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70 MADSEN AND KAUTZ
tract type, etc.), the emergent nature of the development process and product, and the long-term
social relations between, and high involvement of, a few influential actors. However, despite these
similarities, the emergent methods unfolded as two fundamentally different sequences of change.
In the Multimedia case, the emergent method unfolded as a dialectical process, where conflict
regarding how to perform the development process was the major driver of change. In the Web
case, the emergent method took the form of a teleological process, where shared assumptions
and ongoing (re)formulation of goals for the information system under development were the
main generative motor of change. We conclude that how the two methods emerged and why they
emerged differently can be explained with reference to power struggles and conflict resolution in
the Multimedia case versus consensus and social construction of goals in the Web case.
The research presented in this chapter points to the need for theories and frameworks that go
beyond the “messy” surface phenomena of method emergence in practice. The demonstrated
theoretical framework is a step toward a more conceptual understanding and can be applied by
both researchers and practitioners to read a situation before, during, and after an ISD project and
to identify and leverage the drivers of emergent methods.
In this chapter and at this stage of theory development, the two empirical cases were selected
and analyzed due to their apparent likeness, in particular, that both projects concerned contract-
regulated university–company collaborations. However, more research is needed to overcome this
deliberately imposed limitation. Future work will therefore involve the analysis and comparison of
more and more purely industry-based cases to refine the theoretical ideas and to identify patterns
in the underlying forms and drivers of ISD method emergence that can be avoided or exploited
depending on situational factors, actors, and their interactions.

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