A discourse about the ‘right' paradigm for doing research that is relevant as well as rigorous can be observed in many, if not most disciplines of business research. Based on a characterization of design-oriented research, the discussion in various businessresearch disciplines is summarized. Special emphasis is given to the Information Systems field because the paradigm discourse in this field has recently been carried out broadly, explicitly and including e.g. editors of leading global journals. The crossdisciplinaryconcept of evidence-based design is presented, and a framework is proposed that allows to integrate explanatory as well as design-oriented design activities and artifacts. At the end, there is no ‘right' paradigm, but a need to create synergies between diverse paradigms, communities and sub-disciplines.
