ACTION DESIGN RESEARCH

1. ACTION DESIGN RESEARCH Ola Henfridsson Viktoria Institute & University of Oslo (in collaboration with M. Sein, S. Purao, M. Rossi, and R. Lindgren)

2. What kind of research is this? • Objective: to improve some kind of organizational capability • 1+ year process study • Develops a new perspective on this organizational capability • Draws on contemporary theory • Design and release of multiple versions of a technology • Developing innovative features of a technology • Eventually causing a change in organizational strategy • Developing design principles for a particular type of information system

3. Available approaches Design Research Action Research

4. Candidate 1: Design Research • Fundamentally, develop prescriptive design knowledge through building and evaluating IT artifacts intended to solve an identified class of problems • Technical novelty • Must be abstracted to develop knowledge • Relevance of technology artifacts evaluated by utility • DR separates evaluation from building, rarely accomplishing it in authentic settings • The problem of separation and sequencing

5. Candidate 2: Action Research • Fundamentally, a study of change • Central assumption: complex social processes are best studied by introducing change into these processes and observing their effects • Focus on practical problems with theoretical relevance • Produces results relevant to the organization while simultaneously informing theory • Sees the technology artifact as a black box • No clear emphasis on the technology artifact

6. What is an IT artifact? • An Ensemble: • The material and organizational features that are socially recognized as bundles of hardware and/or software (cf. Orlikowski and Iacono 2001) • ”technology as structure”: • Structures of the organizational domain are inscribed into the artifact during its development and use

7. What is an IT artifact? (2) • An emergent thing: • Neither fixed nor independent, instead, emerges from ongoing social and economic practices (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001) • Where does emergence come from? • Interaction between technology and an organizational context (Truex et al. 1999) • Shaped by the interests, values, and assumptions of a wide variety of communities of developers, investors, users, etc. (Orlikowski and Iacono 2001)

8. What is an IT artifact? (3) • Many artifacts are only partly the work of the designer. • Numerous local actions (e.g., use, interpretation, negotiation, and redesign) • Cannot be anticipated by reference to any a priori design (Iivari 2003)

9. Considering the candidates • DR and AR offer incomplete solutions for us • DR supports abstraction and innovation but relegates authentic intervention as secondary • AR supports intervention and knowledge emergence in authentic settings but innovation and abstraction are secondary goals

10. Our thesis • To study ensemble artifacts, we need a research method that can account for • Both technological and organizational contexts • Shaping of the artifact via design and use • Influences of designers and users

11. Combining... • AR and DR: • Are similar (Järvinen 2007; Lee 2007; Figueiredo and Cunha 2007) • Should be kept apart (Iivari 2007) • Have commonalities (Cole et al. 2005) • Suggestions for combining • Use the two in sequence (Iivari 2007) • Interleave the processes (Lee 2007) • Map commonalities (Cole et al. 2005)

12. Sequencing Identifying a need Start a DR process : Start a DR process: Building Evaluating Reflecting Theorizing Start an AR process: Start an AR process :

13. Interleaving Diagnosing a problem Start an AR process: Action planning Action taking Build Start a DR process : Evaluating, reflecting Specifying learning

14. A New DR Method: ADR • Provides explicit guidance for accomodating building, intervention, and evaluation in a concerted research effort • An approach to produce knowledge by • intervening in an organization • through developing an innovative IT ensemble artifact • Knowledge that • adds to, refines, or generates theory or theories • supports IS practitioners in solving immediate problems

15. ADR

16. Stage 1: Problem formulation • An immediate or anticipated problem: • perceivedby organizational participants, and framed by the researcher • Identify the class of which the specific problem is an instance • Formulate initial research questions • Identify contributing theoretical bases • Identify prior technology advances

17. Stage 1: Problem formulation (2) • Practice-inspired Research • Field problems as knowledge-creation opportunities (rather than theoretical puzzles) • Theory-ingrained artifact • Artifacts as carriers of theoretical traces • Iterations based on influences from theory

18. Stage 2: Building, Intervention, and Evaluation (BIE) • BIE intends to support an iterative process at the intersection of the IT artifact and the organizational environment • Building, intervention, and evaluation are interwoven • Two forms of BIE: • IT-dominant BIE • Organization-dominant BIE

19. IT-Dominant BIE

20. Organization-Dominant BIE

21. Forms of BIE 1. IT-Dominant BIE 2. Organization-Dominant BIE

22. Stage 2: BIE Principles • Reciprocal shaping • Emphasizes the inseparable influences from two domains: the IT artifact and the organizational context • Mutually influential roles • Mutual learning among participants in an ADR project • Authentic and concurrent evaluation • Formative evaluation

23. Stage 3: Reflection and Learning • Analyze intervention results • Articulate learning in terms of theories selected • Ongoing evaluation of adherence to principles

24. Stage 3 principle: Guided Emergence • Captures seemingly incongruent perspectives • Initial design by researchers, shaped by ongoing organizational use and reflected in redesign (Garud et al 2008; Iivari 2003) • Combination of • preliminary design of the artifact (Principle 2) • refined by ongoing interactions among perspectives and participants (Principles 3 and 4 respectively) • outcomes of formative evaluation (Principle 5)

25. 4. Formalization of Learning • Abstract results to a class of field problems • Focused on transferability of results and communication of outcomes • Outcomes specified as design principles and contributions to theory

26. Stage 4: Principle • Generalized Outcomes: • Generalizing the problem instance • Generalizing the solution instance • Deriving design principles from the design research outcomes • BIE is an inductive step that connects design principles to a class of solutions and a class of problems

27. ADR

28. Comparing DR, AR, and ADR

29. Our contribution • ADR: a customization of Design Research that • Overcomes Stage-Gate Models for Design Research • Recognizes the inherently ensemble nature of IT artifacts • Captures innovativeness for both IT and org-dominant versions • Reconciles one-case Utility against abstraction to Design Principles • As it • Brings together technology and behavioral IS researchers • Ensures relevance to build bridges with practice

30. What kind of research is this? • Objective: to improve some kind of organizational capability • 1+ year process study • Develops a new perspective on this organizational capability • Draws on contemporary theory • Design and release of multiple versions of the technology • Developing innovative features of the technology • Eventually causing a change in organizational strategy • Developing design principles for a particular type of information system

31. Many thanks for your attention!