INF9200 Information Systems

Introduction to Critical Realism

Bendik Bygstad Professor IFI, UiO

September 2020 Professor II NHH
Program director
Digital Economy and
Management
 Aim of lecture
1. An Introduction to Critical Realism
2. An example of a CR study: The generative
mechanisms of digital infrastructure
evolution

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 Critical realism: a philosophy
Critical realism has been established as an accepted approach within IS
research (Mingers 2004, Smith 2006, Volkoff et al 2007, Henfridsson and
Bygstad, 2013, Wynn and Williams, 2012, Leonardi, 2014; Heeks et al.,
2018; Bygstad, Munkvold and Volkoff, 2018, Wynn and Williams 2020.)

Roy Bhaskar (1944-2014)

1975: A Realist Theory of Science
1979: The Possibility of Naturalism

Sociology Economics Information Information Systems Organizations Qualitative Research

Margaret Tony Systems Olga Andrew Miles and
Archer Lawson John Mingers Volkoff Van de Ven Huberman

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 Critical realism: Ontology
Assumes the existence of a real world
independent of our knowledge of it (Bhaskar
1998)

• Reality is conceived as being stratified in three

domains
– The real domain consists of objects, both
physical and social, and mechanisms
– These mechanisms may (or may not) trigger
events in the domain of the actual
– These events may be (or not) observed, in
the empirical domain

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 Critical Realism: Epistemology

Not a first-order philosophy, but aims at

“clearing the ground” between positivism
and interpretivism

1. Ontological reality
...the existence of a real world, as the
object of research
2. Epistemological relativity
Roy Bhaskar (1944-2014)
…the fallability of human enquiry
3. Judgemental rationality Bhaskar, R.(1979) The Possibility
of Naturalism: A Philosophical
… there are rational ways to assess Critique of the Contemporary
knowledge claims Human Sciences.

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 Critical realism as method:
the search for mechanisms
Critical realist methodology rests
on abstract research:
• Aims at a theoretical description of
mechanisms and structures
• Hypothesizes how the observed
events can be explained
(“retroduction”)

Generative mechanisms
• Causal structures that generate
events
• Contingent causality
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Key issues for a critical realist
methodology

1. Identifying and assessing mechanisms

The method of critical realism focuses on developing middle
range theory, usually in the form of generative mechanisms
Identifying mechanisms is difficult, since they are often
invisible. Is this a creative art, or is there a method?

2. Connecting macro and micro phenomena

This is a classical challenge in social sciences; how does
structure enable/constrain action, and how does action
reproduce/change structure?

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 Mechanisms
• Definition: A causal structure that
can trigger events
• Usually not observable: Identified
by retroduction
• Example: The market mechanism
• Example: The self-fulfilling
prophecy
• “Contingent causality”
– Non-deterministic
– Activation and outcome is
dependent on context (i.e.
other mechanisms)

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Part 2: An example of critical
realist research

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 Case: Norwegian
• Starting in 2002
• Deregulation of air traffic in
Scandinavia and Europe

Bjørn Kjos Hans-Petter Aanby

2018:
• 30 mill passengers
• World-wide low cost airline

Bygstad, B. and Aanby, H.P. (2010) “ICT Infrastructure for innovation : A case study of the enterprise service bus
approach”. Information Systems Frontiers, 12(3): 257-265.
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Norwegian timeline
Airline company Bank Call
start Norwegia Norwegia
n n

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Establishin In-flight
Establishing Internet Mobile
g Broadband
Low-Price bank portal
A service services
Calendar
oriented
architectur
e Digital Using
(SOA) Internet customer Facebook in
bookings
communication the ash
dominating crisis

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 Innovation

Schumpeter:
Innovation as new combinations of means of production, new
products, and new forms of organization.
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 Mixed method approach
1. Case study: To identify
generative mechanisms.
One case: Norwegian.

1. Case survey (41 cases):

To validate a)whether these
mechanisms were activated
and b) if the same
configurations resulted in
successful outcomes

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 Innovation

Figure 4: The Innovation Mechanism

… a self-reinforcing process by which

new products and services are created
as infrastructure malleability spawns
recombination of resources.
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 Adoption

Figure 5: The Adoption Mechanism

…a self-reinforcing process by which

more users adopt the infrastructure as
more resources invested increase the
usefulness of the infrastructure.
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 Scaling

Figure 6: The Scaling Mechanism

…a self-reinforcing process by which

an infrastructure expands its reach as
it attracts new partners by creating
incentives for collaboration
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 The Case Survey
• We (a) collected a large sample of digital
infrastructurestudies from scholarly sources,
• (b) refined the initial sample using inclusion and
exclusion criteria(Yin and Heald 1975), and
• (c) coded the cases using the definitions of the
mechanisms identifid in the in-depth study:
– Context (Architecture and Control)
– Actualized/unactualized mechanism
– Outcome (successful/unsuccessful)

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Successful configurations

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 Conclusion
• Three mechanism explain digital
infrastructure evolution: Innovation
Adoption, Scaling
Innovation

• A configurational view
– The interaction of mechanims Adoption
(and contextual conditions)
explain outcomes Scaling
– Loose architecture and distributed
control are triggers for the AIS
configuration, but not for AS

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 Summing-up
• Critical realism is a philosophy
– in line with positivism in assuming the existence of a real
world independent of our knowledge of it
– in line with interpretivism that our knowledge of this world is
socially constructed and fallible
• Critical realism is a also a methodological approach
– allowing for in-depth studies of contingent causality, through
generative mechanisms

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