Start Date
16-8-2018 12:00 AM
Description
Information and digital technologies have become tightly interconnected with organizational and environmental elements. This ‘fusion’ has created a complex system that often exhibits nonlinear, discontinuous change such that a small adjustment in IT systems can trigger drastic changes in other elements, and eventually the whole socio-technical system can change radically and possibly shift to new equilibriums. In such complex dynamics, the role of IT can be better understood as an element of the whole system rather than as a separate independent variable. Notwithstanding such an increasing need for a holistic systemic perspective, there is still a paucity of IS research that investigates how information and digital technologies effectively work together with organizational and environmental elements to produce the expected outcomes either at the individual, group, organization, or ecosystem level. \ \ Recently, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), a set-theoretic method to build a configurational theory, is drawing increasing attention of researchers to its capability to investigate the complex phenomena. QCA developed by Charles Ragin (1987) integrates the strengths of both case-oriented qualitative methods and variable-oriented quantitative methods, and can be applicable for small, medium, or large data. This workshop will foster discussion about how QCA can help IS researchers build novel, richer theories. \
Recommended Citation
Park, YoungKi and Denford, James, "Set-Theoretic Methods: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for IS Research" (2018). AMCIS 2018 Proceedings. 4.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2018/Workshops/Presentations/4
Set-Theoretic Methods: Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) for IS Research
Information and digital technologies have become tightly interconnected with organizational and environmental elements. This ‘fusion’ has created a complex system that often exhibits nonlinear, discontinuous change such that a small adjustment in IT systems can trigger drastic changes in other elements, and eventually the whole socio-technical system can change radically and possibly shift to new equilibriums. In such complex dynamics, the role of IT can be better understood as an element of the whole system rather than as a separate independent variable. Notwithstanding such an increasing need for a holistic systemic perspective, there is still a paucity of IS research that investigates how information and digital technologies effectively work together with organizational and environmental elements to produce the expected outcomes either at the individual, group, organization, or ecosystem level. \ \ Recently, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), a set-theoretic method to build a configurational theory, is drawing increasing attention of researchers to its capability to investigate the complex phenomena. QCA developed by Charles Ragin (1987) integrates the strengths of both case-oriented qualitative methods and variable-oriented quantitative methods, and can be applicable for small, medium, or large data. This workshop will foster discussion about how QCA can help IS researchers build novel, richer theories. \