Methodological Pluralism in Business and Information Systems Engineering?

• Published in: Business & information systems engineering Vol. 5; no. 6; pp. 453 - 460
• Main Authors: Loos, Peter, Mettler, Tobias, Winter, Robert, Goeken, Matthias, Frank, Ulrich, Winter, Alfred
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiesbaden Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 01.12.2013; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Business and Management; Business process reengineering; Computer science; Discussion; Engineering; Information systems; IT in Business; Knowledge; Medical Subject Headings-MeSH; Medicine; Ontology; Research methodology; Studies; Subject heading schemes; Systems engineering; Terminology; Germany; Information System Research; Information System Engineer; Unify Medical Language System; Conceptual System; Medical Informatics
• ISSN: 1867-0202; 2363-7005; 1867-0202
• DOI: 10.1007/s12599-013-0299-8

For some time now, the Business and Information Systems Engineering (BISE) research community in the German-speaking countries has continuously been concerned with the development of the field as scientific discipline. This may be attributed to several reasons. First, it is a natural and necessary process for a scientific community to self-critically reflect its own discipline from time to time, especially after growth phases of a young science or after changes in the objects of research caused by technological innovations. Another reason is the necessity of internationalization, which among others led to a discussion of methods regarding behaviorist oriented and design science oriented research approaches in BISE (sterle et al. 2010). Following this, concerns have been expressed that design-oriented approaches commonly used in German-speaking countries will yield to more behavioral approaches in the future due to the pressure to publish internationally, which would not only lead to a loss of identity of German BISE but also to a reduction of the methodological pluralism harmful to the relevance of the discipline.