The Role of Case-Based Research in Information Technology and Systems

Abstract

Increasingly, academic research in Information Technologies and Systems (ITS) is emphasizing the application of research models and theories to practice. In this chapter, the authors posit that case-based research has a significant role to play in the future of research in ITS because of its ability to generate knowledge from practice and to study a problem in context. Understanding context—social, organizational, political, and cultural—is mandatory to learning and effectively adopting best practices. The authors describe some examples of case-based research to highlight this point of view. They further identify key topics and themes based on examining the abstracts from prominent case-based research over the past decade, analyzing their trends, and hypothesizing what the role of case-based research will be in the coming decades.