QUALITATIVE RESEARCH - MEANINGS OR PRACTICES

With information systems (IS), as in other social sciences, the critiq ue of quantitative research can lead to an oversimplified opposition b etween 'positivism' and 'interpretivism'. This is one reason why quali tative IS research sometimes unnecessarily limits it self to the study of participants' meanings. A simple tabulation of published qualitati ve research is used to reveal the predominance of interview-based stud ies in both sociology and IS. This is followed by a brief account of t he limits of both quantitative studies of 'objective' variables and qu alitative studies of 'subjective meanings' The emerging case for IS re search on organizational practices is set out, coupled with an account of Suchman's (1987) study of how workers make use of a computer-based system attached to a photocopier. The paper concludes with a call for an end to paradigm wars in organizational studies.