Paul Johannesson - An Introduction to Design Science

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is an introductory text on design science. It is intended to support both researchers and students in structuring, undertaking, and presenting design science work. The book does not presume any prior knowledge of design science.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of design science and outlines its relationships with empirical research. Chapter 2 discusses the various types and forms of knowledge that can be used and produced by design science research. Chapter 3 gives a brief overview of common empirical research strategies and methods. Chapter 4 introduces a method framework for supporting researchers in doing design science research as well as in presenting design science results. The framework includes five activities, which are described in detail in Chapts. 59. Chapter 10 discusses how to communicate design science results. Chapter 11 compares the proposed method framework with methods for systems development and shows how they can be combined. Chapter 12 discusses how design science relates to research paradigms, in particular to positivism and interpretivism. Finally, Chap. 13 discusses ethical issues and principles for design science research.

The book offers an introduction to design science, and almost all of the topics covered can be pursued to a much deeper level. In order to help readers to find their way through relevant works, the sections on further reading provide numerous pointers to the literature. Furthermore, complementary multi-media material can be found at the books web site at http://introtodesignscience.wordpress.com/ .

The book builds on established design science methods as well as recent work on presenting design science studies and ethical principles for design science. The book also offers novel instruments for visualising design science results, both in the form of process diagrams and through a canvas format.

The authors would like to thank Birger Andersson, Maria Bergholtz, Ilia Bider, Shengnan Han, Martin Henkel, Benkt Wangler, and Monica Winge for discussions and constructive feedback on earlier versions of this text. A special thanks to Gran Goldkuhl who has introduced us to new perspectives on design science and its role in work practices. Many thanks to Carol de Groot for her commitment to improving the language of the text and to Ralf Gerstner for supporting the entire book writing project.