Conducting and Evaluating Critical Interpretive Research: Examining Criteria as a Key Component in Building a Research Tradition

The collection, analysis, and interpretation of empirical materials are always conducted within some broader understanding of what constitutes legitimate inquiry and valid knowledge. In the Information Systems field, there are well known and widely accepted methodological principles consistent with the conventions of positivism. However, the same is not yet true of interpretive research. The emergence of interpretivism in IS research was advocated by Walsham (1995) and corroborated by a series of special issues in outstanding IS journals. An example of the effort to advance the legitimacy of studies grounded in an interpretive position is the set of principles suggested by Klein and Myers (1999), which applies mostly to hermeneutics. However, because not all interpretive studies are built on a hermeneutical philosophical base, they recommended that other researchers, representing other forms of interpretivism, suggest additional principles. This paper follows in this vein, advocating the timely emergence of a critical interpretive perspective in IS research and pressing the argument that an extended version of Golden-Biddle and Locke’s (1993) criteria is not only appropriate but comprehensive as initial guidelines for conducting and evaluating critical interpretive research. Critical interpretive research, research criteria, intensive research, qualitative research