Rigor vs. relevance
The theme of ECIS 2007 was “Relevant rigor - rigorous relevance” which connects to the relevance debate among (mostly) American IS researchers.
At a first glance, you could assume that rigor and relevance are equally important. But the theme actually says different. Rigor is just a side contraint. Of course, research has to be rigor in order to be research. But not for the sake of rigor. So, according to the ECIS theme, above everything in IS research should be relevance. It is the main guideline of IS research. So we should be rigorously relevant. The only question is: relevant to whom?
I have taken notes of two presentations in the IS research methods track which propose solutions on how to operationalize the ECIS theme.
