Method construction - a core approach to organizational engineering

Dominated by the behavioral science approach for a long time, information systems research increasingly acknowledges design science as a complementary approach. While primarily information systems instantiations, but also constructs and models have been discussed quite comprehensively, the design of methods is addressed rarely. But methods appear to be of utmost importance particularly for organizational engineering. This paper justifies method construction as a core approach to organizational engineering. Based on a discussion of fundamental scientific positions in general and approaches to information systems research in particular, appropriate conceptualizations of 'method' and 'method construction' are presented. These conceptualizations are then discussed regarding their capability of supporting organizational engineering. Our analysis is located on a meta level: Method construction is conceptualized and integrated from a large number of references. Method instantiations or method engineering approaches however are only referenced and not described in detail.