Doing critical research in information systems: some further thoughts

Abstract. In her paper in this volume, McGrath argues for more explicit methodological accounts of critical research in information systems. In this short paper, I voice my concern that emphasis on methodological accountability may well inhibit criticality, and I argue for the need to recognize that researchers bring into their investigation tacit knowledge, emotions, and moral and political convictions that cannot be rationalized in methodological descriptions. Moreover, I suggest that critical research should maintain suspicion to instrumental reasoning and that it should place its effort to producing knowledge on an alternative agenda of substantive social issues by the interplay of theory and empirical evidence.