Process oriented research: opening new horizons for IS research

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce process oriented research and discuss its evolution and possibilities it opens up for the future of the Information Systems (IS) research. In contrast to commonly practiced entity oriented research, which assumes enduring, self-contained human/social and technological entities that change, more recent process oriented approaches assume that entities and everything that exists are in continuous flux, created and reconstituted through ongoing relational processes. Central to their differences is a radically different ontology. While entity oriented approaches have affinity with substance ontology, typically taken for granted, process oriented approaches are shifting towards process ontology, not well known and often misunderstood. This chapter contributes a better understanding of this ontological shift, providing a basis to appreciate the necessity for process oriented approaches and the opportunities and challenges they bring. The chapter also discusses how process oriented research can be applied and further developed to advance qualitative IS inquiries. It is written with a hope that both novice and more experienced researchers might be motivated and also feel allowed to expand their horizons and engage more deeply and more closely process oriented research in their quest for understanding and dealing with ever more dynamic, complex and uncertain digitization phenomena.