200 Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 11 INTRODUCTION More than ever before, academic research in Information Technology and Systems (ITS) is emphasizing the importance of its application to real-world problems. Even the best theoretical model fails to make an adequate contribution if its applicability cannot be demonstrated in real- world settings. To understand why, we opine that academicians (particularly in ITS) are increas- ingly relying on interactions with organizations to identify “interesting” problems that offer Roger Blake University of Massachusetts Boston, USA Steven Gordon Babson College, USA G. Shankaranarayanan Babson College, USA The Role of Case-Based Research in Information Technology and Systems ABSTRACT Increasingly, academic research in Information Technologies and Systems (ITS) is emphasizing the ap- plication of research models and theories to practice. In this chapter, the authors posit that case-based research has a signifcant role to play in the future of research in ITS because of its ability to generate knowledge from practice and to study a problem in context. Understanding context—social, organiza- tional, political, and cultural—is mandatory to learning and effectively adopting best practices. The authors describe some examples of case-based research to highlight this point of view. They further identify key topics and themes based on examining the abstracts from prominent case-based research over the past decade, analyzing their trends, and hypothesizing what the role of case-based research will be in the coming decades. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2491-7.ch011