On the 'Impossibility' of Critical and Emancipatory Design Science Research

摘要

Popper's 'piecemeal social change' is an approach manifesting itself in science as critical and emancipatory (C&E) research. It is concerned with incrementally removing manifested inequalities to achieve a 'better' world. Although design science research in information systems seems to be a prime candidate for such endeavors, respective projects are clearly underrep-resented. This can be attributed to the demand of justifying research ex post by an evaluation in practical settings. From the perspective of C&E research it is questionable if powerful actors grant access to their organization and support projects which ultimately challenge their position. Within the present inquiry it is argued that the idea of Lewis's 'possible worlds' can be leveraged as basis for C&E design science research. It is suggested that a theoretical approach, based on a synthesis of justificatory knowledge and 'organizational options', can complement the practical oriented design science research focus by allowing to design technical systems not only for factually existing contexts, but also for theoretically grounded, more desirable structures.