EPIQUALIS - Epistemological progress through qualitative literature analyses in information systems research

Qualitative literature analysis is an established research method in many academic disciplines, including information systems. From an epistemological perspective, qualitative literature reviews can contribute to scientific progress in computer science from both the cumulative and revolutionary perspectives, and even form the basis for research in computer science. IS authors have recognized the importance of literature reviews by publishing more than 173 qualitative IS literature reviews in the top 39 IS journals since 2000, and these literature reviews have been cited in more than 2,300 research papers published in these journals. The analysis of the IS literature shows that despite the large bibliometric impact of literature reviews in terms of citations and the great potential of literature reviews, it remains to be explored whether and to what extent the IS discipline has utilized the potential of literature reviews to advance knowledge through epistemological contributions, such as synthesizing the body of knowledge, identifying research gaps, or establishing or testing new theories.

Understanding this epistemological issue is important for the IS discipline for three reasons, to which the main objectives of the project are linked: (1) From an analytical perspective, it provides insights into when and how IS literature reviews have (un)successfully contributed to epistemological improvement. In particular, it enables the comparison of realized contributions with potential contributions as well as the identification of lessons learned. These "lessons learned" include examples of how literature reviews have created knowledge (direct epistemological impact) and how they have enabled other researchers to generate knowledge based on what the literature reviews have achieved (indirect epistemological impact).

One aim of the research project is to identify the direct and indirect epistemological contributions of IS literature reviews (Aim 1: Epistemological extensions through IS literature reviews). (2) From a prescriptive perspective, recommendations can be derived from these findings, both for i) authors of future IS literature reviews to increase their epistemological impact and the number of citations, and for ii) all IS researchers who want to use the epistemological advances of literature reviews to generate knowledge themselves. Providing these recommendations is the second aim of the project (Aim 2: Epistemological guidelines for authors in the IS discipline). (3) From a philosophy of science perspective, there is no epistemological basis for the genre of literature reviews. A third aim of the project is to contribute to the development of such a theoretical basis.