Among the research methods we have seen so far, I would say that historical comparative research is the most difficult one. From my point of view, moving from field research (hanging out with some exotic group of people) to historical comparative research (“achieves located in a dusty, out of the way room of a specialized library”) seems like a big change.

In this chapter, I liked comparative research and secondary sources (similar to Chapter 11). However, I am not sure whether I understood Neuman when he said “most positivist research is not comparative”. When we conduct a positivist study, to a certain extent, don’t we compare our study to other current formal studies in order to show that what we are doing is in tune with other researchers’ attempts.

This chapter also made me think about our previous review. I think it is possible to consider the “Complementary Use of Modeling Techniques: Insights from Representation Theory and Practice” as a comparative research to some extent. There are conflicting ideas on ontological foundations of conceptual modeling between Wand\Weber and Wyssusek. In this context, the authors of that paper compare these conflicting approaches and try to justify their study based on this comparison. Furthermore, the authors also compare the results of this study with a similar, recent study to provide further confidence for the conclusion.