Epistemology refers to the philosophy of knowledge and aims to address central questions of how we create new knowledge. All research paradigms can be distinguished in terms of epistemological assumptions, that is, assumptions of how knowledge is produced in the respective paradigms. Design science research (DSR) is a research paradigm often used in technical disciplines for the creation of artefacts. DSR has roots in pragmatism, where beliefs and theories are evaluated based on the success of its practical application. New knowledge is produced in DSR when original artefacts are created to solve a problem. The epistemological assumption of DSR can then shortly be defined as ‘knowledge through making’. At its core, DSR is goal‑orientated and its practical approaches are focused on delivering the product according to straight‑forward processes ‑ without being affected by human factors. This process of acquiring new knowledge is efficient but not necessarily effective in terms of capturing all aspects of the experience of the practitioner. Frameworks exist for the creation of artefacts in DSR, but the process of knowledge generation is not explicit. The aim of the paper is to guide explicit knowledge generation in DSR. The research question is “How can we make the process of obtaining knowledge in DSR more explicit?” DSR Frameworks are iterative in nature and focus on the creation and evaluation of artefacts. There is an implicit assumption that reflection takes place in these iterations. Schön, author of The Reflective Practitioner, writes that new knowledge is produced through reflection during and after an event has occurred. He also states that you can only have a complete understanding of a problem through the dual process of reflection‑in‑action and reflection‑on‑action. We argue that this also holds true for artefact design and development in DSR. A reflective DSR practitioner can explicitly indicate how knowledge is produced in the design science research cycle. The effective use of reflective practice changes each individual phase of a DSR framework from goal‑orientated to problem‑orientated. Epistemologically, knowledge is then produced through ‘learning by doing’, which gives DSR a worldview that supports reflective practice. The paper promotes the incorporation of reflective practice in DSR and provides a demonstration thereof in an example on the preparation of IT students for their chosen career. 

Activity Theory is used in this paper to demonstrate the process of critical analysis of qualitative data from two case studies. The paper explains the elements of an activity system (the subject, object, outcome, mediating tools, rules, community and division of labour). Thereafter, practical examples from the work of two recent PhD students are used to show the importance of identifying and analysing activities that are found either in the introduction or the current use of information systems in business organisations. These examples highlight the applicability of Activity Theory in analysing data from projects of interest to Business Management whose topics and contexts are very different. The first focusses on the introduction of an Accounting Information System to microbusinesses in a low‑income community in South Africa and the second focusses on Information Security Management in Mobile Network Organisations in Uganda. The examples illustrate the value of Activity Theory as a lens and as a way of stimulating critical analysis. Activity Theory is known for its ability to identify reasons for failure or disappointing performance in existing situations by highlighting contradictions either between different activities, between an earlier version of an activity and a later version as the activity evolves, or within an activity (between the elements of that activity). However, as shown in the first example, it can also be seen as a useful tool when proposing a new project as a predictor of success. Despite the fact that data is typically qualitative, the analytical process related to Activity Theory can be structured, which assists novice researchers or those unaccustomed to interpretivist analysis to uncover insights that are not immediately obvious. Activity Theory is said to act as a lens in data analysis and is particularly useful in organisational sciences for the theorization of technology‑mediated organizational change. 

Many argue that technology brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution offers new opportunities for student learning. In order for educators to use technology with wisdom, in‑depth longitudinal research using rigorous methodological approaches is needed to understand the opportunities and challenges of including these technologies in management education. Therefore, educational researchers are challenged to design research projects to collect data from multiple sites over several years using various methodologies. This article examines strategies used by the researchers to design and implement a research project employing a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach that combined qualitative and quantitative data from two universities across several years. The research project was specifically designed to study learning using a business simulation. The article describes the research project including the various data collection points and analysis methods. The purpose of this article is to bridge the theory‑implementation gap enabling educational researchers to consider the design of a comprehensive research project as well as identifying key challenges and practical suggestions for using PAR.