MIS = Management Information Systems
What is science?
- long answer is here: Engineering and design science methodologies and specifically EDSM - 1. lecture - A1
- it’s about getting facts through proper science methods in a systematic and organized way
- it has to be falzifiable, questionable, done through defined and repeatable experiments etc.
- we create a “body of knowledge” and by doing scientific research, we contribute to it
- improving explanations of a phenomenon (theories)
- collecting the scientific evidence (e.g. case studies in unique environment)
- improving the methods of science (better measurements, better processes etc.)
- for the science method to be as objective as possible:
- replicable research
- independent research (free from subjective judgment)
- the effect of paradigms
- precise research (the level of constructs and measurement precision has to be properly defined)
- in order to build a hypothesis (= a testable relationship), we need measurable constructs (see below)
- falsification - the theories must be stated in a way that it could be disproven
- from the real world:
- we see some phenomena we want to explain (the process is similar to EDSM - 1. lecture - A1)
- we create concepts to explain them, those concepts are connected throught propositions
- concepts are like mental representations of the observed phenomena
- proposition is a connection between concepts to be observed, they need to be converted into hypotheses to test them out
- we create constructs out of those concepts
- construct is something in real world that can be measured
- inside the constructs, variables define the current values (because it is measurable) and then hypotheses are proposed using those variables
- hypothesis is a testable relationship between those variables
- more on constructs and variables in MIS - 5th chapter - Quantitative research methods
IS research is a science
IS research is a “Design Science”, which is a bit different kind of science from the classical science (like physics, mathematics), natural sciences (biology, chemistry) and social science (sociology, psychology).
As Design science in Information Systems says, it combines science approaches (rigor, replicability, knowledge base, falsification) and engineering principles (learning by doing, evaluating and testing, prototypes etc.). IS research cycle consists of two main loops: 1) Environment loop (meeting the needs of the real world) and 2) Knowledge base loop (storing new information, principles, methods from experience from prototyping and feedback)