Using a Process Philosophy Perspective in Information Systems Research: Principles of Creative Evolution

What if reality fundamentally consists in events and processes rather than things? All actions are situated within processes, influenced by a broader set of preceding and concomitant flows of digital information and other actions. This paper offers a process philosophy perspective that sees things as merely constellations of processes. Decisions within these processes, moreover, must usually be made within time constraints. Rather than a view of time, such as in process theories, as being tied to notions of entities, variance, or—at best—the flow of things, process philosophy sees time as duration: tied to consciousness, sensemaking, and free will. While principles for conducting positivist, interpretive, and critical research have been widely discussed in the IS literature, criteria and principles for a process philosophy perspective are lacking. In the context of Bergson and Whitehead’s creative evolution process philosophy, this paper proposes a set of five principles for the conduct of process philosophy research in information systems: (1) heterogeneous multiplicity, (2) immanence in a process, (3) experience over abstraction, (4) consciousness in duration, and (5) a relational ontology. We describe these in detail and discuss some potential applications, methodological issues, and related difficulties in the principles’ implementation for IS research. We highlight their value for requirements engineering in large-scale projects.