  Popper's (1967) 'piecemeal social change' is an approach manifesting itself
in science as critical and emancipatory (C&E) research. It is concerned with
incrementally removing manifested inequalities to achieve a 'better' world.
Although design science research in information systems seems to be a prime
candidate for such endeavors, respective projects are clearly underrepresented.
This position paper argues that this is due to the demand of justifying
research ex post by an evaluation in practical settings. From the perspective
of C&E research it is questionable if powerful actors grant access to their
organization and support projects which ultimately challenge their position. It
is suggested that theory development based on a synthesis of justificatory
knowledge is a complementary approach that allows designing realizable
responses to C&E issues---the design of 'possible worlds' (Lewis, 1986) as
basis for C&E design science research.
