Information Systems Foundations : Constructing and Criticising

Abstract

While social scientists have been using the grounded theory method for almost 40 years, the IS field has been a late adopter of the methodology. Thus, even as grounded theorys importance as an IS research method has increased over the last decade, many misconceptions and misunderstandings about the method and its use still exist in our community. This paper presents important aspects of the Glaserian approach to grounded theory studies. The account is based on a personal perspective acquired from both doing grounded theory research and reading the wide grounded theory literature. Readers will benefit by gaining a deeper understanding of the approach, including its nature and benefits as well as its risks and demands. The objective of this paper is to help novice IS researchers interested in theory-building studies to grasp the complexity and nature of the method.