Calls for Papers | Tag: digital technology

Futuring: ‘Digital’ Futures as a Novel Site of Inquiry and Imagination

Journal of Information Technology (JIT) — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 03:16:46 GMT

Dirk S. Hovorka, The University of Sydney

Benjamin Mueller, University of Bremen

Elizabeth Davidson, University of Hawaii - Manoa

Mike Chiasson, University of British Columbia

What attention do we owe the future(s)? The Information Systems (IS) and adjacent research fields engage with the design, implementation, and evaluation of increasingly powerful digital technologies and with studies of their impact on work, knowledge, sustainability, and organizing. Given the rich and growing body of theories and findings from research on these wide and long-term impacts, the potential for researchers to help envision, inform, critique, and shape how these technologically-infused futures – 'digital futures' – develop are immense.

Despite this rich potential, most discussions of the future implications of digitalization in IS research are abstract and nominal, typically assuming a singular 'future' will arise from the technological advances studied. Discourses on the future with digital technologies rarely bring the worlds and practices that emerge from, shape, and transform futures to the foreground for a close and critical examination. Similarly, whether or to what extent such worlds and practices will discernibly be digital to any meaningful degree is often just assumed, which focuses our attention on specific aspects that may no longer be salient in futures. As a result, researchers tend to cede these important discussions and considerations to visionaries, technology firms, and 'evangelists' in business and consultancy.

To the degree that IS research does consider the future, the implications of digital technologies in the discourse are often contradictory. On the one hand, an optimistic, instrumental view depicts the broad range of technologies as 'tools' under social control, which can (and will) produce an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable future. On the other hand, a substantive view of technology casts technology as dark, uncontrollable forces that (inevitably) result in personal, societal, and environmental distress. For instance, the dominating discussions of AI in research illustrate these contradictory 'hopes and fears'. Neither view of technology sufficiently challenges researchers to engage actively with futuring – that is, the envisioning, informing, critiquing, and helping to shape possible futures systematically through research practices. Hence, the purpose and focus of this special issue is on futuring work – active, imaginary, forward-looking research work in IS or related fields that is informing or shaping our 'digital' futures.

Research approaches that address the worlds and practices that shape digital possibilities and the multiplicity of futures that could result are possible. These strategies can overcome nominal approaches to considering the future and build on the rich socio-technical positions already present in IS research. To do so, researchers need to consider new ways of futuring that go beyond simple extrapolations of current trends into the future or tacit acceptance of technology’s inevitable path. One way to do so is to loosen the grip of empiricism in IS research and broaden our relationship to futures, for instance, by engaging with speculation and imagination in research, creating speculative engagements with future possibilities, and deconstructing the narratives and expectations of the present. These and other approaches to futuring can be highly significant to what emerging phenomena can be observed, where present-day research interests and practices are directed, and ultimately, what future worlds are realized through the technologies we study.

There is enormous potential for present-day research to consider the futures of lived social life, environmental conditions, and economies with digitalization and technological enactments. To foray into, conceptualize, and perform the variety of futuring approaches, we must take the theoretical, methodological, and philosophical implications of futures seriously in our research. Our goal in this special issue is to encourage researchers in the IS and adjacent managerial fields to do so. The intended types of contributions to this special issue follow the 'digital futures' editorial referenced above and encourage submissions with novel contributions within (or across) three main categories: Engaging in Futuring, Envisioning Futures, and Conceptualizing Futures. Submissions may examine our relationships with short-term events and technologies or with the long, slow shifts in social norms; moral reasoning; and the power, weight, and significance of institutions, practices, and technologies. We encourage consideration of the philosophical bases for connecting past-present-futures, new methods of futuring, and conceptions of the future as a site of inquiry. Traditional futures-studies approaches are welcome insofar as they contribute to the special issue’s goals. The special issue seeks to be inclusive in terms of diverse approaches to futuring and studying digital futures.

Potential topics

Researching futures to inform present theory and action.
Anthropologic, ethnographic, or speculative design approaches.
Ethical futures: what do we owe the future?
Beyond trajectories of the digital: Anticipating and modelling future worlds.
Precautionary principles: guardrails for dual-use technologies?
Socio-technical construction of the future.
Utopias, dystopias, and science fiction as forms of speculative science.
Non-empirical approaches to knowledge.
Bridging epistemic distance.
Digital transformation in a digital world.
Reconceptualizing the organization.

Timeline

Invalid DateTime: Target publication date.
July 1, 2025: AOM workshop introducing special issue.
August 15, 2025: Submit extended abstract for feedback and workshop admission, max 1500 words, via submission system
September 15, 2025: Abstracts invited for workshop.
December 1, 2025: Special Issue Workshop Hybrid at ICIS 2025 and online (recommended).
February 15, 2026: First round submission deadline.
May 15, 2026: First round decision to authors.
October 15, 2026: Second round submission deadline.
December 15, 2026: Second round decision to authors. Papers will be accepted or rejected after the second round of peer review.
January 31, 2027: Final revision due (if applicable).
February 28, 2027: Final decision to authors.

Next-Generation Information Systems Research Methods

Journal of Information Technology (JIT) — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 12:27:57 GMT

Ivo Blohm, University of St. Gallen

Susanna Ho, Australian National University

Shaila Miranda, University of Oklahoma

Jan Marco Leimeister, University of St. Gallen

This special issue is interested in 'next-generation' research methods for studying information technology (IT) phenomena – particularly in the information system (IS) research field. So far, IS researchers have applied a range of quantitative, qualitative and engaged methods to study IT-related phenomena. Quantitative IS research has often followed a positivist approach of hypothesis testing, with sometimes 'first-generation' regression models distinguished from 'second-generation' structural equation models (Gerow et al. 2011). Data used in such methods stems from surveys, experiments, panel studies, etc. The primary objective of this research stream typically is theory testing. Qualitative IS research has ranged from positivist to interpretivist, seeking rich situated insights via case studies, grounded theory or ethnographies. One objective of this research stream is theory construction. Critical and emancipatory IS research adds a strong value orientation and theoretical basis to qualitative research. Another type of IS research seeks to generate new knowledge with 'engaged' methods like design science or action research. The objective of this stream that differentiates it from the first two is the focus on solving important individual, organizational or societal challenges; or extending the boundaries of human and organizational capabilities by creating new and innovative artifacts (Baskerville and Wood-Harper 1996; Hevner et al. 2004).

In recent years, the scope of and possibilities for IS research have tremendously widened. Digital IT have become mainstream at the individual, organizational and societal levels (Burton-Jones et al. 2021). Digital IT is key to innovation in various domains from medicine to education, from psychology to the arts. Hence, these domains have become of interest and relevance to IS researchers, yet also overlap with other fields and are hence interdisciplinary in nature. These innovations are increasing the volume and variety of trace data available to researchers but necessitate a shift in our research practices (Johnson et al. 2019). Further, big data, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies provide a plethora of powerful approaches for collecting and analysing data at a scale not possible before such that we might need to adapt our research methods and tools to make this data actionable and to generate novel knowledge. These ML technologies are being applied not only to theory testing but also to theory construction – in conjunction with or independent of qualitative methods (Miranda et al. 2022).

This special issue focuses on the next generation of research methods to study IT – new methods relevant to the IS research field that account for a) the interdisciplinary nature and wider scope of IT phenomena, and/or b) the novel capacities afforded by new technologies/techniques (e.g., ML/AI). The way that novel technologies and techniques afford new possibilities is quite apparent in quantitative IS research. In contrast to 'first-generation' regression-based approaches and 'second-generation' structural equation modelling, a new generation of research methods including the predictive analytics (Shmueli and Koppius 2011), data mining (Smith 2020), ML (Shrestha et al. 2020) or explainable AI (Gunning et al. 2019) come with substantial new opportunities and challenges. For instance, these methods potentially allow for more fine-grained measurements and analyses to extend our knowledge of existing phenomena and may help us study novel phenomena including those that were, methodologically speaking, 'out of reach' (George et al. 2016). These technological advancements enable us to progress our research toolkit and inform new ways of generating knowledge and theorizing (Burton-Jones et al. 2021; Shrestha et al. 2020). Increased recognition of abduction as a counterpart to deductive and inductive reasoning (Behfar and Okhuysen 2018; Sætre and Van de Ven 2021) pits concerns about practices such as HARKing (Kerr 1998) – hypothesizing after the results are known (aka p-hacking) – believed to lead to logically and scientifically flawed hypotheses, against concerns about stifling the advancement of knowledge (Pratt et al. 2019). ML/AI techniques are now so powerful that they can test millions of models on large data sets to find the 'best-matching' model (of all possible) for what needs to be explained. This is a fundamental gear change in what can be done with quantitative data sets, the promise and validity of which are hotly debated (Kitchin 2014; Smith 2020).

In terms of changes to the nature of the IS domains, qualitative-interpretative researchers seek to find new methods suitable for the wider, interdisciplinary scope of IS research. This is done via finding or developing analytical new grounds and looking at digital IT differently (e.g. via sociomaterial or affordances perspectives), seeking additional foundations in other fields (e.g., Zuboff’s (2015) political economy informed analysis of surveillance capitalism and 'Big Tech') or via the modification of methods to suit digital environments (e.g., virtual ethnographies or computational grounded theory). Other forms of qualitative research such as meta-synthesis, qualitative comparative analysis and discourse analysis also seem promising and relevant but are seldomly used in IS research. Digital IT (e.g., social media, digital platforms, AI/ML) has increasing and substantial impacts on society (e.g., mental health, trust in science, misinformation and polarization, monopolization and industry disruption). Hence, ethical, critical, value-based and political-economy questions are increasingly and necessarily asked about digital IT. Similarly, today’s pace of innovation may also warrant novel approaches to engaged scholarship and design science. For instance, researchers are calling for methods that can accumulate and update evidence more effectively (Lacity et al. 2021) and better ensure the generalizability of prescriptive knowledge (Brendel et al. 2021; Iivari et al. 2021).

This special issue invites contributions that propose, introduce, debate or critique novel quantitative, qualitative or design-oriented methods research, with a focus on the 'how' (i.e., origins, processes, steps of the method) and the 'why' (e.g., 'rigour vs relevance' and 'it is new, but is it better' questions) these approaches should be used in IS research. The goal of the special issue is to provide a space for introducing and discussing innovative 'next-generation' methods for studying IT-related phenomena, relative to the IS research field.

Potential topics

Critical reflection of research methods used in IS.
Introducing new qualitative, quantitative or design research methods.
Transferability of non-IS research methods such as from other fields or praxis.
Novel combinations of research methods such as cross-disciplinary or mixed-method approaches.
Innovative approaches to analyze big data.
Approaches dealing with special types of unstructured data.
Problems of null hypothesis testing via big data and AI/ML.
AI, ML and explainable AI for knowledge creation and theory generation.
Transparent, robust and replicable research designs and methodologies.
Transferability and generalizability of insights generated with specific methods.
Approaches to evaluating and communicating practical relevance of findings.
Critical assessment of novel approaches on practical, conceptual, ethical or philosophical grounds.
Philosophy of science-based proposals for or critiques of methods.
Culture and values-driven proposals for or critiques of methods.
Methods to study the past, the present and/or the future.

Timeline

November 20, 2022: Abstract submissions: (optional; authors are invited to submit extended abstracts of papers for early reactions)
April 15, 2023: First-round submissions
July 15, 2023: First-round decisions
December 15, 2023: Second-round submissions
February 15, 2024: Second-round decisions: (papers are either acceptable with minor changes or rejected at this stage)
May 15, 2024: Final versions due: (final decisions and online publication soon afterwards)