Organizational Systems and Technology

This minitrack provides a venue for design science researchers (DSR) to share their work and interact with likeminded scholars. DSR is a prominent form of engaged scholarship, which combines inquiry with a potential for action and intervention.  DSR may be viewed as having three related subfields, from which we welcome submissions:

• Science of design, which focuses on creating ‘new-to-the-world’ artifacts. We try to provide an outlet for researchers doing novel artifact driven research in information systems, but also in other fields such as industrial engineering or service design.
• Design theory studies, which focus on the development of theories and design principles concerned with creating new or improved systems based on kernel or grand theories.
• Design Research, which focuses on the study of how designers conduct design activities, e.g., science of design research. Papers in this subfield could potentially come not only from IS, but also from architecture and design studies.

All three subfields are often (but not always) tightly engaged with design practice.  Accordingly, they frequently embody participative forms of research that rest on the advice and perspectives of multiple stakeholders in understanding a complex social problem.

While specific interest is placed upon DSR and design theorizing with respect to the three subfields described above, the minitrack welcomes submissions from the entire range of alternatives that deal with the question of integrating inquiry with the potential of creating and shaping alternative futures.  Such work extends the boundaries of human and organizational capabilities by theorizing and/or creating new and innovative artifacts. The building and application of these designed artifacts produces knowledge and understanding of a problem domain and its solutions, which is then potentially transferable to other domains. In design science, the engagement is primarily focused on the design and evaluation of an artifact; learning through building with the aim to generate theoretical insights. This is often an iterative research process and sometimes capitalizes on learning via both researcher and subject expertise within the context of the participants’ social system. It can be a clinical method that puts IS researchers in an active supporting role for advanced practice. To this end we also seek implementable and grounded action frames for engaging in such generalizable inquiries.

Accordingly, the scope of this mini track includes research contributions that arise from all three subfields of DSR described above.  This includes engaged approaches, studies of the practical use of DSR approaches, the use of such approaches to expand theory, and conceptual foundations that significantly and cogently expand our understanding of the epistemology and methodology of such approaches and their philosophical underpinnings.  These include:

• Developing design artifacts and design theories
• Evaluating and testing design artifacts and design theories
• Different approaches to the design of artifacts and design theorizing
• Design as a creative act in development for systems etc.
• Advancing theory and practice in designing for systems etc.
• Design experiences in organizational systems and technology etc.
• Concrete design projects and their outcomes

We will consider papers from the minitrack that advance knowledge in these areas, subject to another round of review(s) and some additional contribution following the Communications of the Association of Information Systems (CAIS) norms and standards to be considered for the Digital Design department of the journal.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Tuure Tuunanen (Primary Contact)
University of Jyväskylä
tuure@tuunanen.fi

Richard Baskerville
Georgia State University and Curtin University
baskerville@gsu.edu

Matti Rossi
Aalto University
matti.rossi@aalto.fi

For a long time, trust has been seen as pivotal to effectively and efficiently manage novel digital technologies. Researchers have approached advanced technologies as tools augmenting human cognition and requiring the human trust to be adopted. Advanced technologies can also be seen as mediums supporting collaboration and related communication, and more recently also as broader systems where technologies, developers, users, and partners have various relationships impacting technology adoption and use. Increasingly, in addition to multi-referent and multi-level views on trust in advanced technologies, temporal issues and process research can also enlighten information systems research on the role of trust in advanced technology contexts.

Trust is the positive expectation of the conduct of the referent in a specific situation involving perceived risk or vulnerability. But does trust remain relevant in the advanced technology contexts with surmounting challenges? What role does trust play in addressing digital responsibility? Is trust necessary and or sufficient to address the dark side and the critical ethical, legal, and moral dilemmas of advanced digital technologies? Can trust have downsides and result in misspecifications? Whose trust matters, what type of trust and trust processes, how, why, and when? How does trust change over time? Some scholars argue that the system- or institution-based trust provided by digital technologies at least partly replaces the need for interpersonal trust. Digital platforms such as Uber and Airbnb already enhance trust between unfamiliar individuals, and blockchains automate contracts with unknown partners. The opaque nature of some advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, which are often perceived to be “black-boxes” that are difficult to understand for users and managers alike, makes trusting them challenging. Artificial intelligence has been described as invisible, inscrutable, and constantly evolving. How is trust in artificial intelligence context different? What trust questions should be raised but are missing or ignored in the context of advanced technologies?

We need more research to increase our understanding about whether trust matters and how and why at different levels of analysis, i.e., individuals, teams, organizations, meta-organizations, and society. We welcome research that considers any advanced technology context. We also welcome historical studies that examine trust with past advanced technologies (perhaps more mechanically advanced than digitally) (e.g., trust and misinformation at the era of Gutenberg printing press). We welcome papers that theoretically or empirically advance our understanding by addressing advances in trust research and digital technologies in organizations. Papers can use any acceptable methodology and theory. We welcome papers at any level of analysis and encourage papers that take a cross-level and/or interdisciplinary perspective. We also welcome theoretical papers as well as those that deploy novel methodologies or develop novel methodologies or constructs relevant to trust research.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Sirkka Jarvenpaa (Primary Contact)
University of Texas at Austin
Sirkka.jarvenpaa@mccombs.utexas.edu

Gene Alarcon
Air Force Research Laboratory
gene.alarcon.1@us.af.mil

Kirsimarja Blomqvist
LUT University
Kirsimarja.blomqvist@lut.fi

Mareike Möhlmann
Bentley University
mmoehlmann@bentley.edu

The emergence and recent popularity of ChatGPT, Bard, DALL-E, midjourney, and Stable Diffusion show the potential of generative AI. Software tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) methods are now used within a variety of organizational routines and practices, creating new types of human-machine configurations and playing an increasing role in the context of contemporary organizing. Application areas include management decision making, manufacturing, and design and creativity. These tools use machine learning models to generate predictive insights. They act increasingly autonomously—i.e., with little or no user intervention—and constitute new types of material agency in the context of contemporary organizing.

As organizations become more reliant on AI tools, they need new management theories, frameworks, and methodologies that can help them understand the implications of using these tools—both at the level of organizational structures and practices. AI based agents often rely on complex internal processing and their behavior is less predictable than that of the types of IT artifacts. This opens up a number of problem areas with regards to managing and organizing AI tools. For example,

• What is the impact of using AI on those processes that have traditionally been seen as being entirely driven and controlled by humans? What are early examples of such use?
• In particular, how can AI be useful in group and collective creative processes? Is it proving useful?
• How does coordination shift as AI tools are used, and what new types of organizational hierarchies and structures are emerging?
• How do power relations change, and how do different organizational actors use these new technologies to reshape power relations?
• How can the organization evaluate the ethical implications of deployed AI tools? How can they regulate AI tools?
• What are relevant KPIs and metrics for assessing the effectiveness of AI applications?
• How should an organization manage, staff and coordinate AI development teams?

This minitrack intends to provide a platform for thought and discussion in this important and emergent field within information systems and IT research. It aims to contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms through which humans organize together with AI-based tools as well as the process organizations use to develop them. For this minitrack, we invite conceptual as well as empirical contributions using different methodological approaches (qualitative, quantitative, design- oriented, simulation, etc.). We think there is a need for case studies, trace data analysis, and ethnographies. We would prefer theory development pieces to frameworks and lit reviews. In addition to the questions raised above, potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• AI & coordination: How does AI change the way humans coordinate?
• AI & crypto: How can smart contracts and DAOs create new organizational forms? Are there interesting examples in enterprises? In the public sphere?
• AI & power: How does AI affect corporations, markets, and peer production structures? Who is capturing= value?
• AI & governance: Who runs the technology? What does the technology run?
• AI & software development: How to manage AI project and deployment risk?
• AI as coder: how well do co-pilot and other tools work in terms of increasing programmer productivity?
• AI & creativity: How can AI be creative? How can humans and AI be co-creators? How does and should attribution work when AI synthesizes based on human-created artifacts?
• AI & design: What has AI designed? Can it and should it design itself?
• AI & innovation: How does AI foster or corrupt innovation?
• AI & news work: How does AI change news and civic engagement?
• AI & crowds: What do crowds do for machine learning, and what’s in it for the crowds?
• AI & organizational routines: How does AI change the nature of work?

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Jeffrey Saltz (Primary Contact)
Syracuse University
jsaltz@syr.edu

Aron Lindberg
Stevens Institute of Technology
aron.lindberg@stevens.edu

Jeff Nickerson
Stevens Institute of Technology
jnickers@stevens.edu

Stefan Seidel
University of Liechtenstein
stefan.seidel@uni.li

Blockchain, the technology underlying cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, has been receiving considerable attention in recent years, as new use cases in the public and private sector have been identified. What started as a solution to the double-spending problem in Bitcoin, is being explored as the backbone technology in scenarios where a trusted third party (e.g., a notary or a bank) is normally required. Using this technology, transactions are securely registered on a data structure (aka the ledger) replicated across a network of peers that validate the entries using a consensus mechanism. New records are cryptographically linked to existing ones, rendering them virtually immutable. The resulting auditability and transparency have been leveraged in proposing innovative solutions to land registries, to stop the spread of conflict diamonds, to fight the counterfeiting of medication, to make supply chains less opaque, and, generally, to promote new financial services.

Additionally, blockchains can also store and enforce the execution of algorithmic code know as smart contracts – pieces of code that are executed automatically once predetermined conditions are met – further reducing uncertainty and promoting confidence among stakeholders that would not normally trust each other. Nevertheless, we are still in the early days of blockchain adoption, compared by some to the introduction of the World Wide Web itself. Then, as now, few if any could predict the full extent of the disruptive innovations that would emerge fostered by this emerging technology. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Innovative uses of Blockchain technology
• Blockchain case studies, applications, and implementations
• Blockchain and privacy, security, and identity
• Blockchain and digital transformation
• Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
• Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)
• Decentralized Applications
• Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
• Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
• Tokenization
• The social and organizational impact of blockchain
• Barriers and enablers in blockchain adoption
• Blockchain and business model innovation
• Regulatory frameworks for Blockchain
• Governance and Blockchain
• Verticals using Blockchain (financial, healthcare, energy, transportation, others)
• Blockchain in e-government and public administration
• Blockchain and the Internet-of-Things
• Blockchain in education
• Blockchain in solving migration and refugee issues
• Blockchain-driven marketplaces
• Uses and challenges of smart contracts
• Technology and infrastructure issues in Blockchain
• Blockchain and Metaverse

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Marinos Themistocleous (Primary Contact)
University of Nicosia
themistocleous.m@unic.ac.cy

Paulo Rupino da Cunha
University of Coimbra
rupino@dei.uc.pt

Maria Papadaki
British University in Dubai
maria.papadaki@buid.ac.ae

Already for several decades, organizations strive to better understand, analyze, improve, and automate their business processes. However, recent advancements in the area of Process Technology have equipped organizations with entirely new means to achieve this goal. In par- ticular Process Mining and Robotic Process Automation have opened up completely new op- portunities. Process Mining allows organizations to exploit transactional data recorded by In- formation Systems to improve business processes with respect to performance dimensions such as efficiency, quality, or compliance. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) provides the means to automate repetitive and routine-like work by employing so-called software robots. By combining machine learning and predictive analytics with Process Technology, process weaknesses, such as bottlenecks, cannot only be automatically identified, but also remedied by automating the respective part of the process.

Given the large interest in this topic in both academia and practice, the goal of this minitrack is to promote scientific exchange on Business Process Technology. The minitrack shall enable researchers to present and discuss innovative approaches, techniques, methodologies, and models to design, adopt, implement, operate, evaluate, and govern the data-driven analysis of business processes. The Business Process Technology minitrack invites contributions on topics including, but not limited to:

• Process Discovery
• Conformance Checking and Analysis
• Decision Mining
• Declarative and Hybrid Process Analysis
• Predictive Process Analytics
• Process Monitoring
• Robotic Process Automation
• Hyper-automation
• Cognitive Process Automation
• Automated Process Analysis and Improvement
• Adoption of Process Technology
• Governance of Process Technology

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

The increasing scale, scope, and speed of technology adoption in businesses has led to an environment in which competitive advantages are increasingly gained and eroded by the application of digital technologies. To operate in such environments, organizations are dependent on their capability to continuously recognize opportunities that can stem from technological affordances. Such opportunities can emerge on all organizational levels and can vary in their degree of innovativeness. Overcoming this challenge requires a holistic approach integrating all perspectives on digital value creation beyond single technologies and their associated opportunities. We call for research approaches taking into account factors spanning the individual domains of skills and values alongside the organizational domains of normative, operative, tactical, and strategic organizational structures and processes to understand, conceptualize, and support the organizational capability of digital opportunity recognition.

This minitrack welcomes high-quality research from all related fields independent of their underlying research paradigms and applied methodology. We are particularly interested in approaches grounded in a broad understanding of digital opportunities that includes established technologies and their use cases as well as novel technologies and opportunities for digital innovation. Alongside exploratory research on the conceptual nature and the determining factors of this recognition capability, we invite studies aimed at developing and evaluating artifacts supporting a holistic digital opportunity recognition in organizations. Possible topics for submissions include but are not limited to:

• Holistic approaches for structuring the organizational, economic, environmental and technological contexts of digital opportunities
• Organizational approaches for the recognition of digital opportunities
• Real-world cases demonstrating approaches for digital opportunity recognition
• Role of Knowledge Management Systems for digital opportunity recognition
• Microprocesses and fundamentals of collaborative digital opportunity recognition processes
• Development of artifacts supporting digital opportunity recognition
• Individual knowledge, skills and attitudes relevant for digital opportunity recognition
• Organizational and individual factors influencing digital opportunity recognition
• Challenges evolving from holistic approaches towards digital opportunity recognition
• Approaches of responsible and sustainable innovation in digital opportunity recognition
• Parallels between digital opportunity recognition and impact assessments
• Strategic relevance of digital opportunity recognition

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Barbara Krumay (Primary Contact)
Johannes Kepler University
barbara.krumay@jku.at

Eusebio Scornavacca
Arizona State University
eusebio.scornavacca@asu.edu

Manuel Muehlburger
Johannes Kepler University
manuel.muehlburger@jku.at

Despite all the benefits of digitalization, recent research findings and anecdotal observations have consistently revealed worrying evidence that digitalization may also be hiding potentially serious “dark sides” at individual, organizational, and societal levels. In other words, digitalization may lead to various negative consequences with varying degrees of severity for individuals, employees, families, firms, and societies.

Moreover, with the rise in popularity of social media platforms, we are observing a significant rise in technology-mediated dangerous behaviors, including addictive and problematic IT use, online phishing behaviors, individual deviant behaviors such as online harassment and swearing, and organizational deviance, which can heavily harm individuals, firms and societies. Adding to this array of issues, a number of concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) and fake news have emerged in recent years. Specifically, the rise of AI affords unfair and biased recommendations and suboptimal behaviors, such as algorithm aversion. Concerns about the social responsibility of technology giants as well as possible negative effects of technologies on children and youth have also surfaced. Concerns about the ability of social media platforms to tame fake news dissemination have also been raised.

The fact that the IT artifacts that we develop and the process we support may underlie such negative effects, behooves us, as a research community to pay closer attention to the “dark sides” of digitalization. Over the past seven years, this minitrack has advanced the understanding of such issues and the efficacy of solutions for mitigating them, and we would like to continue this endeavor. To this end, this minitrack welcomes theoretical and empirical papers examining the negative consequences of digitalization and IT use at individual, organizational, and societal levels, and solutions for mitigating them. The objective of this minitrack is to focus not only on the antecedents, development processes, and consequence of numerous phenomena related to the unexpected negative effects of digitalization, but also on potential strategies, techniques, and design considerations for behavioral and technological interventions. We seek, based on this forum of discussions, to provide practitioners (e.g., platform owners, IT developers, managers, psychologists, and policy makers) in a multitude of contexts with a deeper understanding of the potential consequences regarding the dark sides of digitalization. Further, we hope these studies help to shape guidelines for designing and implementing organizational and hedonic IT artifacts while minimizing the potential negative consequences of digitalization.

Submitted papers can focus on, but are not limited to, the following themes related to potential dark sides of digitalization. We acknowledge that over time new “dark sides of digitalization” phenomena will emerge, and we are hence open to topics that may extend this list.

• Problematic IT use behaviors
• IT-related addictions, misuse, and abuse
• Algorithmic bias, fairness, and aversion
• Cyber loafing
• Cyberbullying
• Dark sides of artificial intelligence and/or robots
• Dark sides of big data
• Dark sides of digital assistants and wearable devices
• Deceptive computer-mediated communication
• Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news
• Disrupted work-life balance due to digitalization
• IT interruptions
• Technostress
• Adverse physiological effects of digitalization
• Technology-mediated dangerous behaviors
• Impulsive use of IT
• Security and privacy concerns of digitalization

Submissions are welcome and encouraged from a variety of theoretical foundations (e.g., information systems, psychology, cognitive science, decision sciences, sociology, social networks, organizational behavior, neuroscience, computer science, marketing, and informatics) which might advance our knowledge of the antecedents, processes, interventions, and consequences of the dark sides of digitalization. This minitrack invites relevant and rigorous studies without restriction for the methodologies used, units of analyses, and levels of theorization.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Hamed Qahri-Saremi (Primary Contact)
Colorado State University
Hamed.Qahri-Saremi@colostate.edu

Ofir Turel
University of Melbourne
oturel@unimelb.edu.au

Isaac Vaghefi
Baruch College, The City University of New York
isaac.vaghefi@baruch.cuny.edu

Over the last three decades, information technology (IT) has emerged as a critical component in sustaining and transforming business processes, which enhances agility and control environment. Data analytics (DA) often refer to IT and processes that support reporting, statistical analyses, and data mining. DA facilitates examination of an entire population of transactions, thereby effectively identifying possible anomalies and risk levels. The use of DA applications can help both internal (e.g., top management team) and external (e.g., investors, practitioners, policymakers, etc.) to sense changes in the market, to improve their response speed and efficacy, to reduce business risks, and to increase competitive advantages. Given the growth in the use of DA, it has become imperative in many organizations for helping firms make better, more informed and often faster decisions.

However, not all firms deciding to invest in DA improve their systems because of significant risks and uncertainties in governance, economy, and environment. In addition, it takes time to diffuse DA within organizations and realize the benefits of DA due to strategic challenges, such as a lack of understanding about the impact of DA tools and techniques, as well as the complex interactions between DA and the business environment from different stakeholders’ priorities. As the complexity of the current businesses calls for a more data-driven strategy, it is important to examine the effects of DA strategy and the role of human and environmental characteristics such as leadership and business culture in this process.

In this minitrack, we seek research papers and experience reports that explore how and why different strategies are used for DA adoption (e.g., for identifying and analyzing a firm’s risks and establishing effective control environments, etc.). Analyzing data in a timely manner enables firms’ strategy to gain insights from their internal and external environments and to better sense changes in their markets; indeed, it serves as a basis for determining how risks, control effectiveness, and policy compliance should be managed. With data surrounding us, how specific strategies can take advantage of the insights generated by DA to better understand risks and uncertainties that they are facing and more importantly, to improve firms’ risk management and control systems are important questions.

Further, we seek to focus on some key benefits and costs of DA, including the metrics for DA technique selection and control systems, how the use of DA in different industries can be leveraged in other contexts, and in general, expanding the use of DA beyond organizational systems. Possible topics for the mini-track include but are not limited to:

• The Role of Different Stakeholders in Data Analytics Management
• Data Analytics and Leadership Characteristics
• The Diffusion of Data Analytics in Organizations
• Using Data Analytics to Manage Business Values and Risks
• Data Analytics and Business Strategy
• Data Analytics and Operations Research
• Data Visualization in Business Intelligence
• Applications of Natural Language Processing in Business Processes
• Current Practices of Data Analytics in Internal Control and Risk Management

Authors will be encouraged to submit papers which can be selectively considered for publication in the Journal of Information Systems (JIS) and International Journal of Accounting Information Systems (IJAIS) at the authors’ prerogative.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Jee-Hae Lim (Primary Contact)
University of Hawaii at Manoa
jeehae@hawaii.edu

Tu Xu
Renmin University of China
xutu@rmbs.ruc.edu.cn

Driven by data and technological advances, today’s businesses, governments, not-for-profits and other types of organizations are undergoing rapid Digital Transformation (DT), resulting in major changes of their organizational structures, operating processes, value chains, and/or business models.

It is becoming clear that opportunities and changes driven by data and analytics can lead to rapid DT, both within and beyond organizational boundaries, for example in the form of new value networks and business ‘eco-systems’. The scope of DT driven by data and analytics also differs – ranging from a single organisational unit or a process, to many processes, to overall business model – all the way to interorganizational, industry and societal transformations. Data and analytics’ relationship to DT also varies. For example, data and analytics could be used to initiate and scope DT, enable DT by making it possible, and provide means to track DT initiatives. Moreover, data and analytics could be used to transform digital business model by making it possible for organizations to provide new data/analytics-based products and services. As DT initiatives are implemented with varying levels of success, data and analytics are also needed to define, monitor and measure different indicators of success in yet-to-be-understood ways.

DT of the wider society is also driven by data and analytics, resulting in new opportunities for societal value creation as well as new ethical and social justice challenges. Societal DT also opens deeper questions about different kinds of responsibilities for our collective data-intensive future, including responsible use of data and analytics.

The existing research literature on data and analytics driven DT is still scarce, despite very rapid advancements of this field in practice. Consequently, there is much to investigate about the methods, maturity, and outcomes of data and analytics driven DT, as well as the capabilities and leadership needed to implement this type of DT in organizations and society. Drawing from the rich history of analytics and related research in this minitrack, we aim to pave the way for a future-oriented conversations about all aspects of data and analytics in DT.

While DT could be driven by different types of technology and could be studied from different perspectives, this minitrack focuses on data and analytics driven DT. This particular focus recognizes DT as one of the main drivers for future analytics research in organizations and society, which not only builds upon existing analytics methods and approaches but also requires new ones.

With this aim in mind, this minitrack will accept papers focused on data and analytics driven DT in organizations and society, rather than DT in general, with the expected emphasis placed on data and analytics and the main research contribution(s) made to the field of analytics. Papers using theory building, design research (methods and models), action research as well as analyses of existing or innovative applications are welcome. We invite papers that investigate topics which include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Methods and mechanisms of data and analytics driven DT in organizations and society:
  • Architecture, reusable infrastructure, data management standards, data ecosystems and marketplaces, automated composable processes, use of data fabrics, edge computing
  • Analytics types (augmented analytics, embedded AI/ML, adaptive analytics, etc.)
  • Analytics maturity in the context of DT
  • Data literacy, democratization and skill development for DT
  • Data and analytics governance and organizational culture
  • Organizational and societal leadership for analytics-driven DT
  • Traditional business intelligence solutions in the age of DT
  • DT through data ecosystems, data coops, data marketplaces and open data environments

• Organizational outcomes of data and analytics driven DT:
  • Value creation (ROI) including business, societal, environmental and new types of value propositions
  • Organizational resilience (and other organizational capabilities gained)
  • Agility (sense and respond capabilities)
  • Innovation and new business models
  • Methods of using data and analytics to define, monitor and measure different aspects of DT success

• Societal issues created by data and analytics driven DT
  • Societal challenges and barriers to data and analytics driven DT
  • Ethical issues and unintended consequences of data and analytics driven DT
  • Data and analytics driven DT and social justice
  • Well-being of individuals, organizations and society in the age of data and analytics driven DT
  • Use of data and analytics for ‘responsible DT’
  • Data humanism and future of work and society in the age of perpetual data and analytics driven DT

• Success stories and lessons learned about data and analytics driven DT in organisations and society:
  • Case studies of data and analytics driven DTs – methods, outcomes and lessons learned
  • Education of analytics professionals for data and analytics DT in universities and workplaces
  • Citizen science for data and analytics driven DT
  • New challenges and opportunities for working and living in the age of perpetual data and analytics driven DT

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Olivera Marjanovic (Primary Contact)
Macquarie University
olivera.marjanovic@mq.edu.au

Barbara Dinter
Chemnitz University of Technology
barbara.dinter@wirtschaft.tu-chemnitz.de

Thilini Ariyachandra
Xavier University
ariyachandrat@xavier.edu

Deep into the digital age, organizations must continually and relentlessly innovate with digital technologies to succeed or to just survive. This innovation involves generation of digital products and services (digital innovation), and the consequent fundamental changes to organizations, organizational networks and industries (digital transformation). These innovations are often created and realized through new ventures either in startups or existing organizations (digital entrepreneurship).

The goal of this minitrack is to examine the nexus between digital technologies, consequent innovation and entrepreneurial action by offering a venue for original and innovative research that focuses on digital technologies, associated innovation, and related entrepreneurial activities and forms.

The minitrack solicits three types of submissions: (1) the antecedents, processes, infrastructures, outcomes, and organizational settings associated with the generation and appropriation of novel product and service innovations enabled by digital technologies; (2) new organizing structures and processes enabled by digitalization, as well as associated novel organizational arrangements and business models, the transformation process, antecedents, and outcomes; and (3) new ventures that involve the identification and deployment of emerging, radical innovations in digital technologies such as block-chain, 5G or IoT. Next we will describe each of these types of submissions with examples of each.

(1) Digital Innovation

These submissions investigate the role and functions of digital technologies within innovative products or services, and how these technologies impact consequent organizational innovation and strategy (e.g., questions of architecture, modularity, platform governance, standards and means of systems integration). Topics can include:

• Organizing for digitally-enabled products and services
• Products and services developed around novel and emerging digital technologies
• Digital technologies and service science
• Digital convergence and organizational and industrial organization
• Digitalization of physical products and changes in product strategies
• Design thinking for digital
• Innovating within digital service ecosystems and on platforms
• Digital product architectures
• Digitalization, product modularity, and modes of organizing
• Digital controls and control points and organizing
• Digital twin and related product capabilities
• Products and services enabled by emerging generic digital technologies (e.g., robots, 3D printing, sensor networks, blockchain, quantum computing, etc.) and novel digital phenomena such as mobility, social, big data, cloud computing, service architectures, virtual/augmented reality, Internet of Things.

(2) Digital Transformation

As organizations transition from the industrial to the digital age, they need to undergo a transformation in how they organize and control for new digital processes. Submissions that investigate the role of digital technologies in inducing and enabling organizational change, including innovative strategies, new business models, new organizing structures, processes and tasks enabled by digital technologies and their adaptation to digitally enabled forms of organizing. Topics include:

• Industrial vs. digital innovation regimes and related analyses of change
• Short and long term analyses of digital transformation and innovation waves
• Digitally enabled business models and strategies,
• Digital strategies, agility, and organizational learning
• Digital platform ecosystems
• Sociotechnical and sociomaterial conceptualizations and forms of organizational change
• Digital technologies and organizational design, digital business units
• Digital technologies and organizational routines and business processes
• Business process change in organizations and the role of digital technologies
• Digital innovation units and their role in digital transformation
• Digital technologies and re-configuration of value-chains
• Industrial organization and the impact of digital technologies
• Embedding digital technologies in tools and changes in work practices
• Organizational identity, culture and digital transformation
• Digital innovation platforms (such as mobile platforms, crowd-sourcing platforms, etc.) and organizing

(3) Digital Entrepreneurship

Digital innovation opens continual opportunities for entrepreneurial action. New ventures and established organizations alike are concerned with generating radical business models and solutions that leverage digital technologies. Topics exploring digital innovation and entrepreneurship, broadly conceived are welcomed including:

• New venturing with and by digital technologies and digital business models
• Entrepreneurship forms and models within organizations enabled by digital technologies
• Entrepreneurial launch processes with digital technologies such as agile and lean startup
• Structuring of organizations to generate and enable new ventures (structural, contextual ambidexterity)
• Incubators, accelerators, and ecological processes to launch and sustain digital ventures
• Finance of digital technology entrepreneurship including corporate funding, venture capital, private equity, angel investing, etc.
• Digital tools enabling creativity, design, engineering, and other innovative entrepreneurial activities.
• Infrastructures for organizational and interorganizational innovation, such as product lifecycle management (PLM) systems in manufacturing; information modeling (BIM) environments in the AEC industry; or cyberinfrastructure (or e-science) in science.
• Infrastructures and ecosystems of emerging generic digital technologies (e.g., robots, 3D printing, sensor networks, blockchain, etc.) and digital phenomena such as mobile, social, big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things and related entrepreneurial forms

The types of studies that we welcome in the minitrack include an explicit focus on a particular form or function of digital technology in the context of organizational innovation, transformation, and entrepreneurship. Beyond this requirement, we welcome all forms of research inquiry, including qualitative, quantitative, mixed, and conceptual papers. In particular, we prefer novel applications of:

• Quantitative and computationally-intensive studies including mixed methods
• Case studies and detailed interpretive work
• Design science and action research in organizational settings
• Ambitious, provocative, and creative conceptual or theoretical analyses of the nature and effects of digitalization

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Nicholas Berente (Primary Contact)
University of Notre Dame
nberente@nd.edu

Kalle Lyytinen
Case Western Reserve University
kalle@case.edu

Youngjin Yoo
Case Western Reserve University
yxy23@case.edu

This minitrack welcomes research that uses analytical, empirical, and experimental modeling approaches to explore the increasing complex interplays between information technology and business operations, strategies, and consumer decisions and activities. In particular, we seek novel studies that systematically explore the complex roles that digitization, information technology, and business analytics play in consumer behavior, customer relationship management, organizational architectures, product design and development, healthcare, education, marketing, sales and services, and supply chain management to provide business insights and implications. We are also soliciting comprehensive reviews of relevant research, rigorous case studies, and applications highlighting the use of business analytics, new technologies, methods, and techniques in various business operations. There is a growing body of research within the economics, marketing, operations management, information systems, and healthcare communities which are starting to address those issues. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Digital health and telemedicine
• New applications of healthcare IT
• Innovations in IS&OM teaching after COVID-19
• Robotic office work
• Applications of real-time mobile analytics in business
• Digital platforms and autonomous systems
• Emerging of new operating models for the “sharing economy”
• Impact of business analytics on competition and cooperation
• Managing big data and business analytics
• Crowdsourcing and product innovation
• New technologies for enhanced consumers’ engagement
• Products’ ranking algorithms, reputation systems and the performance of online markets sales innovation using social data and business analytics
• Using advanced web analytics to influence consumer decision-making
• Application of business analytics and big data in healthcare
• Analytical models and machine learning applications in logistics
• IOT and supply chain coordination
• Aocial media implications for operations management and customer services

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Abraham Seidmann (Primary Contact)
Boston University
AVIS@bu.edu

Yabing Jiang
Florida Gulf Coast University
yjiang@fgcu.edu

Jie Zhang
University of Texas at Arlington
jiezhang@uta.edu

Understanding modern-day’s competition and survival of organizations oftentimes requires ecosystem-centric perspectives. This is because digital technologies have enabled new complementarities between actors within and across industries. The increasing platformization of firms and technologies has important implications in how companies create and capture value. In this new “digital first” economy, transaction and innovation platforms have become dominant forms of organization. For scholars interested in platforms and ecosystems, this opens up at least two interesting avenues of research:

1) What are the dynamics underlying platformization?

We invite scholars to reflect on the mechanisms of emergence, stabilization, and downfall of platforms. Existing platform research has already introduced important mechanisms for platform emergence and growth such as network externalities (e.g., Eisenmann et al. 2011; Karhu and Ritala, 2021), generativity (e.g., Furstenau et al., forthcoming), or legitimization (Taeuscher and Rothe, 2021). Beyond traditional views on growth of users, complementors, and firm size, platform providers also collect more and more data (Aaltonen et al. 2020) that can be used for producing superior machine learning and AI applications. We would like to learn how mechanisms like these explain how platform providers such as Amazon, Meta, Apple, or less well known providers established dominant positions in their own and in complementary markets. Here, the role of complementors as contributors or suppressors of platformization might be of particular interest. Change in digital technologies might also change dynamics. Decentralized infrastructures such as “Web 3.0” might challenge current forms of organizing ecosystems via platforms. New AI applications on large language models such as ChatGPT indicate a shift from producing value through matching complementors and users to learning how to produce content and services from data over time. Thus, it might be up to discussion whether the digital technologies that have led to the emergence of platforms might also bring them down. We therefore ask scholars to reflect, among others on:

• What are the conditions under which known mechanisms of platform emergence, growth, and downfall are accelerated or decelerated?
• How do actors intervene to adapt platforms and ecosystems to changes in the technological, social, economic, ecologic, or political environment?
• How can ecosystem actors – from complementors to individual users – succeed within these dynamics and manage their consequences?
• How can new data and methods – including but not limited to dynamic analytics, visualization, and decision making – assist actors in understanding the dynamics of platforms and ecosystems?

2) What are the impacts of platformization on our societies, economies, and our ecology?

Platforms and ecosystems promise accessibility and democritization of creating and capturing value by inverting the firm (Parker et al. 2017) or producing new labor markets in a sharing economy (Nian et al. 2021). We have learned, however, that platform providers accumulate power, sometimes leading to misuse of market dominance (Aral, 2021; Khan, 2019). This is important, because platforms and ecosystems affect their environment. Recommender systems of Instagram have been perceived as harmful for teenagers, eventually inducing testimonies of leading managers before US congress. Crowdfunding platforms have not torn down socio-economic barriers (Kim and Hann, 2019) and peer-to-peer lending platforms affected decisions as personal as ones on abortion and women’s health (Ozer et al. 2022). Observations like these ask for more research on the impact of platforms and ecosystems:

• How do actors transform organizations and societies with platforms and ecosystems, and what are the (un)intended consequences?
• How do platform providers and complementors govern their impact on ecology, economies, and societies at large?
• What approaches are actors finding useful for controlling underlying mechanisms for dynamics, such as network effects, to mitigate unintended consequences?

The minitrack seeks contributions that problematize or build on diverse theoretical backgrounds such as management science, information systems, computer science, decision science, system science, organizational design, policy making, complexity, and behavioral economics to continue the scholarly exploration of concepts, theories, models, and tools for managing platforms and ecosystems. We are open to a wide set of methodological approaches including empirical research, case-based research, field studies, design science, behavioral decision-making experiments, and conceptual research. We encourage collaboration between academia, industry, and policy making and welcome submissions from industry and around the world.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Hannes Rothe (Primary Contact)
University of Duisburg-Essen
hannes.rothe@icb.uni-due.de

Jukka Huhtamäki 
Tampere University
jukka.huhtamaki@tuni.fi

Kaisa Still
University of Oulu
kaisa.still@oulu.fi

The changing needs of corporate strategy and business mean that corporate systems must continuously and quickly evolve. Yet, Enterprise Information Systems (EIS) enterprise-level IS (ES) is investigated less frequently than the investigation of individual and team/workgroup level IS design and use. Enterprise IS has many levels, processes, interfaces and interactions so they may be studied on different levels. Complexity and boundary spanning are inherent in Enterprise systems which may require analysis at from different points of view and from multiple perspectives.

The synergies between ES studies and these related fields have been under-researched as they are traditionally have been treated separately. ES (such as ERP, CRM and the like) have long played an important role as operational backbone of most organizations. With the increasing complexity of today’s business relationships, the management of backstage integration as well as a flexible way of decoupling between backstage and frontstage ES are gaining importance.

The challenge to integrate technological innovations and adapt business processes within the organization and between organizations continues. Integration is often sought, slightly different but related are the industry-level perspective and the ecosystem perspective. Extending and enhancing an EIS with new innovations and interface brings many challenges on an enterprise-level and inter-organizational ecosystem-level. The integration of business processes and systems within and between companies remains complicated and difficult. The challenge for organizations includes both internal and external integration challenges, but also must explore the establishment of new IT infrastructure business models.

This minitrack seeks to explore current issues surrounding the evolution of the integrated IS both from an academic and practitioner perspective. We welcome all themes related to internal and external integration of information systems. This minitrack spans many topics below, but is not limited to:

• strategic initiatives and impacts
• implementation, operations, cost management
• data governance and management with and across enterprises
• productivity and impact on corporate profitability
• Administration, internal controls, and assurance issues
• social effects, change management, human interfaces and change management
• business processes, project and process management
• inter-organizational, supply chain logistics
• integrating emerging technologies into the core of enterprise information systems
• architectures, cloud and platform-approaches of EIS
• risk assessment and management, cybersecurity and threats to the ecosystem

The minitrack will constitute a forum for the following topics on an enterprise-level, ecosystem-level and industry-level:

• Design and management of enterprise-wide Systems (e.g., emergent technologies and innovations, telemetry devices, IoT, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Business Process Mining, User Behavior Mining)
• Industry-specific design and adoption of enterprise-wide systems
• Reference models for enterprise-wide systems and processes
• Approaches for enterprise application integration
• Enterprise architecture management
• Enterprise-wide and cross-enterprise coordination (e.g., design principles, data standards, governance in digital platform-based business networks)
• Interoperability of enterprise-wide systems within the firm and along the supply-chain
• The role of enterprise-wide systems to support decisions (data-driven decisions)
• Decision support for managerial decision-making on enterprise-wide systems (e.g., cloud vs. on-premise vs. hybrid, costs and benefits of ERP/Cloud/ SOA installations, total cost of ownership (TCO) or true cost of ERP, cloud hosted and extended ERP operations, switching vendors or moving to cloud-based ERP)
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Enterprise-wide systems (sales, procurement, logistics, financial accounting, master data management)
• Enterprise-wide Systems as digital platforms: Openness of systems, new level of modularity of enterprise-wide systems
• Processes and workflows in enterprise-wide systems (workflow management systems as part of enterprise-wide systems, Business Process Modeling (BPM) and process management innovation in the enterprise ecosystem)
• Data management on enterprise-level (information logistics management, corporate data management, data current and emerging data management infrastructures, data platforms)
• Emerging business models for the enterprise as enabled by technology (e.g., platform business models)

All research methods welcomed. Submissions may include, but are not limited to research papers (conceptual, theoretical, and empirical studies), as well as case studies, and best practices with actionable managerial guidance. Both explanatory/descriptive and design research studies are invited.

Papers accepted for presentation at HICSS in the minitrack are considered for fast-track submission into four different journals, with the potential to shape the future role of enterprise systems. They include Journal of Information Systems, International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, AIS Transactions on Enterprise Systems and Data & Analytics for Good.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Benedict Bender (Primary Contact)
University of Potsdam
benedict.bender@wi.uni-potsdam.de

Pamela Schmidt
Washburn University
pamela.schmidt@washburn.edu

Robert Winter
University of St. Gallen
robert.winter@unisg.ch

Sathya Narasimhan
Google
nsathya@google.com

The complexity introduced by digitalization across sectors has cast established ways of thinking, working and doing into question. While technological development often is described in terms of human progress, the use of digital technology may limit people’s ability to cultivate their virtue and flourish. For example, a growing number of research studies points to the negative consequences of digitalization related to stress, inequality, anxiety, social disconnect and more. Therefore, this minitrack will provide a forum to explore, present and discuss a wide range of issues related to human flourishing in digitally enabled environments. Human flourishing refers to the optimal continuing development of human beings’ potential and the desire to live well as a human being.

A number of questions arise when considering the notion of human flourishing in contemporary organizations and society. How does digital technology impact human flourishing? How can human flourishing be promoted through digital means? What is needed to make human flourishing a central concern of an organization’s digital transformation or digital innovation? How do people utilize digital technologies to enable individual and collective flourishing? In sum, it is far from trivial to determine what constitutes human flourishing and how digital technology can contribute to personal and professional growth, which is why this minitrack calls for new insights and perspectives on this research topic.

We welcome papers that aim at advancing our understanding of conceptualizations of human flourishing in digital environments at various levels (e.g., individual, group, organizational, societal) and from various perspectives (e.g., cultural, design, ethical). We welcome not only empirical research papers but also conceptual, analytical and theoretical papers that can advance our understanding of human flourishing in the digital age in one or more ways – theoretical, managerial, or societal. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: digital innovation, sustainable design, responsible innovation, open innovation, phenomenological studies, emotional design, ubiquitous computing and HCI. We especially encourage papers that carefully attend to management practices that shape or impact processes and outcomes. In particular, we seek, but not limit to:

• Conceptual or theoretical work of the nature and effects of value-based approaches in developing new digital technologies, systems, and solutions
• Novel approaches to digitally innovating for human flourishing
• Empirically based conceptual views of human flourishing, virtue ethics and emerging digital technologies
• Novel approaches to digital technology and value-based rationality
• Consequences of digital technology that affect human flourishing
• Usage of digital technology and services to promote human flourishing
• Ethics and moral issues (philosophical ethics) in digital technology development
• The role of wisdom, emotions, and lust in the digital era
• Hybrid agency in the digital era

Selected minitrack authors of accepted conference papers will have the opportunity to submit a significantly extended version of their paper for consideration to Scandinaivan Journal of Information Systems. Submitted papers will be fast-tracked through the review process.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Dirk Hovorka (Primary Contact)
University of Sydney
dirk.hovorka@sydney.edu.au

Benjamin Mueller
University of Bremen
benjamin.mueller@unil.ch

The objective of this minitrack is to foster a community of researchers who are interested in understanding how technology can be used for social impact, and in developing practical guidance for organizational, legal, and political leaders who are shaping policies and laws. We will consider these types of papers for this minitrack:

• Traditional research papers that make a theoretical contribution to knowledge about technology. These papers will be reviewed in a traditional manner. These papers will be considered for fast tracking to Information & Organization.
• Practice- or policy-oriented papers that describe an emergent innovation or law and the anticipated impacts of this innovation or law. These papers will clearly articulate practical or policy implications. They will be
  written in a way that makes a complex technology or law understandable to readers from a variety of backgrounds.
• Teaching cases that help educators and students think critically about the social impact of technology. These papers will include discussion questions to help students and educators think through the potential future impacts of technology.
• Methodology papers that highlight methods especially useful for research in IS societal impact. These papers may explore mixed methodology, new methods, or novel applications of methods that are currently underutilized in societal impact IS research.

In this minitrack, we seek to advance understanding of how technology design, development, implementation, and governance influence both positive and negative social impact. We want to understand how technology improves or worsens societal and organizational conditions. The following list of potential topics is not meant to be exhaustive.

• Type 1 Papers: Traditional Research
  • Technology and social good (e.g., emancipation, dignity, social justice, inclusion, empowerment, collective and connective action, activism, social movements, transparency).
  • Technology and social ills (e.g., surveillance capitalism, excessive algorithmic management, privacy violations, oppressive work conditions for gig workers, digital divide, inequity, exclusion, terrorism, cybercrime, human trafficking, and strategic systems design that promotes technology addiction).
• Type 2 Papers: Practice- or Policy- Oriented
  • Descriptions and implications of innovations (e.g., vaccine passports, blockchain, big data, virtual reality, employee wearables and trackers, algorithmic management, smart homes).
  • Descriptions and implications of policies and laws (e.g., PACT Act, remote work policies, PRO Act, algorithmic hiring policies, COPPA, UNESCO, gig worker policies, ADA, privacy policies).
• Type 3 Papers: Teaching Cases
  • Cases and discussion questions to help educators and students think critically about the positive and negative impacts of technology for diverse groups, organizations, or society.
• Type 4 Papers: Methodology
  • Novel use of methodologies or development of new methodologies that are particularly appropriate for research in IS societal impact. This may include novel methodology mixes, modifications to traditional methods, or new methods and research practice.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Jordana George (Primary Contact)
Texas A&M University
jgeorge@mays.tamu.edu

Sirkka Jarvenpaa
University of Texas at Austin
Sirkka.Jarvenpaa@mccombs.utexas.edu

Tamara Roth
University of Luxembourg
tamara.roth@uni.lu

In many organizations, information and digital technology has become crucial in the support, sustainability, and growth of their business. The pervasive use of technology has created a critical dependency that calls for a specific focus on its governance, which can be referred to as Enterprise Governance of IT.

This minitrack is is soliciting conceptual and empirical research papers on IT governance, and the governance of other IT-related and digital artifacts (e.g., data/information governance, data analytics governance, information security governance, digital platform governance, AI governance etc.); business/IT alignment (e.g., IT strategy, digital business strategy, digital transformation strategy); and digital transformation issues from the perspective of the board and executive management (e.g., organizational culture, organizational structure, leadership, roles and responsibilities, aligning business strategy etc.). Topics of interest include:

• Conceptual and empirical papers related to IT governance (e.g. IT-decision making structures, investment, IT infrastructure etc.),
• Digital Transformation Initiatives
• IT governance and value creation
• IT governance & IS leadership: Digital transformation issues from the perspective of the board and executive management (e.g., organizational culture, organizational structure, leadership, roles and responsibilities of the board of directors and CIO, aligning business strategy etc.)
• Digital business strategy, Digital posture, and Value creation
• IT-business alignment, Social alignment between business & IT
• IT project portfolio governance
• IT agility, Governance of bi-modal IT, IT ambidexterity
• Governance of Cloud computing, Cloud strategy
• Governance of IT outsourcing, IT innovation
• Governance of digital platforms, digital infrastructures, and digital ecosystems
• Data governance, Data Ethics, Data Privacy, and Data Security
• Governing AI-driven organizations
• Cybersecurity governance
• Enterprise IT governance frameworks: COBIT, ITIL, SAFe and other IT governance(-related) frameworks and standards
• Conceptual and empirical papers dealing with the regulatory perspective on the governance of IT and digital technology (e.g., GDPR, privacy, corporate governance codes, etc.)

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Steven De Haes (Primary Contact)
University of Antwerp and Antwerp Management School
steven.dehaes@uantwerpen.be

Tim Huygh
Open University of the Netherlands, University of Antwerp, and Antwerp Management School
tim.huygh@ou.nl

Anant Joshi
Maastricht University, University of Antwerp, and Antwerp Management School
a.joshi@maastrichtuniversity.nl

The technological advancements in blockchain technology, the evolution of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), the technological progress in extended reality (virtual and augmented), the developments in other scientific fields like Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the convergence of all the above technologies have increased the popularity of Metaverse. It is expected that a new generation of Internet will evolve from Metaverse, built of technologies like extended reality, blockchain, and others. The dynamic of Metaverse is huge with many experts predicting that it will generate a multi-trillion market in the coming years. Despite the opportunities and the advantages that Metaverse may offer, there are many open challenges that need to be assessed and addressed including social, legal, ethical, technical, and others.

For these reasons, it is important for academics to systematically research this field at various levels. Conferences, with their fast turnaround, play a key role in disseminating knowledge about Metaverse due to the speed at which developments occur. The proposed minitrack aims to bridge a gap at HICSS and serve as a venue to share knowledge and discuss the latest developments in Metaverse. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Open Metaverse
• Blockchain and Metaverse
• Non-Fungible Tokens and their impact on Metaverse
• Metaverse use cases
• Social, legal and ethical challenges of Metaverse
• Metaverse adoption and diffusion
• Virtual economies
• Metaverse interoperability
• Best Metaverse practices
• Metaverse and disruptive innovation
• Gaming and virtual worlds
• Real estate in Metaverse
• Metaverse business models
• Extended reality applications
• Underlying theories and concepts
• Assessing the impact of Metaverse in human relations and behavior
• Integrating humans, machines and AI
• Cross platform ownership of digital goods
• Technologies and infrastructures for virtual worlds

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Marinos Themistocleous (Primary Contact)
University of Nicosia
themistocleous.m@unic.ac.cy

Paulo Rupino da Cunha
University of Coimbra
rupino@dei.uc.pt

Klitos Christodoulou
University of Nicosia
Christodoulou.kl@unic.ac.cy

Neurodiversity is a budding topic in mainstream science that is gaining attention in the information systems (IS) literature. As a general concept, neurodiversity reflects the fact of humans having different brains and different minds, which illustrates that “there is no one ‘right’ way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits”. The idea of neurodiversity, or neurological differences, originated in the 1990s from a social movement led by online communities of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Today, the neurodiversity movement is broadly inclusive of disability rights beyond ASD, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and mental health conditions.

Neurodiversity is a valued organizational resource. Modern business practices have shifted from the perspective of corporate social responsibility to one of enabling competitive synergies by harnessing the gifts of neurodivergent workers. Indeed, firms that have adopted neurodiversity recruitment initiatives have experienced competitive benefits such as increases in productivity, quality, and innovation. Research on IT-mediated tasks/processes, or in contexts of IT- related jobs/education, which examines technology’s differential impacts on neurodivergent versus neurotypical individuals, can provide indispensable managerial insights.

In this minitrack, we are interested in scholarly research that investigates differences in the human mind and/or brain (structure, operation, expression, etc.), and how such variation shapes technology-mediated experiences. This effort is aimed at constructing new knowledge and novel opportunities in IS relating to neurodiversity and technology. It is also meant to help strengthen the discipline’s intellectual diversity. We encourage authors to submit IS research with a neurodiversity focus from a variety of perspectives. Examples include cognitive neuroscience and practical or clinical research, as well as academic perspectives in the social and psychological sciences. Neurophysiological tools/methods are encouraged, but we welcome any rigorous methodology, whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed (e.g., surveys, case studies, experiments).

We are looking for the following types of research papers: (1) empirical research, (2) conceptual research, (3) practical cases or clinical research, and (4) literature reviews. Submissions should contribute to the IS literature on neurodiversity and emphasize the role of technology. Papers adopting a disability paradigm of neurodiversity will be considered. Exemplary papers will assume a broader perspective of neurodiversity and offer advances in IS theory development. Below are some examples of topic areas to help guide researchers with an interest in this minitrack. We greatly appreciate your consideration of our efforts to curate IS research on neurodiversity.

• Neurodiversity in the adoption, diffusion, and use of IS
• IT and neurodiversity and the workplace
  
• Organizational neurodiversity initiatives and the role of IT
  
• Psychological differences in IS users (e.g., personality factors, creative thinking)
  
• Individual, group, and societal differences in IS cognition
  
• Clinical IS research on neurodiversity and mental health/health IT
• Digital platforms, social media, and online communities for neurodiversity
  
• Neurodiversity and novel technologies (e.g., VR/AR, metaverses, blockchain, robotics, etc.)
  
• AI, algorithms, and bots for neurodiversity (e.g., ChatGPT, augmented intelligence)
  
• IS, social justice, and the neurodiversity movement
  
• Design science for neurodivergent IS users
  
• IT and neural engineering (neuroengineering)
  
• Neuroethics in IS
  
• Neurominorities in IS
  
• Data analytics for neurodiversity
  
• Neurodiversity and IT identity
  
• Neurodiversity and IT mindfulness
  
• IT affordances for neurodiversity
  
• The dark side of neurodiversity in IS
  
• Human ability, disability, and digital technologies
  
• Neurodiversity in IT innovation and entrepreneurship
  
• Neurodiversity and burnout, stress, and anxiety
  
• Neurodiversity and job satisfaction, job performance, and turnover

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Zachary R. Steelman (Primary Contact)
University of Arkansas
zsteelman@walton.uark.edu

Ronnie Jia
Illinois State University
rjia@ilstu.edu

Ari Wigdor
University of Massachusetts Amherst
awigdor@isenberg.umass.edu

This minitrack encourages practice-based research on new and emerging IS issues in organizations. Practice-based research bridges the gap between academic theory and practice. It aspires to introduce researchers to state-of-the-art practices and issues from industry and introduce managers to research that makes sense and brings coherence to the problems they face. The methods used in practice-based research are often exploratory field-based studies involving interviews, observations, and practice data. The intense pressure to achieve methodological distinction and theoretical contribution often results in researchers’ current practice-based topics being eschewed because the topics themselves are not mature enough in practice to attain desirable samples or sample sizes, nor are they conducive to theorizing since so little is known. These are precisely the reasons that exploratory, practice-based research can play a tremendous role in helping establish and lay the foundations of a research domain while providing insights into an emerging topic.

The objective of this minitrack is to encourage practice-based research in information systems and disseminate the results of that research in a manner that makes its relevance and utility readily apparent.  This minitrack invites authors to submit in-depth research that provides rich stories, unique insights, and valuable conceptual frameworks for information systems practice. Papers might be based upon single cases, multiple cases, field interviews, or, less commonly, literature itself.  Experimental research and survey research are less likely to achieve the goal of providing rich insight for practice.  While it is assumed that researchers are guided by theory, it is not expected that the submissions to this minitrack make distinct or novel theoretical contributions.  The contributions should focus on distinct and unique lessons for practice.

Overall, this minitrack aims to:

• Showcase high-quality practice-oriented IS research
• Promote practice-oriented IS research as a key source of insight and guidance for digital leaders
• Provide researchers a platform to present and discuss their practice-oriented IS research findings and expose the community to current challenges in creating value with IT
• Help identify the most challenging managerial issues for digital/IT leaders and frame them as new questions to guide future practice-oriented IS research.

The minitrack chairs coordinate with MIS Quarterly Executive (MISQE) in selecting papers for fast-tracking to an issue of MISQE.

Additional guidance for authors of practice-based IS research papers

This practice track has run for many years at HICSS. We are not just seeking research with strong relevance for practitioners, but manuscripts written in a way that makes them easily accessible to such a reader. This means that any accepted manuscript will not follow the traditional “rules” of writing for an academic audience.

If you are not a regular reader of MISQ Executive, we advise you to read a few articles to understand their style, structure, focus, and content. Some general guidelines for writing such articles include:

• Simplify reality, but do not be simplistic
• Keep theory and methodology in the background (perhaps include your methods in an appendix, but write it so that it is accessible to non-academic readers).
• Use literature and in-depth evidence to give credibility and generalizability.

Typically, such articles loosely follow this structure:

1. Short lead-in: Motivate the practitioner reader in 2-3 sentences. Why should they read the article? What you write should resonate closely with them; perhaps it is a problem that they recognize that you are now going to help them solve.
2. Short introduction to the topic: Frame the topic of the article. Use footnotes rather than traditional academic referencing style when using prior research.
3. Extensive research findings: Use headings and figures/tables to communicate findings. Address solutions to managerial challenges. Present lessons learned from the research and recommendations. Possibly develop and/or use a practice-oriented framework to organize and present findings.
4. Actionable guidelines: Actionable guidelines include action verbs, not passive verbs like “understand,” “assess, “think,” or “get commitment.”  Tell the reader what to do, or what to change.  For example, if getting commitment is important, say how to get the required level of commitment.
5. Appendix: Present an overview of research methods. Remember to write in a way that is accessible to an audience unfamiliar with academic research’s nuances.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Bill Kettinger (Primary Contact)
Clemson University
wkttngr@clemson.edu

Gabriele Piccoli
Louisiana State University
gpiccoli@lsu.edu

Michael Milovich, Jr.
Rowan University
milovich@rowan.edu

Joaquin Rodriguez
Grenoble Ecole de Management
joaquin.rodriguez@grenoble-em.com

This minitrack focuses on information systems (IS) research areas occupying the intersection of humans and technology in an organizational context. Central to this research agenda is exploring and understanding the role of digital technology and information in the constitution of organizational life. The minitrack is interested in various socio-technical issues in traditional organizational settings as well as in emergent and alternative forms of organizing such as online communities and social movements that are afforded by platforms and social media. Socio-technical issues include research topics of information systems planning, development, implementation and use, which are especially attentive to the underlying social and organizational relations within which such systems are embedded.

Such topics include the conceptualization of specific socio-technical issues, and the practices and processes of their emerging and enacting/performing; the empirical illustration and validation of established or new conceptual perspectives; and case studies offering insights into both socio-technical processes of success and failure.

Some key topics may include: (1) organizational culture and identity, (2) inter-organizational relationships, and (3) management and leadership. Authors are invited to submit papers that may address, but are not necessarily limited to, any of the following topic areas concerning socio-technical issues in organizational or inter-organizational contexts.

• Organizational Culture and Identity
  • Digital culture (Digital mindset, Cross-functional collaboration, Agility, Dynamic capabilities)
  • Organizational change and routines
  • Organizational identity and major organizational changes (ex. Digital Transformation, Outsourcing, Mergers and Acquisitions)
• Inter-organizational Relationships
  • Development of digital ecosystem partnerships
  • Boundary spanners, boundary objects, knowledge transfer
  • Organizational ambidexterity
  • Absorptive capacity
  • Open Innovation
  • Distributed forms of working and organizing, Hybrid work models
• Management and Leadership
  • Recruitment and retention of digital talent
  • Team management in a COVID-19 context
  • Digital leadership, Complexity leadership
  • Algorithmic control and managerial oversight in the Gig Economy
  • Work-related stressors (worker surveillance/monitoring, technostress)

We invite contributions that engage philosophically, theoretically, methodologically and/ or empirically with various socio-technical phenomena. Submissions may include, but are not limited to research papers (conceptual, theoretical, and empirical), as well as case studies, and best practices/lessons learned. We also welcome research-in-progress studies that strive to problematize or transcend established boundaries (theoretical, disciplinary, methodological etc.).

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Dragos Vieru (Primary Contact)
TELUQ University
dragos.vieru@teluq.ca

Ulrika Westergren
Umeå University
ulrika.westergren@umu.se

Simeon Vidolov
University College Dublin
simeon.vidolov1@ucd.ie

Albert Plugge
Nyenrode Business University
a.plugge@nyenrode.nl

This minitrack is special. It is set up to provide a forum for papers in the Organizational Systems and Technology track that do not “fit” exactly in a specific track. We often serve as an incubator for new ideas.

Over the years we have actively solicited non-traditional, imaginative, and thought-provoking research in any IT area. We are particularly interested in papers that break new ground in new areas, or those that apply existing research to new industry groups or fields. The papers that we accept generally have the following characteristics:

• They are cross-disciplinary – can be disciplines other than MIS
• They address current topics that are important to today’s managers
• They have a practitioner “flavor.”
• Case studies are welcomed, particularly if they propose questions that will stimulate discussion among session attendees.

Minitrack Chair:

Jim Ryan
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
jryan@wpi.ed

The world has faced an unprecedented catastrophe in the COVID-19 pandemic. The unusual circumstances created by COVID-19’s rapid spread provide a unique opportunity to study the role of Information Systems and Technology in supporting people through this pandemic and beyond to other global crises. This minitrack considers topics related to the global crises’ impacts on jobs and work (for both employers and employees), education and educational institutions (including learners and educators), family and home life (including life-changes for adults and children), and global society.

In this minitrack, we welcome submissions of full research papers or research in progress, including theory articles, literature reviews, teaching cases, or studies employing qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and design science research methods. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, technology’s role in addressing:

• Opportunities and challenges in the era of COVID-19 and global crises
• Consequences of global crises, such as COVID-19, on work, education, and society
• Working from home during lockdowns
• Adjusting to the “new normal”
• Best practices in education and work contexts
• Digital transformation and the future of work and education
• Using ICT to foster learning, working, and social activities
• Social isolation and well-being
• Work-life boundaries and conflicts
• Implications for policy and practice
• Nontraditional virtual teams
• Social and business norms
• Disaster plans and business continuity planning
• Resource sharing challenges
• COVID-19-related financial implications for businesses and software vendors

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Safa’a AbuJarour (Primary Contact)
An-Najah National University
safaa.abujarour@najah.edu

Haya Ajjan
Elon University
hajjan@elon.edu

Jane Fedorowicz
Bentley University
jfedorowicz@bentley.edu

Dawn Owens
University of Texas at Dallas
dawn.owens@utdallas.edu