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Volume 2 Issue 2 July 2004
Using a
Multimethod Approach to Research Enterprise Systems Implementations
José Esteves,
Instituto de Empresa, Madrid, Spain,
jose.esteves@ie.edu
Joan Pastor, Universidad Internacional de Catalunya, Spain (pp 69-82),
jap@unica.edu |
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With the
development and legitimacy of both qualitative and quantitative research,
the combination of both types of research is expanding (Tashakkori and
Teddlle 2003). Lately, the alternative of combining methods – the
multimethod approach - has emerged in different research areas as a way of
improving research process and findings. “Multiple methods are used in a
research program when a series of projects are interrelated within a broad
topic and designed to solve an overall research problem” (Morse 2003, p.
196). The main advantages of multimethod work are (Tashakkori and Teddlie
1998): triangulation – seeking to validate data and results by combining a
range of data sources, methods, or observers; creativity – discovering
fresh or paradoxical factors that stimulate further work; and expansion –
widening the scope of the study to take in contextual aspects of the
situation. Qualitative and quantitative methods should not be viewed as
polar opposites (Van Maanen 1983) since their combination introduces both
testability and context into the research (Kaplan and Duchon 1988).
Collecting different kinds of data by different methods from different
sources provides a wider range of coverage that may result in a fuller
picture of the unit under study than would have been achieved otherwise (Bonoma
1985).
Based in a survey
of the top Information Systems (IS) journals, Mingers (2001) mentions that
the average of multimethod studies across journals varies rather randomly
over time at around the 20%. Because the multimethod design approach is
relatively new, there is a lack of research on the topic, and most
especially there is a shortage of examples of its applications (Mingers
2001). In this paper we present how we have explored the multimethod
approach by using an example domain in a step-by-step manner, learning
about the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. The context is a
doctoral research project whose aim was to study critical success factors
for Enterprise Systems (ES) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
implementation projects.
Our research
framework presents the different phases of the research study, and with
the different research methods mapped and linked in each phase.
Considering the research questions and the research context, we asked
ourselves which research methods could be useful to address those
questions. These are the research methods that we believe were appropriate
for this research study. In order to develop this research project we
decided to adopt the interpretive research paradigm. Finally, we present
the analysis of the research trustworthiness.
Keywords:
Enterprise Resource Planning, critical success factors, implementation
phases, ERP implementation projects
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