Pre-blog theme 3

What is Theory?

According to Sutton and Staw there is conflict about what theory is and should be. (Sutton & Staw, 1995) However they say that there is more consensus about what it is not, where they point out five things that aren’t theories: references, data, list of variables, diagrams and hypothesis (or predictions). Even if these things can support and be useful in building of a theory they are not theory by them own. They say that theory is about connections among phenomena which explains why acts, events, structure and thoughts occur. (Sutton & Staw, 1995)

The other text written by Gregor tries to create a taxonomy in the field of Information Systems for how to classify theory. They are using five different classes which I’m going to explain shortly. The first class is Analysis it describes and analysis what it is. The second class Explaining explains why and how an event occurred. Third form is Predicting says what will be but not why. This is a point where the articles dealt with differ in opinion. However as Gregor mentions they didn’t found many articles in the application of their taxonomy in this class. The fourth class presented is Explaining and Prediction which both explains how, why and when but also are predicting what will be. The fifth and last kind is Design and Action it tells us how to do something.

To summarize what theory is we can say that it isn’t a clear definition available but that it is something that explains why something occurs, or not occurs. What is theory also differ depending on research field. 

Journal of Information Technology & Software Engineering.

I have choose to exam a paper from Journal of Information Technology & Software Engineering. It had according to their website an Impact Factor of 2,789 in 2014. The journal addresses the latest advancements in information technology and software engineering. It is using and Editorial Manager System for maintain quality in the review process, where review is made both by Editorial Board members and by outside experts. 

The article I have chosen from the journal is titled:” Designing a Bio-Capsule Secure Authentication System”. (Karthikayani K, 2015) This paper is presenting a secure way to get rid of the current mainstream authentication system with passwords. It is proposing a bio-capsule which is created through measurements of biometrics from the specific user. The article explains how we can build a bio-capsule to act as a secure authorization through combining fingerprints and iris measurements. 

The theory presented in the article is according to the taxonomy presented by Gregor (2006) almost entirely of the type Design and Action. The articles main goal is to present a method to make a secure authorization process independent of memorization of passwords (and usernames). Even if it is mainly presenting this design structure it is also explaining how different parts of the method works which is theory in the first class; Analysis. 

I think the article is showing how we could develop a Bio-capsule that can be a secure authentication. However the article doesn’t point out why this way should be superior to other methods. They are not presenting any problems/ disadvantages with the technique described. I think an application of the method would bring more depth to both why we should use this method and what can be problematic. However this might not be the aim of the article but I think it would have been a better article if they did this to convince the audience why their method should be applied. This might be posed to be a weakness of mainly using the theory form Design and action.

In conclusion I think the article uses theory in the form of Design and action and in some small extent Analysis. However I believe that it would have been better with applying more theory of Explanation and because they don’t have investigated an application using the method I think they could atleast have made predictions about how it would work.

Gregor, S. (2006). R Esearch E Ssay. MIS Quarterly, 30(3), 611–642. Retrieved from http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~petterog/Kurs/INF5220/NatureofTheoryMISQ.pdf

Karthikayani K, L. R. (2015). Designing a Bio-Capsule Secure Authentication System. Journal of Information Technology & Software Engineering, 05(01), 1–4. http://doi.org/10.4172/2165-7866.1000138

Sutton, R. I., & Staw, B. M. (1995). ASQ Forum What Theory is Not. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 371–384. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2393788