What this publication covers
Compares design science research and grounded theory, highlighting the aims, contributions, and differences of the two strategies. It shows how building artifacts to solve local problems can be combined with substantive theory development, provided the integration preserves each method's logic.
How this reference can help
Use as a theoretical foundation for discussing methodological choices and research quality.
Curated by Ricardo Martins
View the original abstract 🇺🇸 🇬🇧
Two research strategies that have received increasing scholarly at tention recently in IS are design science research (DSR) and the grounded theory method (GTM). In t his paper, we conduct a systematic comparison of the most salient characteristics of bot h research strategies to identify the differences as well as possible complementary uses in a pluralist ic research design. We find opportunities for future researchers to combine the two strategies to leverage the advantages of both. DSR focuses on the construction of an IT artifact and the soluti on of a local problem while GTM enables researchers to develop grounded substantive theory and make a contribution to the knowledge base. The goals of solving a real-world problem to achieve practical relevance and developing a theoretical contribution to achieve scientific rigor can be combi ned. To avoid possible pitfalls, researchers combining DSR and GTM into a pluralistic research d esign must take great care in combining the different research strategies in a way that is consistent with the characteristics of each single strategy which are presented in this paper.