If Markus 1983 Classic Study Were Being Reviewed Today : A Positivist Perspective

1
If Markus 1983 Classic Study Were Being Reviewed
Today A Positivist Perspective

• Guy Paré
• Associate Professor
• HEC-Montreal
• Canada

Slides are included here.
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Relevance Rigor

• Question 1
• Does our field appreciate Markus study for its
  having offered a superior theory at its time of
  publication or does our field appreciate Markus
  study because its theory about IT in
  organizations remains as true today as it was in
  1983?
• Question 2
• Would our field today deem Markus case research
  method to be rigorous and valid, or instead judge
  it to be dated relative to contemporary
  qualitative methods?

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Relevance

• Advances in the OD field
•  People resist change  has come under attack
• Transformation in meaning
• The change agents perspective
• Resistance to change vs Readiness for change
• Advances in the IT field
• Relevance and novelty of the key messages
  conveyed in Markus paper

4
Rigor

• Prior theorizing and empirical research
• Research questions
• Research propositions
• Unit of analysis
• Sampling
• Validity
• Qualitative data analysis methods and tools

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Concluding remarks

• Research standards have evolved and are more
  demanding
• How to judge Markus study then?
• Qualitative data analysis needs to be well
  documented as a process mainly to help us learn