Explanatory Design Theory

Richard Baskerville () and Jan Pries-Heje ()

Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, 2010, vol. 2, issue 5, 282 pages

Abstract: Design, design research, and design science have received increasing attention lately. This has led to a more scientific focus on design that then has made it timely to reconsider our definitions of the design theory concept. Many scholars in Information Systems assume a design theory requires a complex and elaborate structure. While this structure has appeal for its completeness and complexity, it has led scholars to criticize simplicity and elegance in design science theories that fail to demonstrate the “required” elements. Such criticisms lead to questions about whether design theory can be considered theory at all. Based on a study of notable design writing in architecture, finance, management, cognitive psychology, computer science as well as information systems and the philosophy of science, the authors demonstrate that design theory consists of two parts: a design practice theory and an explanatory design theory. An explanatory design theory provides a functional explanation as to why a solution has certain components in terms of the requirements stated in the design. For explanatory design theory, only two elements are essentially necessary for a complete design theory: requirements and solution components. The argument is logical as well as empirical; the authors give examples of design theory drawing from IS as well as other design-related fields show how design theory can be both simple and complete. The paper concludes with a proposal for explanatory design theory. Copyright Gabler Verlag 2010

Keywords: Design theory; Design science; Design research; Research method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12599-010-0118-4 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:binfse:v:2:y:2010:i:5:p:271-282

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/12599

DOI: 10.1007/s12599-010-0118-4

Access Statistics for this article

Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK is currently edited by Martin Bichler

More articles in Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK from Springer, Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().