The Information Systems (IS) discipline is increasingly confronting the ‘dark sides’ of digitalisation, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding of its effects on human flourishing. Traditional perspectives, grounded in Aristotle’s objectivist virtue ethics, often overlook the subjective side of human experience, shaped by individual desires and cultural contexts. This...
This paper investigates the impact of metrification on the sense of human flourishing academics gain through their research practices. Broadly speaking, human flourishing offers an overarching conception of human wellbeing associated with positive outcomes such as health, life satisfaction, meaning and purpose. Academic work can act as a pathway towards human flourishing. The...
Agile teams can face various risks to their software project’s resources and schedule. Yet, the increasingly specialized team roles in a software project may emphasize different explanations of these risks. Against this backdrop, we report a case study of how an agile team can understand and manage different explanations of their project risks. We used the causal mapping...
The Green Information Systems research agenda calls for design principles to guide the development of digital artifacts that effectively promote sustainable energy consumption. The effectiveness of these digital artifacts depends on human experiences of the artifact itself and how it mediates experiences of their present situation. A critical situation for many energy consumers...
Digital transformation requires firms to reassess their competence bases, yet the literature offers limited guidance on which competencies are essential for non-IT employees to effectively navigate digital transformation or how such competencies should be developed and utilized within the organization. In this paper, we conducted a case study of a large Norwegian grid company...
Organizational information systems (IS) change for a variety of reasons, yet the change process itself remains ill-defined. Much of the focus has been on systems development, with an assumption that the same processes can be used in systems change. By focusing explicitly on systems change, this paper aims to improve our understanding by focusing on the following research...
In recent decades, there has been a rise in human-like and femininely gendered information systems, such as voice-based conversational agents. Research has identified both benefits and harms in this development. While the feminisation of information systems may increase usability, trust, technology acceptance and user enjoyment, it can also reproduce harmful gender stereotypes...
Participatory design (PD) has evolved over time to adapt to societal and technology changes, transitioning from industrial Taylorism to office teamwork, inter-organisational collaboration, and more recently to inter-agency collaboration involving increasing complexity due to the heterogeneity of user groups. This paper presents a stakeholder theory-driven PD approach for...
Motivation can be key to creating commitment and ownership among employees in the innovation processes that lead to the creation of new products and services. Research in the last 20 years has sought to better understand the factors that can explain innovation, including motivation. When competition increases, knowledge of what motivates employees to contribute to innovation may...
By Lisen Selander, Published on 12/31/24
With this response, we challenge Information Systems researchers for more extensive and radical re-imagination of our research on workplace datafication—we urge moving towards research that aims at competence development with critical and ethical foci and at empowering participants and collectives to act as powerful change makers regarding and by using intelligent, data-driven...
Nyman et al. (2024) make the compelling case that IS research is well-positioned to support data-driven labour organizing through the design of work tracking technologies. Yet, given that democratic society is mirrored in the workplace (Kyng 1994), data-driven workplace technologies pose broader society-wide challenges unaddressed in a strict focus on workers. Taking our example...
Stig Nyman and colleagues published a thought-provoking article on workplace datafication in the Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems in 2024. Despite the merits of emphasizing the topic, their debate is too generic and abstract to lead to concrete research activities. In this response article, by presenting real-life examples, I show that data are highly contextual...
This article is a response to Nyman et al. (2024) article on forging a research agenda on data-driven labor organizing. While recognizing the potential benefits, this short commentary posits that data-driven labor organizing might transfer the responsibility from trade unions to individual workers. This transfer, however, may have limited efficacy as it fails to address today’s...
By Olgerta Tona, Published on 12/31/24
Nyman et al.’s paper ‘From Algorithmic management to Data-driven Labour Organising’ (in this issue) is a welcome discussion about challenges from current technology development to the Scandinavian design traditions emphasizing user participation in design. Digitalization changes work places and societies, often due to innovations in technology (often abroad) or social structures...
In this response to Nyman et al. (2024), I argue that workplace datafication is an important topic where trade unions can be a central actor. Not just “bossware” made for surveillance of workers, but also ordinary information systems generate data, which it is important that are used responsibly. While I think trade unions can draw inspiration from the Scandinavian tradition, I...
By Stig Nyman, Olivia Benfeldt, Jacob Nørbjerg, et al., Published on 12/31/24
By Elena Parmiggiani, Published on 12/31/24
Untrustworthy technologies create systemic harms for their users, often by design, and at the societal level. However, the nature of these technologies and the reasons why they evolve have not yet been well investigated. This research proposes a framework for conceptualising untrustworthy technologies as an ecosystem-level dark side phenomenon. Using a novel sensemaking model, we...
Technostress is a concern for research and practice. Existing Information Systems (IS) research on technostress tends to predominantly focus on the five technostress-creating dimensions (e.g., overload or invasion) identified two decades ago. However, the dynamic nature of IS and the technological and disciplinary advancements call for a re-examination of constructs. This study...
One of the dark sides of information technology artefacts is the phenomenon that Western value systems are often built deeply into software programs without any realisation that these applications do not necessarily reflect indigenous value systems. When these systems are rolled out without adaptation to African and other indigenous environments, it may have unintended...
Rapid advancements in the sophistication and diffusion of advanced digital technologies such as AI warrant repose to consider their unintended consequences or ‘dark sides’. While more attention has been directed towards the ethical implications of disruptive technologies, discussions on the underlying materiality of the digital artefacts are often missing. In this article, we...
Social media holds immense potential to contribute to achieving sustainability goals by facilitating climate actions. However, the growing threat of disinformation on these platforms challenges climate change mitigation efforts. The political motives underlying the orchestration of such disinformation campaigns disseminate falsehoods about scientific consensus, sow ambiguity, and...
In response to public IS/IT procurement challenges, many public sector organisations have ventured into establishing and orchestrating free and open-source software (FOSS) ecosystems. While these initiatives hold significant promise, they frequently encounter hurdles like poor productivity, leading to premature demise. This study explores activities that contribute to the long...