El derecho humano al agua en el derecho comparado

Methodology selection was important and had been a challenge for this research. A literature review on IS research method has also been conducted and attached in appendix E. The research questions were the primary factors for choosing a suitable research method. All research questions are of exploration nature starting with “What”. The questions have particular interest in system development issues with technical focus, which would require special consideration.

3.2.1 Preliminary Evaluation

Positivistic Research

As from the literature review, a positivistic research is to gather evidences for formal propositions. It would not be appropriate for this research as the research was not to prove any propositions but to investigate and identify issues and solutions of system integrations in a government agency.

Interpretive Research

As from the review, an interpretive research is to try to give explanations or to

understand phenomena through accessing the meanings participants assign to them. As all the research questions listed above are started with “What”, they are designed to explore or understand phenomena for certain situations, in this search, they were

system integrations in a government agency. This research should be an interpretive one.

Critical Research

As from the review, critical research is to aim for making changes and helping to eliminate the causes of unwarranted alienation. From the research questions, there is no intension of making any change on any things, such as system models or

development methods. This research was mainly aimed for understanding system integrations and hence would not be a critical research.

Quantitative & Qualitative Research

Quantitative Research

As from the review, quantitative research is a process of collecting of numerical data in order to explain, predict and/or control phenomena of interest. The research target would be issues related to system integration within the selected government agency, there would not be any large quantity of numerical data involved, which had ruled out the possibility of using quantitative method for this research.

Qualitative Research

As from the review, in qualitative research, data is collected in various ways including observation, interviews and questionnaires, documents and text. Researchers would then explain, predict and/or control phenomena of interest. The research questions were clearly for understanding and explaining issues around system integration, which had led to the selection of qualitative method for this research.

3.2.1 Prospective Methods

From the preliminary evaluation above, it was concluded the methodology for this research should be an interpretive research of a qualitative type. According to a paper by M. R. de Villiers (2005), research methods fell into this category include

observation, surveys, questionnaires, interviews, case study, focus group, ethnography, documents and artefacts studies. The author also proposed another three main type of interpretive research methods for IS, they were development research, action research, and grounded theory. In another paper by Robert L. Glass, V. Ramesh, Iris Vessey (2004), the authors had done a survey of research method in Computer Science (CS), Software Engineer (SE) and Information System (IS), those methods used by majority

of IS research were: field study, laboratory experiment, conceptual analysis, and case study. All these would be methods for this research, but they are of a large number and unrealistic to be evaluated one by one. In the following section, a selection of those methods that had been considered for the research are described.

Interview

An interview is a conversation during which one person (interviewer) asks questions and another person (interviewee) answers them, it would also happen between multiple people. It is a direct and effective way to understand the interviewees and issues related to them. It has been widely used in IS research.

The advantages of interviews related to this research would be:

1) It would enable the researcher to engage with interviewees directly and have direct feelings of the issues.

2) It would allow interviewees to explain issues in details and elaborate any opinion they would have.

3) It would allow the researcher to explore further on the issues based on previous answers.

4) It is a quick and direct way to understand complex issues, especially those related to human behaviours, organization and management.

However the disadvantages are:

1) Interviewees must be carefully selected and be available.

2) A reasonable number of interviewees are needed to ensure the validity of the findings and the research.

3) The interviewees have to be able to recall details of projects that would have happened some time ago.

Interview was regarded to be ineffective for this research, as the staff turnover in the IS department of the agency has been high. Although the researcher had tried and

managed to make contact with a few former staff members involved in the projects, sufficient number of interviewees could not be found. It is essential there are sufficient interviewees to ensure the validity of the study. The researcher decided not to choose it for this research.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire uses a form containing a set of questions that the respondent would choose to answer and return them to the researcher; it would be paper-based or online based. It is normal used for a survey with interest in particular areas and aiming for acquiring statistical data or as a lead for further research in details. It has been widely used in IS research, for example, the widely quoted Standish Group reports were compiled based on questionnaire and the analysis of them.

The advantages of questionnaire related to this research would be:

1) The data collection would be in a standard format and easy for analysis 2) It would be quick and effective to gather data from a large number of

respondents.

However the disadvantages are:

1) Research questions regarding the technical issues would be difficult to address in questionnaire.

2) The number of the respondents would be hard to predict but a sufficient number of them is crucial to ensure the validity of the research.

Although questionnaire would be an effective way to gather information and to involve more people than interview would. As the target of the research was a selected

government agency, using questionnaire still would not produce sufficient data for meaningful analysis. The researcher did not choose it as the research method. Grounded Theory

Grounded theory is to develop theory that is grounded in data that has been systematically gathered and analysed. It is an inductive, theory discovery methodology, with which the researcher to develop theories from empirical

observations or data. The emphasis of this method is continuing interaction between data collection and analysis. It has been widely used in IS research for developing context-based, process-oriented descriptions and explanations of the phenomenon as argued by Myers, Michael D. (1997). It was also strongly recommended by M. R. de Villiers (2005).

1) It would produce knowledge that is irrefutable as it only comes out of data on the ‘ground’.

2) It would lead to in-depth study of the issues as the researcher is fully engaged all the time.

3) It would combine with various data collection techniques and data analysis methods.

However the disadvantages are:

1) The researcher must be engaged on the ‘ground’ where the issues are during the research.

2) The researcher must use effective methods to collect and analyse data. Grounded theory would have been a very useful method for answering the questions for this research and had been seriously considered. However, the researcher must be able to present in the actual integration development process and directly related to project staff to do a ground theory research. The researcher could not choose the research method because the integration projects that could be selected for the research all happened in the past.

Case Study

As defined by Robert K. Yin (2002), a case study is an empirical inquiry for

investigating a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context. It was argued to be one of the most common approaches in IS research. The design of case study would be very flexible as it was found in the literature review. Case study would be used for positivistic research as well as for interpretive one. It was argued by Michael D. Myers (1997) the case study research method is particularly well suited for IS research.

The advantages of case study related to this research would be:

1) It would allow the research to study the issues within their real life context. 2) It would allow the researcher to explore issues and identify answers with

almost no constraint. However the disadvantages are:

2) The researcher must have in-depth context knowledge and be able to understand the research issues in real life settings.

The researcher decided to choose case study for this research because the advantages would be very beneficial for studying integration projects in a selected organization, and the disadvantages would be mitigated by careful design and rigorous validation of the case study. More reasons for the selection are further elaborated in the following sections.

3.2.3 Selection of Case Study Method

After the evaluation, it was decided that a multiple case study of interpretive research of qualitative type would be the most suitable research methodology. Apart from the discussion in the literature review regarding the general advantages of case studies in information system, additional reasons for choosing it for this research are:

1) The research project is to investigate integrations of information systems in a government department; hence it is in the information system field. In a paper by Orit Hazzan, Yael Dubinsky, Larisa Eidelman, Victoria Sakhnini, Mariana Teif (2006), they proposed to use qualitative research in computer science education. What they argued in their paper is also applicable to information system research. Target objects of qualitative research approach are usually social phenomena, people, process and technologies. As system integrations within a large

government agency are complex issues, and the result of the research is unknown, a qualitative research will help in the two directions at the least. First, qualitative description may help to expand our findings, as qualitative research requires us to collect data from multiple channels, such as documents, observation, interviews and experiments. A qualitative research can open up much more options to collect data and do research than a quantitative research can. Second, a qualitative approach allows us to deepen our findings, as we can choose to concentrate on details of selected process and aspect of the issue. Such approach may lead to in- depth knowledge and understanding of the issue.

2) This would be a multiple-case research in the targeted government agency to identify the challenges and solutions of system integrations and applications of

XML. As argued by John Gerring (2007), case study could be defined as intensive study of single or a small number of units for the purpose of understanding a large class of similar units. As opposite of quantitative research or pure science

experiment, single or limited number of case study allows in-depth investigation of certain social phenomenon and generation of theories that would be useful in general circumstances. It was even argued that the famous evolution theory was the result of some careful case studies such as sets of fossil on certain species by Darwin.

3) In a paper by Bente Anda, Kai Hansen (2006), they used case study on the application of UML in legacy development. They argued that case studies were important if we were to understand the actual practice of software development, and such understanding is an essential prerequisite for the research which to aim for helping the practice. In this research, only by conducting a multi-case study in the real-life setting in the government department, are we able to understand what would be the core issues of system integration and the solutions which might or might not include XML applications.

4) Reasons for choosing case study also include consideration of the questions of research, control over the variables and targeted phenomena. As pointed out by Robert K Yin (2002) in his book, case study is particular suitable for finding answers for ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. In our research, most questions fall into these two categories. Case study is suitable for research, which there is little control over the variables, in our research the target is a government agency running on its own course without any control from the researcher. It was also argued that case study prefers real-life and contemporary phenomena over others. The department setting is current and for real, it is exact match to what is described in Yin’s theory for an ideal case study target environment. In another paper by Dewayne E. Perry, Susan Elliott Sim, Steve Easterbrook (2006), They argued case study was particularly appropriate when we seek to understand how and why technology is used or not in contemporary settings, and where we have little or no control over the variables. In this research, all the case happened in the past, the researcher has no control on any of the integration variables including the technology of the solution, the systems’ platforms, users’ requirements and other

setting of the integration or the agency.

5) Multiple cases were chosen because the research needed to identify the pattern and the real issues behind the scenes in a numbers of different situations and scenarios. As argued by John Gerring (2007), weak relationship was difficult to observe in a single instance. With multiple cases, the researcher could have a better picture of issues arising from a collection of integration projects. Multiple cases and different stages of a case can also provide comparison for different challenges and their solutions; they are important arguments and foundation for the research findings and conclusions.

6) Many theories and papers identified in the literature used the case study method to research on system integration, including critical success factor investigation. For example, in a paper by Wing Lam (2005), the author did a case study in a large finance institute to investigate CSFs for system integration. It first validated a model derived from literature with the case; then the author developed a new CSF model for EAI and used a case from a large finance institute to investigate further. The author argued case study analysis was a well-known approach for exploratory, theory-building research, although it did not always lead to generalization, it would provide rich data and grounding in empirical reality, it was well suitable for

investigative research. Many other authors from the review had reflected similar views.

7) The researcher has worked for the agency for many years and has in-depth

knowledge of the organization, its information systems and issues around them. As the research has been supported by the management of the agency, the researcher was able to used rich source of document and source code for the research, which is normally not available for such research. The context knowledge of the

researcher and the availability of various data source would have provided invaluable benefits to the case study.