Theme 3: Research and theory

1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
I like one of the explanations given in the first text, the one by Gregor in The Nature of Theory in Information Systems. It said that theory is for providing explanations and predictions, and is testable. I would say that theory is what explains why something occurs, theory is an attempt to knowledge in the best way we can. The second article, What Theory is Not written by Sutton and Staw, contained exactly what the name of the article indicated and it provided some interesting points for writing theories. To explain it to a first year university student - theory is not references, it is not data, neither diagrams nor hypothesis. Theory is to explain why something occurs, and to just show data or representations of data is not enough. To just drop references is not theory, without logical arguments how the theory is relevant, others' theories are not bringing something to the table for your own research. Hypothesis are for explaining what is expected to happen, but again - it doesn’t provide with the answer why it happens. Theory answers to the question “why?”.

2. Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?

To be able to describe the theories I’ve come across, I will tell about the article first. I’ve read an article called “The Benefits of Facebok “Friends”: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites”, written by Nicole B. Ellison et al. The article was from 2007 and explored whether Facebook creates or formes social capital among college users. This includes researching if Facebook is a platform for only “offline” relationships or if it’s being used to form new relationships, but also how the use of the social network affects the users pshycologically.

The article has an explanationary character, which according to the description by Gregor “provides explanations but does not aim to predict with any precision. There are no testable propositions”. Early on in the article, the authors define what is meant by the term "social capital" and gives background to what social networks are and also to Facebook. It presents the methods of the study, the result and then discuss why the results looked the way it did. It doesn’t state that the study’s result gives an absolute answer to the question formulation, it rather speaks in terms of “it appears to be”, “one explanation is”, “suggests” and “may play a role”.

3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?

The benefit is that the explanation theory is answering the questions “how?” and “why?”. The subject that has been researched gets an explanation. The limitations of this theory though, can according to Weber be if it contributes with new or interesting insights in the area. It is also unclear if the information from the study can be used further on and actually used again.