An Introduction to Design Science

202 Pages·2014·3.145 MB·English

by  Paul Johannesson, Erik Perjons (auth.)

Paul Johannesson · Erik Perjons
An Introduction to
Design
Science
An Introduction to Design Science
ThiSisaFMBlankPage
Paul Johannesson (cid:129) Erik Perjons
An Introduction to
Design Science
PaulJohannesson
ErikPerjons
StockholmUniversity
Kista
Sweden
ISBN978-3-319-10631-1 ISBN978-3-319-10632-8(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-10632-8
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2014951854
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Preface
This book is an introductory text on design science. It is intended to supportboth
researchersandstudentsinstructuring,undertaking,andpresentingdesignscience
work.Thebookdoesnotpresumeanypriorknowledgeofdesignscience.
Chapter1providesanoverviewofdesignscienceandoutlinesitsrelationships
with empirical research. Chapter 2 discusses the various types and forms of
knowledge that can be used and produced by design science research. Chapter 3
gives a brief overview of common empirical research strategies and methods.
Chapter 4 introduces a method framework for supporting researchers in doing
designscienceresearchaswellasinpresentingdesignscienceresults.Theframe-
work includes five activities, which are described in detail in Chaps. 5–9.
Chapter 10 discusses how to communicate design science results. Chapter 11
comparestheproposedmethodframeworkwithmethodsforsystemsdevelopment
and shows how they can be combined. Chapter 12 discusses how design science
relatestoresearchparadigms,inparticulartopositivismandinterpretivism.Finally,
Chap.13discussesethicalissuesandprinciplesfordesignscienceresearch.
The book offers an introduction to design science, and almost all of the topics
coveredcanbepursuedtoamuchdeeperlevel.Inordertohelpreaderstofindtheir
way through relevant works, the sections on further reading provide numerous
pointers to the literature. Furthermore, complementary multi-media material can
befoundatthebook’swebsiteathttp://introtodesignscience.wordpress.com/.
Thebookbuildsonestablisheddesignsciencemethodsaswellasrecentworkon
presenting design science studies and ethical principles for design science. The
bookalsooffersnovelinstrumentsforvisualisingdesignscienceresults,bothinthe
formofprocessdiagramsandthroughacanvasformat.
TheauthorswouldliketothankBirgerAndersson,MariaBergholtz,IliaBider,
ShengnanHan,MartinHenkel,BenktWangler,andMonicaWingefordiscussions
andconstructivefeedbackonearlierversionsofthistext.AspecialthankstoGo¨ran
v
vi Preface
Goldkuhlwhohasintroducedustonewperspectivesondesignscienceanditsrole
inworkpractices.ManythankstoCaroldeGrootforhercommitmenttoimproving
thelanguageofthetextandtoRalfGerstnerforsupportingtheentirebookwriting
project.
Stockholm PaulJohannesson
September2014 ErikPerjons
Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 People,Practices,andProblems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 ArtefactsasSolutionstoProblemsinPractices. . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 TheContextandAnatomyofArtefacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 DesignScience:TheStudyofArtefacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 DesignandDesignScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.6 MedicalScienceandDesignScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.7 KindsofDesignScienceContributions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.8 TechnicalArtefactsandSocio-TechnicalSystems. . . . . . . . .. 12
1.9 SummaryofChapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.10 ReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.11 AnswerstoSelectedReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.12 FurtherReading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2 KnowledgeTypesandForms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1 KnowledgeTypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.1 DefinitionalKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.2 DescriptiveKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.3 ExplanatoryKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1.4 PredictiveKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1.5 ExplanatoryandPredictiveKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.6 PrescriptiveKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2 KnowledgeForms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2.1 ExplicitKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2.2 EmbodiedKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.3 EmbeddedKnowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.4 KnowledgeFormsinCraftandScience. . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2.5 KnowledgeFormsinOrganisations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
vii
viii Contents
2.3 ArtefactTypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.1 Constructs,Models,Methods,andInstantiations. . . . 29
2.3.2 AFunction-OrientedArtefactClassification. . . . . . . . 30
2.3.3 APragmaticArtefactClassification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.4 TheoryTypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.5 DesignTheory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.6 SummaryofChapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.7 ReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.8 AnswerstoSelectedReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.9 FurtherReading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3 ResearchStrategiesandMethods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1 ResearchStrategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.1 Experiments. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. 40
3.1.2 Surveys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1.3 CaseStudies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.1.4 Ethnography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.1.5 GroundedTheory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1.6 ActionResearch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1.7 Phenomenology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.1.8 Simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.1.9 MathematicalandLogicalProof. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2 DataCollectionMethods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2.1 Questionnaires. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2.2 Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.2.3 FocusGroups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.2.4 Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.2.5 Documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.3 DataAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.3.1 QuantitativeDataAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.3.2 QualitativeDataAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.4 RelatingResearchStrategiesandResearchMethods. . . . . . . . 66
3.5 SummaryofChapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.6 ReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.7 AnswerstoSelectedReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.8 FurtherReading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4 AMethodFrameworkforDesignScienceResearch. . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.1 ActivitiesinDesignScienceResearch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.2 ResearchStrategiesandResearchMethodsinDesign
Science. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.3 RelatingtoaKnowledgeBase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.4 FocusinDesignScienceResearch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Contents ix
4.5 VisualisingtheMethodFramework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.6 TheDesignScienceCanvas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.7 ActionResearchandDesignScience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.8 TheScientificMethodandtheMethodFrameworkforDesign
ScienceResearch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.9 RunningExample. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.10 SummaryofChapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.11 ReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.12 AnswerstoSelectedReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.13 FurtherReading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5 ExplicateProblem. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . 91
5.1 Sub-activitiesofExplicateProblem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1.1 DefinePrecisely. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1.2 PositionandJustify. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.1.3 FindRootCauses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.2 ResourcesforExplicateProblem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.3 StrategiesandMethodsforExplicateProblem. . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.4 GuidelinesforExplicateProblem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.5 RunningExample. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.6 SummaryofChapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.7 ReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.8 AnswerstoSelectedReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.9 FurtherReading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6 DefineRequirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.1 Sub-activitiesofDefineRequirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
6.1.1 OutlineArtefact. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.1.2 ElicitRequirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.2 ResourcesforDefineRequirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6.3 ResearchStrategiesandMethodsforDefineRequirements. . . 106
6.4 GuidelinesforDefineRequirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.5 GenericQualities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.5.1 StructuralQualities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.5.2 EnvironmentalQualities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.6 The5EsFramework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
6.7 RunningExample. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
6.8 SummaryofChapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
6.9 ReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.10 AnswerstoSelectedReviewQuestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.11 FurtherReading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116