Convergence

It took me a few minutes to think up a title for this entry. But I suppose this kind of covers it. During the past few days a number of things have interestingly come together. Its amazing how some activities can fade out and make room for others to fade in. You wonder if the synergy between events is a coincidence, or that you actually construct it by making good use of otherwise random circumstances. I tend to think that an associative mind will associate things that would otherwise not be connected. The art is to configure seemingly disconected things into somehting meaningfull. Pretty abstract huh?

Science versus research

It was a beautifull summer evening. Maybe one of the last in the netherlands for this year. So we sat outside, had coffie, read the paper and so on. I was tempted to hook up my laptop but didn't do so. So I looked for something to read, and finally thought of the books I bought a few weeks ago at the bookshop at Tilburg University. One book was on case-studies, the other on research methods for business.

In the last few hours I have scanned the books - both are actually quite interesting - my intuition when buying them was good.

Some of the key things I have been wrestling with in the current field I'm working in is what types of resesearch are being done - and what types of research are actually sesnsible. The frist and formost question is what may be considered "research". An expectation I have is that when research becomes more case-specific (versus general), and when it becomes more driven by practical problems; it is considerd to be less "scientific". Question is what the features are of "scientific" processes, and if specific/problem oriented research is necessarily less scientific.

This discussion is important. Opionions on what research and science are influence the selection of research projects and programs that are eligible for (goverment) funding.

Getting back to the books - the intersting thing is they both seem to support the notion that both case specific and problem oriented research may be conducted in a scientific manner. Former books on research methods have been less clear.

In any case I have found inspiration in the books to write up an article/booklet an the type of research being conducted in the field information systems for crisis response and management (ISCRAM). What types of research are actually being done? What types are being done a lot; what types less? Why is that so? What types of research do different stakeholders prefer? Why?

So - in a way this is a kind of reserach on a research field. That research is driven by the expectation that the distribution or research types is skewed towards fundamental non-problem oriented research. There is nothing wrong with that type of research - but perhaps those funding such research have different expectations about the impact of the results.

So this it it for now. I aim to think outloud here during the coming months and gradually outline, an actually the perform some of the research sketche here.