The research question of this dissertation is approached with the critical realist ontology most commonly associated with the work of Bhaskar (1978). His starting point was to argue specifically against positivism by claiming that science is not merely matter of noting down frequent combinations of observable causal events but is instead about objects, entities, and structures that exist and generate events we may observe (Mingers, 2004). From the critical realist perspective, reality is “out there” and can be discovered and understood. Social phenomena can be ascertained even though they are imperfect and only probabilistically comprehensible because of imperfect intellectual mechanisms (Easton, 1995; Guba and Lincoln 1994). Critical realism entails that knowledge must be evaluated and tested critically in order to determine to what extent it represents or corresponds to the actual world (Hunt, 1990). Table 5 shows my ontological assumptions in answering the research question of to what extent an understanding of social influences and competing forces can assist in explaining the early adoption and use of app phones. At an ontological level, reality is assumed to exist and to be discoverable and understood not just as a human construction. App phone users and app phones are two carefully separated entities in the world that do not exist as one entity and are viewed as such.
Several researchers (Bygstad, 2008; Carlsson, 2003, 2004, 2005; Dobson, 2002;
Longshore Smith, 2006; Volkoff et al., 2007) have suggested that critical realism can be useful as an underpinning philosophy for IS research as it allows for a more consistent approach to research.
Table 5: Ontological Assumptions
Subject Subjective-objective dichotomy Object
App phone user (biological)
App phone (artificial)
App phone user and app phone carefully separated Source: Own creation inspired by discussions with Morten Hjelholt.
First, critical realism recognizes both an intransitive and a transitive dimension. The intransitive dimension acknowledges that there is a domain of events that are independent of human perception, while the transitive dimension emphasizes that humans do have perceptual experience of the world. However, critical realism holds that the transitive dimension forms a part of the intransitive dimension, meaning that knowledge does not exist in a separate world (Bhaskar, 1998). The transitive is different but not external to the intransitive. In this study of app phone users and their use of the iPhone, the thoughts, language, and knowledge of the users constitute intransitive objects of knowledge. The transitive objects of knowledge comprise knowledge and theories through which app phone users’ sense making is understood. Therefore critical realism provides the basis for bridging the dualism between subjective and objective views of reality as real objects are subject to value-laden observation (Dobson, 2002). The adoption and use of app phones is therefore believed to be real, while the investigation is subject to value-laden interpretation by the researcher. The distinction between the intransitive and the transitive allows for the combination of ontological realism with an epistemological constructionism (Archer et al., 1998, pp. x–xi), which I will return to in section 5.2.2 on epistemological considerations.
Critical Realism Archer et al., 1998; Bhaskar, 1978
Second, critical realism attempts to comprehend the “generative mechanisms and causal powers, which account in all their complex and multiple determinations for the concrete phenomena of human history” (Bhaskar, 1998, p. xvi). That is, the concern is not just to find a relation between constructs, but to understand why or how the relation occurs.
Generative mechanisms are located in the intransitive dimension and comprise three hierarchical domains (Bhaskar, 1978): the empirical, the domain of experience; the actual, the domain of events as well as experiences; and the real, the domain including mechanisms in addition to events and experiences. Generative mechanisms are retroduced: they undergo a process of working out what could have caused the phenomena that are of immediate interest and are subsequently subjected to empirical examination and reasoning in relation to competing explanations. Critical realism, however, does not claim to be able to uncover the real, but rather seeks the most accurate possible description and understanding of the world (Hunt, 1990). While theories are fallible and changeable and there will always be a number of competing theories (Danemark et al., 2001, p. 117), critical realists believe in inductive realism, that the long-term success of a scientific theory ‘‘gives us reason to believe that ‘something like’
the entities contained in the theories actually exist’’ (Hunt, 1990, p. 10). That is, it might not be possible to uncover the complexity involved in adoption and use of app phones;
however, a social influence and a competing forces approach may provide insight and explanations to how mobile users are influenced in their adoption and use decisions for the moment.
Third, critical realism argues that one cannot concentrate solely on a single level investigation of a society, group, or individual; it argues for a relational perspective, viewing society as "an ensemble of structures, practices and conventions that individuals reproduce or transform" (Bhaskar, 1991, p. 76). Critical realism states that interactions between each level cannot be ignored. As this dissertation takes a social influence approach and therefore assumes a relationship between social influences and adoption
and use of app phones, critical realism is therefore appropriate for studying app phones in social contexts.
So far only limited research has been published within IS directly related to critical realism, though researchers have pointed out its potential significance (Bygstad, 2008;
Carlsson, 2003, 2004, 2005; Dobson, 2002; Mingers, 2002, 2004; Mutch, 2002). Among others, Mingers (2004, p. 393) argues that “critical realism enables us to take a basically realist stance… while accepting the major critiques of naïve realism; it addresses both natural and social science and thus encompasses both hard and soft (and critical) approaches; and it does potentially fit well with the reality of IS as an applied discipline.” The aim of critical realism is to go beneath the surface to understand and explain how and why things are as they are. As critical realism recognizes the existence of different types of objects of knowledge, all of which require the use of different methods to understand them, it does not commit the researcher to a single method but favors pluralism.
5.2.2 Epistemological Considerations
At the epistemological level, the study of the adoption and use of app phones allows for the combination of ontological realism with an epistemological constructionism. As argued by Longshore Smith (2006), critical realism views the process of science and scientific knowledge as historically emergent, political, and incomplete. These limitations imply that our theories are imperfect or fallible and that knowledge is never absolute, though some theories may approximate objective reality better than others. Critical realism is, therefore, characterized as ontologically bold, but epistemologically cautious (Bhaskar, 1998, p. 176). Heidegger (1962) argues that a subject and object cannot be separated, and must be considered in terms of being-in-the-world. That is, an app phone user can only be considered as being a contextual, situated, and historically placed existent in the middle of a world amongst other things. Table 6 shows my epistemological considerations as I seek knowledge about the studied phenomenon.
Though critical realism is most often associated with epistemological realism, this
dissertation, based on the above consideration, supports the view of epistemological realism and constructionism.
Table 6: Epistemological Considerations
Realism Constructionism
Reality can only be conceived by means of scientific methods.
Reality only consists of those affordances attached to it, such as providing “the possibility of”
doing something. As we cannot know anything about the independent reality with certainty, we must use our constructed concept to make qualified situated conjectures.
Our knowledge of the world, including our scientific knowledge, is a construction shaped by social processes.
Constructionism rejects any direct verification of knowledge by comparing our constructed concepts with the outside world. Humans can only perceive their own constructions, and, hence, the most important issue is how the subject can choose between different constructions to select appropriate ones.
Source: Own creation inspired by discussions with Morten Hjelholt.
Epistemologically, the critical realism perspective is often associated with realism and an objective worldview. Realism argues that meaning, and therefore meaningful reality, exists apart from the operation of any consciousness. In the realist view, there is a predominance of technological determinism, which involves two key ideas: technological development is seen as autonomous and societal development is determined by technology (Bijker, 1995). This positions technology as an autonomous entity, with an
“inner logic” that develops by itself and consequently determines social relationships (Williams and Edge, 1996). Society is, therefore, merely responsive to and shaped by the needs of technology. Technological determinism assumes that technology is the primary reason for change while simultaneously assuming that technology is beyond the realm of human values and beliefs. Researchers, such as Howcroft et al. (2004, p. 333), however,
Reality Human
constructions Knowledge
Knowledge
argue that this perception is misleading, since it separates technology from the social world within which it resides, while at the same time it is argued that it is the one mechanism for bringing about social change.
An opposed view, constructionism, reflects a subjective world view and holds that meaning is imposed on an object by the subject without the object making any contribution to the generation of meaning. Constructionism emphasizes a kind of subjective determinism that ascribes absolute power to the individual mind, or subject, and its sensations. The subjectivism represented in Descartes' (1985) “cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am) holds that the immaterial mind and the material body are two entirely different substances that interact with each other. This is also referred to as Cartesian Dualism. Berkeley (1975) formulated a theory that contends that individuals can only know sensations and ideas of objects, not abstractions such as “matter”, and therefore that ideas depend on perceiving minds for their very existence. This belief later became commemorated as the subjectivist principle “esse est percipi” (to be is to be perceived). Berkeley (1975) argues that the world does not exist independently of being perceived and all that is known is relative to the mind that knows it.
Although realism and constructionism are generally seen as a “bipolar hierarchy” (van Maanen, 1998, p. 153), several critical realism researchers advocate epistemological constructionism (Al-Amoudi and Willmott, 2011; Lawson, 2003). Constructionism rejects both objectivist and subjectivist views, and maintains that meaning comes into existence through our understanding of the realities of the world. Meaning is constructed locally and within different contexts and different people may construct meaning in different ways in relation to the same phenomena. Constructionism argues that individuals are born into a world of meaning and enter a social milieu, and that we inherit a system of significant symbols and view the world through lenses bestowed upon us by our culture (Bourdieu, 1977; Crotty, 2009).
Hence, depending on our cultural heritage, app phones may make sense to us in different ways. Knowledge of the adoption and use of app phones can thus best be approached
from the point of view of the mobile user, as an “I-situation” in which the “I” of the mobile user cannot be distinguished from the “situation” of app phone adoption and use, and where the “I” and the “situation” co-evolve over time (Heidegger, 2001, [1919], p.
206). App phones evoke different usage behaviors in different contexts, which may yield unexpected consequences or limitations (Arnold, 2003). Social action embedded in different social contexts stimulates app phone usage in different ways. At the same time, such usage behaviors have become intrinsic to everyday activities and relations (Orlikowski and Scott, 2008) and app phones are “ready-to-hand” as they are “always already there” (Heidegger, 1962). Heidegger (1977) argues that technology constitutes a type of cultural system that restructures the entire social world as an object of control, is characterized by an expansive dynamic, and which ultimately shapes the whole of social life. This applies no less to app phones.
Researchers (e.g. Lee, 1999; Mingers, 2004; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991; Walsham, 1993; 1995a, 1995b) have argued that, historically, most empirical IS research has been underpinned by an objectivist philosophy. Burrell and Morgan (1979) argue that there are distinctively different paradigms based on either objectivism or subjectivism within a discipline, including the IS discipline, and that these are generally incommensurable; i.e.
they cannot be directly compared with each other as they are based on radically different assumptions. However, both objectivist and subjectivist approaches to the study of knowledge neglect to consider how social phenomena develop in combination with and within social contexts. Obviously, the development of app phones has not solely determined societal development though it has had immense impact on people’s everyday lives. Similarly, app phones have not emerged solely in response to the market demands of conscious subjects suddenly finding a need for them. App phones have co-evolved as a social construction of prior objects, such as the fixed telephone, the laptop computer, and wireless technologies, in unison with human ideas, beliefs, and experiences. The mobile phone that consumers carried in 1995 resembled a portable phone that allowed users to make phone calls and send text messages, while the mobile phone in 2011 is a
mini-computer with a vastly greater set of affordances. This development did not happen at once, but is the result of existing technology co-evolving with people’s creative ideas and experiences. As these constructions are not given by nature, they must be constantly maintained and reaffirmed in order to persist, and this process introduces the possibility of further change and development. The production of knowledge is thus contingent on human practices being constructed in social practices between mobile users and their world, as well as the researcher’s ability to develop and transmit this knowledge within a social context (Crotty, 2009).
The above explicit reflections constitute the considered philosophical and methodological underpinnings of this dissertation and serve to direct the choice of research methods and to clarify philosophical limitations related to the interpretations of the research results and their reliability. Such clarifications can only be made after the philosophical stance of the researcher has been made explicit (Alvesson and Skjöldberg, 2004; van de Ven, 2007). In the following I will bridge the philosophical underpinnings with the research design of the empirical case studies.
5.3 BRIDGING PHILOSPHY OF SCIENCE WITH RESEARCH