Possibilities for cross-fertilization between interpretive approaches and other methods for analyzing information systems

This paper explores possibilities for cross-fertilization between interpretive approaches and other approaches for performing the initial analysis of an information system as part of an effort to redesign and improve it. The paper presents a hypothetical situation concerning the analysis of a loan approval system in a large bank. It assumes that ethnographers observed three systems analysis projects that applied different approaches in three identical banks. It uses hypothetical accounts of the three analysis efforts to propose likely differences in the process and in the results. These differences illustrate possible opportunities for cross-fertilization that might make each approach more powerful and reliable. The paper concludes that the most likely direction for cross-fertilization is from interpretive approaches to the other approaches. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the First International Workshop on Interpretive Approaches to Information Systems and Computing Research, SIG-IAM, Brunel University, July 25–27, 2002, to motivate discussion about the applications, strengths, and limitations of interpretive approaches and to help in the further development of systems analysis methods.