Pankaj Setia, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Priya Seetharaman, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta

Abhishek Kathuria, Deakin University

Marco Marabelli, Bentley University

Contemporary Information Systems (IS) are marked by transformations at the intersection of technology, people and organizations (Setia 2024). These are shaped by, and are shaping how firms, communities, and societies evolve. As researchers unravel these dynamics, India presents a compelling context. Rooted in millennia of cultural and commercial history, India is now rapidly being reshaped by the forces of digital innovation. Indian business landscape is a vibrant mosaic where ancient artisanal traditions, kinship-based commerce, informal enterprises, and social ventures coexist with state-owned firms, family conglomerates, and home-grown blue chips. This landscape often collides with large multinationals, platform economies, and globally scaled startups. Together, India’s palimpsestic business environment, pluralistic culture, and demographic vastness form a powerful trifecta that offers a unique context for researchers. Specifically, unlike a monolith landscape, India represents a living, evolving environment of practices, identities, and aspirations.

This special issue invites submissions focused on how rapid technological acceleration in India is strategically reshaping the country’s business environment. We particularly welcome submissions that explores how culture, capabilities, and commerce evolve amid the transformations of a historically layered, institutionally complex economy. Traditionally, India’s artisanal industries and cultural expressions were deeply entwined with its commercial practices (Tharoor, 2016). Centuries of colonial domination disrupted local crafts and knowledge systems; today, the digital wave carries a similar dual potential, risking the displacement of traditional modes of production while also offering new avenues for visibility and market access. India’s contemporary platform economy, with its roots in the historical bazaar and emporium systems (Athique, 2020), exemplifies this paradox.

The expansion of digital technologies into an informal, fragmented economy has introduced elements of structure and visibility long described by Scott’s notion of “legibility” (1998), a concept which relevance persists as states and platforms alike seek to render local practices more standardized and governable in the digital age. Could the drive for scale, efficiency, and algorithmic appeal lead to a flattening of cultural nuance in favor of standardization and mass reproducibility? This scenario becomes real if Information Technology (IT) education and digital skilling emphasize surface-leveltechnical credentials and globalized templates of “digital competence” (Rangaswamy & Narasimhan, 2022) rather than contextually grounded, socially attuned capabilities.

Research on India’s digital transformation offers opportunities to develop new theoretical insights for the global IS community. India’s “digital revolution” began with the IT services boom of the 1990s, expanded through the telecom and mobile internet surge of the 2000s, and has accelerated since the mid-2010s (Seetharaman & Cranefield, 2019) along with more recent initiatives such as Digital India (nationwide digital infrastructure and e-governance), Aadhaar (biometric digital identity) (Addo, 2022), UPI (Unified Payments Interface, i.e. inter-bank peer-to-peer and person-to-merchant real-time payments), and ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce - a decentralized, interoperable open e-commerce). The early IT services phase delivered major economic gains, creating an entire industry, generating jobs, boosting exports (Bhatnagar & Madon, 1997). More recently, the focus has shifted to attracting foreign investment and expanding access to information (Parthiban et al., 2024). Yet some scholars have questioned the limited societal spillovers and skewed labor composition (Barnes, 2013) of India’s IT industry. Others note that emerging digital technologies may help move beyond low-end services toward more diversified, socially embedded growth (Das & Sagara, 2017).

The current IT development phase, characterized by digital platforms embedding services related to fintech, e-governance, and mobile ecosystems, has expanded access to resources, formalized parts of the informal sector, and holds promise for reducing poverty and inequality. These developments offer models for the wider global majority, even if significant challenges remain. The complex dynamics of new technological affordances and constraints, ranging from cross-platform interoperability to fraudulence (Kumar et al., 2025) and lack of sufficient regulations that balance conflicting interests (Marabelli & Davison, 2025; De’ et al., 2024), hinder the equitable spread of these digital platforms across socio-economic groups.

IS research, including studies published in JSIS, highlights how digital technologies may afford the creation of economic opportunities for the informal sector, help small and medium enterprises access new markets (Parthiban et al., 2024; Shirish et al., 2025), and transform service delivery in high impact industries such as healthcare (Hiriyur, 2022; Setia, 2023). In India and in the wider global majority countries, digital technology has also been socially transformative such as through, amplifying marginalized voices, lowering barriers to political participation (Kulshreshth, 2023), and supporting creative industries through digital media (Mehta & Cunningham, 2023), though always mediated by prevailing social norms and values (Oreglia & Srinivasan, 2016). This ongoing transformation is however complicated by geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, and economic nationalism which are leading to a rethink of globalization’s promises (Butollo et al., 2024). Although digital technologies, AI (artificial intelligence) in particular, are deeply entangled with environmental sustainability challenges exacerbating global resource inequalities; yet they also enable strategic responses to climate risks through innovations in smart cities, agriculture, and disaster prediction (Marabelli & Davison, 2025). For India too, this shift opens up both risks and opportunities: it may create greater space for indigenous enterprises, self-reliant supply chains, and localized innovation, while also changing the nature of export-led sectors and globally networked business models (Witt et al., 2023). The interplay between fractured globalizing forces and India’s own plural, multi-scale economy raises pressing questions about sovereignty, resilience, and cultural-economic autonomy.

This special issue seeks to examine strategic opportunities, disruptions and challenges arising from the intersection of culture, commerce, capabilities and technology in the Indian context. We welcome research that shows how digital technologies reshape strategic choices, organizing logics, and competitive positioning while remaining embedded in India’s uniqueness. The special issue also aims to foreground location-specific research agendas and contextual theorization (Avgerou, 2019), emphasizing the need for research that is not only rigorous and relevant, but also responsible to its context (Seetharaman et al., 2024).

By bringing together diverse ideas and a deeper understanding, this special issue aims to reframe India not as a battleground between tradition and modernity but as a dynamic site of ongoing negotiation, reinvention, and possibility.

Potential topics

• Craft, Culture, Civilization, and Vernacular Economies
• Digital Platforms, Inclusion, and Ecosystems
• Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Labor
• Policy, Scale, and Governance
• Firm-Level Strategy and Organizational Change

Timeline

• March 6, 2026: Developmental workshop for interested authors at InCIS 2026
• May 1, 2026: Deadline to submit a 1000-words extended abstract on the JSIS portal (not required but highly recommended)
• July 1, 2026: Submission of full papers opens
• September 30, 2026: Submission deadline for full papers
• January 31, 2027: Initial feedback to authors
• April 30, 2027: Deadline for resubmission of revised papers
• September 30, 2027: Final Submissions due
• December 1, 2027: Final editorial decisions communicated to authors

Associate editors

• Amit Prakash, International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore
• Anuragini Shirish, Institute Mines-Télécom Business School
• Ashish Kumar Jha, Trinity Business School
• Ashish Gupta, Auburn University
• Atta Addo, Surrey Business School
• Bidisha Chaudhuri, University of Amsterdam
• Devinder Thapa, University of Agder
• Janaki Srinivasan, University of Oxford
• Juliana Sutanto, Monash University
• M N Ravishankar, Queen's Business School
• M S Sandeep, UNSW Business School
• Nirup Menon, George Mason University
• Onkar Malgonde, North Carolina State University
• Radhika Santhanam, University of Oklahoma
• Rahul De, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
• Rajiv Kishore, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• Saji K Mathew, Indian Institute of Technology Madras
• Samrat Gupta, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad
• Satish Krishnan, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode
• Silvia Masiero, University of Oslo
• Soumyakanti Chakraborty, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta
• Sumeet Gupta, Indian Institute of Management Raipur
• Sunil Wattal, Temple University
• Suranjan Chakraborty, Towson University
• Swanand Deodhar, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Jun Hwa Cheah, University of East Anglia

Brad McKenna, University of East Anglia

Shahper Richter, University of Auckland

PK Senyo, University of Southampton

Marco Marabelli, Bentley University

This special issue examines Generative AI's dual impact on organisations, driving innovation, efficiency, and societal value while raising ethical, governance, and workforce challenges.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) is at the forefront of technological innovation, with rapid growth and transformative potential. By 2032, the global GAI market is projected to reach $151.9 billion. This trajectory reflects the growing recognition of GAI's capabilities across multiple domains, fundamentally reshaping innovation paradigms and redefining organisational processes and structures. In particular, GAI is increasingly acknowledged as a transformative force in facilitating data-driven decision-making and optimising operational processes within and across organisations. Foundational GAI systems such as BERT, ChatGPT DALL-E, Deepseek and Gemini illustrate their adaptability and extensive applicability. These systems can execute a wide array of tasks, ranging from creative production and service delivery to organisational decision-making, offering novel opportunities for personalisation, operational efficiency, and interdisciplinary collaboration. As GAI continues to evolve, some organisations have commenced developing and disseminating regulatory frameworks to legitimise its deployment in organisational processes. There is growing interest in whether GAI can be repurposed as a strategic technology employed for advancing social justice and addressing grand challenges, from climate resilience to digital access and social welfare.

While prior studies have examined AI more conceptually and broadly, a significant unexplored area remains, which concerns the multifaceted impacts of GAI on organisational decision-making within the information systems research. Because of the relevant strategic implications (and potentially ethical challenges) associated with implementing GAI in organisations, filling this gap becomes paramount. In particular, this special issue aims to stimulate research focusing on the dual nature of GAI, its simultaneous potential for value co-creation and value co-destruction in organisations; GAI presents promising opportunities and significant challenges. In particular, GAI used for automated content creation, internal reporting and predictive analytics has the potential to improve operational efficiency by identifying workflow bottlenecks, reducing manual workload, and enabling data-driven insights into employee performance and strategic planning. With these capabilities, it can detect subtle signs of fatigue or burnout, allowing for early intervention through tailored support or adjustments to the workload. Also, by synthesising vast amounts of information, GAI supports value co-creation and strategic agility in decision-making, promotes innovation and digital inclusion, and allows employees to focus on higher-level tasks such as problem-solving and strategic thinking. GAI can foster creativity and knowledge sharing, support employee well-being by automating repetitive tasks, and improve cross-functional collaboration. However, these organisational benefits are tempered by critical concerns. The increasing reliance on opaque and complex GAI systems introduces risks related to hallucinations, diminished human oversight, and the externalisation of ethical responsibility onto non-accountable technologies. 75% of companies have restricted or actively considered restricting technologies such as ChatGPT due to fears of data breaches, intellectual property loss, and declining trust in AI-generated content. More fundamentally, GAI threatens the nature of creative labour, raising questions about job security, intellectual integrity, and the automation of cognitively demanding work. GAI implementation may also generate unintended consequences for employee well-being, including role displacement, cognitive dependency, and reduced transparency in decision-making, which affects diversity, equality, and inclusion in the working environment. Concerning workplace surveillance, GAI can undermine employee autonomy by enabling constant monitoring that erodes trust and psychological safety. Employees may feel reduced to performance metrics, reflecting a shift toward Digital Taylorism, which prioritises algorithmic efficiency over human creativity. This dynamic can further intensify privacy concerns due to the opaque nature of many GAI systems, where data is often collected and used without clear consent. Thus, all of these concerns highlight the potential for value co-destruction, wherein mismanaged or poorly governed GAI adoption undermines organisational integrity, ethical standards, and stakeholder trust.

In light of these tensions, this special issue invites scholars and practitioners to adopt a perspective considering both the strategic, transformative potential and disruptive consequences of GAI. We welcome contributions that examine how GAI simultaneously enhances and challenges existing organisational frameworks and processes, ultimately reshaping the landscape of technological governance, human agency, and organisational transformation. Submissions may offer theoretical or empirical insights into the promises, ethical dilemmas, and societal shifts driven by GAI at the organisational level, including its application to grand societal challenges. We will not consider papers focusing on users, individuals, or manuscripts that do not align with the central focus of the special issue. Papers may use qualitative, quantitative, or pluralistic approaches.

Potential topics

• How is the utilisation of GAI reshaping workforce structures, labour division, and professional identity in public and/or private organisations?
• How can organisations effectively balance the efficiency and productivity gains promised by GAI with the risks related to data security, intellectual property theft, and regulatory compliance challenges?
• In what ways can organisations address the ethical implications of GAI, particularly concerning its potential to diminish human oversight and decision-making capabilities, while still harnessing its benefits for enhanced operational efficiency?
• How does GAI contribute to value co-destruction within organisations, in relation to resource misallocation, ethical compromises, and potential damage to organisational integrity or stakeholder trust?
• What strategies can organisations adopt to mitigate the risks of job displacement, deskilling, and workforce inequality while still leveraging GAI for innovation and competitiveness?
• How can organisational capabilities and leadership approaches evolve to ensure a balance between fostering innovation through GAI and managing its long-term impacts on employment, creativity, and organisational culture?
• How do organisational frameworks surrounding GAI affect the reinforcement or reduction of structural inequalities, especially in marginalised communities, and what measures can be taken to ensure inclusive and equitable use of GAI technologies?
• How are corporate governance frameworks evolving in response to GAI’s ethical challenges in decision-making, and how can these frameworks protect against algorithmic biases while fostering innovation?
• What role should organisational policies play in ensuring that GAI is used transparently and responsibly, particularly in high-stakes decisions involving human resources, operations, marketing, and customer relations?
• How is GAI being used for surveillance and control in organizational contexts, and what implications does this have for employee autonomy and governance, both in the workplace and in broader governmental settings?
• What is the potential and what are the limitations of GAI adoption in organisations across emerging economies and the Global South, particularly in relation to infrastructural, educational, and data governance challenges?
• Examining how different organisations (e.g., governments, healthcare providers, charities, or social enterprises) might deploy GAI to address grand challenges such as climate-adaptation, homelessness-prevention services, healthcare, strategically serving marginalised populations, or environmental disasters.
• Assessing the emerging role of corporate sustainability offices in leveraging GAI for supply-chain net-zero scenario planning.

Timeline

• January 31, 2026: Submission of extended abstracts (~1,000 words including references). Submission of an abstract is not mandatory but is strongly encouraged.
• July 31, 2026: Deadline for full papers submission.
• October 31, 2026: Initial feedback to authors.
• January 31, 2027: Deadline for resubmission of revised papers.
• April 30, 2027: Second-round feedback to authors.
• June 30, 2027: Final editorial decisions communicated to authors.

Associate editors

• Ahmad Arslan, University of Oulu
• Alexander Richter, Victoria University of Wellington
• Daniel Gozman, University of Sydney
• Eleonora Pantano, University of Bristol
• Federico Iannacci, University of Sussex
• Francis Andoh Baidoo, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
• Imran Ali, Central Queensland University
• Ismail Golgeci, University of Auckland
• Jason Bennett Thatcher, University of Colorado Boulder
• Linda Hollebeek, Sunway University
• Margherita Pagani, SKEMA Business School
• Nisreen Ameen, Royal Holloway, University of London
• Ryan Yung, University of Greenwich
• Saima Qutab, University of Auckland
• Sandra Smith, University of Auckland
• Shohil Kishore, University of Auckland
• Stan Karanasios, University of Queensland
• Weng Marc Lim, Sunway University