TY - JOUR
T1 - Making rigorous research relevant
T2 - Innovating statistical action research
AU - Durcikova, Alexandra
AU - Lee, Allen S.
AU - Brown, Susan A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Alexandra Durcikova is an assistant professor at the Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on knowledge management, knowledge repositories, end user security, and phishing attack detection. Her research on phishing attack detection was funded by the National Science Foundation. Her pub-
Funding Information:
Susan A. Brown is the McClelland Professor and department head of Management Information Systems in the Eller College of the University of Arizona. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota and an MBA at Syracuse University. Her research interests include technology implementation, individual adoption, mediated communication, online learning, and related topics. She has received funding for her research from the National Science Foundation, and other public and private organizations. Her work has appeared in leading journals including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and others. She has served as an associate editor at MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Decision Sciences, and is currently a senior editor at MIS Quarterly and coeditor-in-chief of AIS Transactions on Replication Research.
PY - 2018/3
Y1 - 2018/3
N2 - This paper proposes a new type of action research-statistical action research (AR)-along with our guidelines on how to conduct it and how to evaluate it. Statistical AR provides a new toolkit for our discipline that strengthens the scholarly community by contributing to the recent discussion regarding the collaborative nature of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The major methodological contribution of statistical AR is the introduction and demonstration of the use of statistical hypothesis testing in action research, where this contribution is the first instance of not only statistical AR, but also positivist action research, in the information systems discipline. Our approach to AR addresses, from a positivist perspective, perceived weaknesses of AR. Statistical AR fits comfortably within the framework of canonical AR, with the only difference being that statistical AR takes a positivist perspective rather than an interpretive one. As conducted in this study, statistical AR applies, tests, and advances knowledge validation theory in a knowledge management system (KMS) context. The major practical contribution is illustrating to practitioners how to integrate different methods in action research. A secondary practical contribution consists of turning around an instance of an ineffective KMS, as experienced by an organization, into one that is effective.
AB - This paper proposes a new type of action research-statistical action research (AR)-along with our guidelines on how to conduct it and how to evaluate it. Statistical AR provides a new toolkit for our discipline that strengthens the scholarly community by contributing to the recent discussion regarding the collaborative nature of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The major methodological contribution of statistical AR is the introduction and demonstration of the use of statistical hypothesis testing in action research, where this contribution is the first instance of not only statistical AR, but also positivist action research, in the information systems discipline. Our approach to AR addresses, from a positivist perspective, perceived weaknesses of AR. Statistical AR fits comfortably within the framework of canonical AR, with the only difference being that statistical AR takes a positivist perspective rather than an interpretive one. As conducted in this study, statistical AR applies, tests, and advances knowledge validation theory in a knowledge management system (KMS) context. The major practical contribution is illustrating to practitioners how to integrate different methods in action research. A secondary practical contribution consists of turning around an instance of an ineffective KMS, as experienced by an organization, into one that is effective.
KW - Action research
KW - Hypothesis testing
KW - Management intervention
KW - Positivism
KW - Research methods
KW - Statistical action research
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U2 - 10.25300/MISQ/2018/14146
DO - 10.25300/MISQ/2018/14146
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85041174034
SN - 0276-7783
VL - 42
SP - 241
EP - 263
JO - MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems
JF - MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems
IS - 1
ER -