A Preliminary Account of a Case Study Approach to Understanding Factors that Shape the Requirements Process in an NHS Hospital

The research we are currently conducting concerns a large NHS hospital in Yorkshire. Our research goals are to apply theories of social behaviour relevant to IT to seek to explain the factors which, in this hospital, shape the structure and process involved in obtaining the requirements for an information system. The theories in which we are currently interested are: (1) the four paradigms for developing information systems (Hirschheim, Klein and Lyytinen 1995), (2) metaphors of organisation (Morgan 1997), and (3) structuration theory (Giddens 1979). We are carrying out the research using an interpretivist approach (Walsham 1993). No results are available from the research as yet: we only show our intended approach.

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