The starting point of a researcher's methodological choice within information systems is not so much a problem of how many methods we employ or if those are of a quantitative or a qualitative nature, but the ability to identify the philosophical and theoretical assumptions which leads to the choice of the appropriate methodology. In practice, despite the recognition of the virtues and the role of qualitative methods in information systems research, explicit institutional barriers and implicit functionalistic assumptions within the field have prevented much progress in their application. Qualitative Research in Information Systemsoff as qualitative research. Using qualitative methods implies allowing and acknowledging the subjectivity of the research process, which should be looked upon as a strength rather than as a weakness.

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The design of an appropriate paradigm for collaboration ultimately stands or falls on the question of whether human users are able to cooperate effectively with it. In this work, we begin with a paradigm of interaction in which human collaborators have shown themselves facile. This paradigm is based on the formal meeting protocol commonly known as parliamentary procedure or Robert's Rules of Order (RRO). These rules are at the same time descriptive and prescriptive of effective meeting behavior. Electronic meeting systems, likewise, have to manage time and communicative resources, maintain logs, and produce artifacts that constitute the fruit of the collaboration. The technology disclosed here facilitates the generation of coauthored artifacts (documents, designs, project plans, etc.) as the direct outcome of the collaborative process. The efficacy of rulemitigated collaboration technology is based on four major components: an extended parliamentary procedure rule set, a scoping policy and set of application programming interfaces, an object-based client-server architecture, and an M-Net synchronous meeting environment.

This paper addresses implementation from the point of view of DSS construction and installation, and highlights the challenges faced when developing DSS in light of rapidly changing business environment and technological advances. In view of the tremendous interest in the Internet, the paper suggests that the Internet has inherent characteristics that are wellsuited to supporting distributed work and distributed decision making. The paper then presents TCBWorks as a first generation DSS built for the Internet, and hopes that through sharing the experiences and lessons learnt, the potential and pitfall of this technology and its fit to distributed decision making can be explored, thereby guiding further research in this area.

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