Neil Pollock, University of Edinburgh Business School

Danielle Logue, UNSW Business School

Harro van Lente, Maastricht University

Marian Gatzweiler, University of Edinburgh Business School

We are living through an era of ‘hyper-hype’. Generative AI, blockchain, the metaverse, and quantum computing arrive in successive waves, each reshaping how markets are formed, navigated, and contested. Hype is not incidental noise; it is a constitutive force of contemporary digital capitalism. Yet despite its pervasive influence, hype has rarely been examined as a phenomenon in its own right by information systems (IS) and organisation and management theory (OMT) scholars.

This Special Issue advances scholarly understanding of hype as a central yet under-examined phenomenon shaping the digital future. We invite contributions from IS, OMT and related fields, including Science & Technology Studies (STS), Economic Sociology, Market Studies, etc., that treat hype not as rhetorical excess to be dismissed, but as a patterned and consequential feature of contemporary digital innovation.

Hype is commonly defined as a surge in attention, excitement, and expectations, often surrounding emerging technologies, mobilised through promissory narratives. Its role and meaning vary across contexts: some view hype as dangerous, while others regard it as necessary or even desirable for innovation. Economic sociologists position hype as a driving force for capitalism itself. We aim for a symmetrical approach, one that traces how hype produces effects in practice.

Potential topics

• Hype, decision-making, and organisational practice: How do organisations make technology adoption, investment, and procurement decisions amid competing and exaggerated claims? How do decision-makers navigate uncertainty without settled evidence, learning to work through hype rather than despite it? How do organisations manage hype as both a resource and a liability?
• Attention, legitimacy, and the mediation of technological futures: How is collective attention mobilised around particular technologies, and what strategies amplify some digital futures while marginalising others? How do algorithms, platforms, and data infrastructures participate in generating, evaluating, and sustaining hype?
• Intermediaries, promissory products, and the infrastructure of hype: How do industry analysts, consultants, investors, platform owners, and media actors produce, evaluate, and recalibrate hype? What forms of expertise underpin these activities?
• Hype across time and the innovation lifecycle: How does hype’s role shift from early-stage field formation through market-making to organisational adoption? How are expectations stabilised, revised, or abandoned as technologies mature?
• Contestation, competition, and the politics of hype: How do actors challenge, deflate, or reframe hyped claims, and what practices of organised scepticism emerge in response to inflated expectations?
• Hype, wicked problems, and digital futures: How do hype dynamics interact with intractable or ‘wicked’ social problems where repeated failure produces low expectations and innovation inertia?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Paper Development Workshop
• January 31, 2027: Submission deadline
• May 15, 2027: First round reviews due
• June 30, 2027: First round decision letters
• October 31, 2027: First round resubmissions
• January 31, 2028: Second round reviews due
• March 15, 2028: Second round decision letters
• June 15, 2028: Second round resubmissions
• October 1, 2028: Final papers selected & editorial