The pervasiveness of IT in the 21st century encourages us to consider the ramifications of how we integrate IT into our lives. Films and music once had to be bought at physical stores, but can now be acquired in a matter of minutes with a few clicks of a mouse or finger taps on a screen. This integration is both broad and deep and its impact is observed at the individual, group, organisational, and societal levels. Within the field of IS, a broad range of philosophical perspectives have informed investigations into the discipline’s core phenomena of interest: the design, implementation, management and use of IS (Baskerville and Myers 2002). While initially focused on IS within the organisation, the discipline has broadened its scope to contexts only peripherally related to the organisation, but where the central phenomena concern an IT artefact or a collection of artefacts (Gregor 2006; Vessey et al. 2002). In doing so, researchers have investigated IS used outside the organisational context by individuals acting as consumers rather than employees. By examining access decisions about film and music, this research project fits into the broader scope of IS research, where individuals’ options are broadened by the proliferation of various IT. The technologies have created a new context for decision making that sits at the intersection of various academic disciplines. However, as this new context was enabled by technological developments, a strong claim can be made that this project sits within the realm of IS research.
In addition to broadening the scope of our phenomena of interest, we have also broadened the foci of our analyses and the research generated by the discipline reflects this development. Some scholars focus their analyses at the individual level (e.g., Davis 1989; Venkatesh et al. 2003), others at the group or team (e.g., DeSanctis and Gallupe 1987; Guinan et al. 1998), the business unit (e.g., Bass et al. 1999; Brown 1997), organisation (e.g., Bresnahan et al. 2002; Brynjolfsson and Hitt 1996) and even national levels (e.g., Chellappa and Shivendu 2003; Gopal and Sanders 1998). Fittingly, the diversity of methods for investigating the design, implementation, management and use of IT mirrors the various levels at which IT can be analysed (Vessey et al. 2002). In order to do this, scholars have adopted methods appropriate to their phenomena and level of analysis from disciplines across the social sciences (Baskerville and Myers 2002; Gregor 2006). Those examining markets tend to use techniques from economics. Those examining groups and organisations borrow from anthropology and sociology, and those examining individuals often borrow from psychology. In a sense, the other fields have served as reference disciplines for IS, providing appropriate
theoretical and methodological frameworks for our investigations. However, the discipline is not wholly reliant on other disciplines for theories and methods. The field has been successful in generating theories that have been adopted elsewhere in the social sciences as IT has become more pervasive. To take the most cited example, Davis’s (1989) Technology Acceptance Model is regularly used in marketing and other social science research.
Nonetheless, as a young discipline, IS is still reliant on other fields and in addition to borrowing methods and theories from elsewhere, scholars within the field have adopted the ontologies and epistemologies of their reference disciplines. As a result, scholars have contributed to a body of literature that is varied not only in its phenomena, foci, contexts, investigative methods and theories, but also in the ontologies and epistemologies that inform its investigations. The diversity of the field and the approaches to investigating the phenomena have led some to question the relevance of a discipline that is so diverse and led them to advocate for a narrower focus (Benbasat and Zmud 2003). However, other authors have praised the diversity of the field, suggesting that this is cause for celebration (e.g., Banville and Landry 1989; Robey 1996). Some have gone even further and advocated that the discipline should become trans-disciplinary as it develops (Galliers 2003).
The diversity of theoretical, methodological and phenomenological paradigms within the IS discipline necessitates that scholars wishing to contribute to the field position themselves relative to others and make their ontological and epistemological stances clear. Put another way, the diversity within IS research means that one cannot take another researcher’s ontology and epistemology for granted. Researchers such as Klein (2004) have noted that “We are split not only by specialising in different parts of the domain of inquiry of interest to IS as a discipline, but also by radically different methodological and philosophical orientations” (pp. 123-124).
This research project investigated individual decisions in the current socio-technical context where innovations and technologies have created opportunities for individuals to access products both legally, using traditional as well as new products and services, and through piracy, using illegitimate means. A substantial body of research on digital piracy has emerged over the last 20 years, and this research project takes this as its point of departure. However, in order to understand how this research project builds upon prior literature, it is necessary to know about my ontological and epistemological assumptions. Moreover, it is necessary to know how these assumptions are similar to and differ from those underlying the broader IS research literature. As noted by Robey
(2004), such “... philosophical concerns bear direct consequences for choices of research methodology and related issues such as the identity of information systems as an academic discipline” (p. 85). This chapter outlines the philosophical assumptions guiding the research reported in this thesis. By presenting the ontological and epistemological assumptions, the paradigm that informs the research is made clear to the reader. Building upon these assumptions, the approach for conducting the research is established and the reader is able to get a picture of how the various components of the research fit together.