Review: Michael D. Myers & David Avison (Eds.) (2002). Qualitative Research in Information Systems

Abstract

This book is a collection of 12 articles published in 1983-1996 in various management research journals, to which the editors' introductory chapter is added. It brings to readers outside of organizational psychology an overview of different kinds of systemic thinking that have developed in that area since the invention of the magical term "information systems" in the 1960s. The book shows the viability of qualitative methodology in the study of objects of investigation of high levels of social complexity. Following the ideas expressed in the book, I argue that the juxtaposition of qualitative versus quantitative methods as if these are mutually opposed choices for researchers is misleading. Instead, the qualitative study of systemically organized single cases—methodology rather than methods—is the direction needed for all methodological thinking. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0502204