The Need for Systems Development Capability in Design Science Research – Investigating the Role of An Innovation Lab as Part of The Academy

Information systems as an artefact-oriented discipline require a strong interaction between researches, developers and users regarding, design of, development of, and the study of the use of digital artefacts in social settings. During latter years performing research in a design science research spirit has gained increasing interest. In larger scale design research endeavours access to systems development capabilities becomes necessary. Such a unit, an InnovationLab, was established in 2006 in a university setting in Sweden. In this paper we are investigating the five years of experience from running this InnovationLab. Our findings point to an innovation lab being valuable for research in general and especially for design science research. However, in order to balance the business of an innovation lab it will be necessary to provide services for other stakeholders (such as administrative units, teachers, and students) as means for developing systems development capability aimed for supporting researchers.

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