Our Paradigm for Paradigms in IS: How Many Times to the Well?

Abstract

In the "publish or perish" world that we exist in as scholars, we note the emergence of an interesting pattern. Research is increasingly oriented around pre-existing, well-known, and widely accepted theoretical models, for which incremental advancements are devised by way of contribution. This is the way of "traditional" scientific work (consistent with Kuhn, 1962; 1970). Yet, this "traditional" approach to science is not as interesting as it could be for those of us editors, reviewers, and readers who are thirsty for new theoretical vistas and fresh ideas to inform our worldview of information systems. Indeed, it would seem that our paradigm (that which guides us in Kuhnian practice of our scientific craft of article production) has become what Kuhn, himself, might have said of paradigms at the late stage of maturity, just in advance of revolutions in which normal science puzzle solving ceased to work as expected: the paradigm by which we operate in our normal science practice, and the paradigms with which we study our scientific problems, are as limiting to us as anything else.