What design science is not

European Journal of Information Systems (2008) 17, 441–443. doi:10.1057/ejis.2008.45 Your new issue of EJIS opens with two opinion articles, each of which is a response to one of our previous opinion articles. First, I have invited Ray Paul to reply to the opinion article in the last number written by Bob Galliers. Second, we have a deeply analytical article written by Steven Alter in response to Ray Paul’s 2007 editorial ‘Challenges to information systems: time to change’. This issue is our only special issue for 2008, and is dedicated to Design Science Research. Most of the articles came to us from among the best papers presented at the 2008 DESRIST conference (Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology). The special issue is introduced by Robert Winter in his article ‘Design Science Research in Europe’. As this introduction explains, the community within information systems with an interest in design science research is engaged in a discourse of discovery. However, it cannot be said that there is yet broad agreement on terminology, methodology, evaluation criteria, etc. This discovery arena encompasses terms like design science, design research, science of design and design theory. Because there is some disagreement over what these terms mean, the conference (and as a consequence the special issue) adopted the term ‘Design Science Research’ as a broad term meant to encompass the various meanings of all of the others. (For the purposes at hand, I will use the term design science as shorthand for design science research.) This fundamental discourse is reminiscent of the long-running search for the meaning of the term ‘theory’. When it became clear that there would never be complete agreement among management scholars on exactly what sorts of things constitute theory, Robert Sutton and Barry Shaw suggested that since agreement seemed impossible on ‘what theory is’, the best that could be done would be to seek agreement on ‘what theory is not’ (Sutton & Staw, 1995). Perhaps those interested in design science should seek a similar model and agree on ‘what design science is not’.