In another one of his essays¹, Kuhn tells us that, for researchers, “There can be no set of rules of choice adequate to dictate desired individual behavior in the course of their careers.”  So, if the objective/logical side of research is not enough for us to do research, then what else do we need?  Kuhn says: “…take a group of the ablest available people with the most appropriate motivation, train them in some science and in the specialties relevant to the choice at hand; imbue them with the value system, the ideology, current in their discipline…; and finally, let them make the choice.”  In other words, good research is not only a function of logic and objective procedures; good research is also a function of the sociology of the researchers who use the logic and objective procedures.

Now, most of us in IS aren’t philosophers of science or historians of science, like Thomas Kuhn.  So what might be a good way of making some of Kuhn’s concepts more concrete for us?