Realizing Emancipatory Ideals in Phenomenological IS Research

Abstract

Since the development of the phenomenological method by Husserl, a variety of thinkers and researchers have contributed to an intense debate regarding the ontological and epistemological bases of Phenomenology, as well as its applicability to the inquiry of the human condition. This dialogue has spun an area of phenomenological research known as existential-phenomenological psychology, which has been systematically explored by a number of researchers in different fields, in the last decades. The present paper furthers an earlier argument for the use of phenomenological methods, and in particular, those of existential-phenomenological psychology, to study IS-related phenomena. It discusses how such methods can be approached from a critical standpoint, in contrast with a pure hermeneutical one, thus allowing for the realization of emancipatory ideals in often unanticipated ways. An example from a study of IT-driven radical change is used to illustrate the argument.