensitising concepts that steer researchers towards a particular outlook:
Proponents of these persuasions share the goal of understanding the complex
world of lived experience from the point of view of those who live it. This
goal is variously spoken of as an abiding concern for the life world, for the
emic point of view, for understanding meaning, for grasping the actor's
definition of a situation, for Verstehen. The world of lived reality and situation-
specific meanings that constitute the general object of investigation is thought
to be constructed by social actors (p. 118).
Many of the ideas in these approaches stem from the German intellectual tradition of
hermeneutics and the Verstehen tradition in sociology, from phenomenology, and from
critiques of positivism in the social sciences. Interpretivists reject the notions of theory-
neutral observations and the idea of universal laws as in science. Theory in this paradigm
takes on a different perspective: