The element of surprise: appreciating the unexpected in (and through) actor networks

This paper seeks to reflect on the importance of surprise in qualitative research on information‐technology initiatives. It also aims to consider how the use of social theory in the context of surprise can help to shape and guide field methods, data transformation, and substantive findings.

The discussion is personal and reflective. The paper considers the significance of surprise surrounding events within two of the authors' own research projects. It also reports on a perusal of the literature for explicit treatments of surprise.

Surprise in qualitative research is twofold. First, the research subjects experience surprise; indeed, surprise appears to be quite prevalent in IT‐related projects. Second, researchers too can be surprised in the course of their own work. Where these two kinds of surprise come together, one can find especially fruitful occasions for insight. In the authors' own projects, the element of surprise helped establish their respective commitments to actor‐network theory (ANT) as an effective approach for recognizing and understanding the crucial events in the emergence and evolution of information systems projects. Based on a literature search, the paper can add a third category of surprise to the first two: the authors' surprise at finding that surprise, despite its practical prevalence, remains largely unrecognized in information systems research.

The value of the paper lies in calling forth the element of surprise as an important kind of research event that deserves qualitative researchers' explicit attention. It also points toward the usefulness of social theory in systematizing the researcher's response to surprise.