Developing Knowledge Through IS Design Science Research

Abstract

I find Iivari’s essay very timely and I read it with great interest and excitement. I was pleased to see that Iivari has risen to the challenges put forward by some IS scholars: analyses of ontologies, epistemologies, methodologies and ethics of design science. Said Purao: “…the scientific foundations underlying this critical area of the IS field—design research—have remained largely undevel- oped.…Over the years, in spite of important writings about research (March and Smith 1995), philosophical underpinnings of this form of research have been largely unexplored. Without adequate scientific foundations, research in the technology of information systems (TIS) continues to be a lost child still searching for its scientific home” (Purao 2002).