How can and should the IS field best contribute to the Social Welfare Computing research agenda, which seeks to assess unintended consequences and propose better solutions related to the potential harms of digital business practices? In this discussion paper, we take Amazon.com, Inc. as an instance of a giant digital company and examine it structurally as a sociotechnical actor engaging in a broad range of digital features and business practices. The picture that emerges from this analysis (a company engaging in systematically unfair competitive behavior) is quite different from one derived from the IS literature about Amazon as a company (a technologically savvy and strategically successful player). This analysis is provisional and deserves to be reproduced, possibly by reassembling the IS literature on such topics as electronic marketplaces, recommender systems, and online reviews, into a specific profile for each of the digital giants. Regardless, the analysis is this paper suggests the possibility of blindspots in traditional IS research on digital business activities, and it offers some suggestions for future research on the Social Welfare Computing research agenda. In particular, IS scholarship should emphasize corporate actors in addition to isolated technology features and business practices.

IS 领域如何以及应该如何最好地为社会福利计算研究议程做出贡献，该议程旨在评估意外后果并提出与数字商业实践的潜在危害相关的更好解决方案？在本讨论文件中，我们将 Amazon.com, Inc. 作为一家大型数字公司的一个例子，并从结构上将其视为从事广泛的数字功能和商业实践的社会技术参与者。从该分析中得出的图景（一家从事系统性不公平竞争行为的公司）与从 IS 文献中得出的关于亚马逊作为一家公司（一家技术精湛且战略上成功的参与者）的图景截然不同。这种分析是临时性的，值得复制，可能通过重新组装有关电子市场等主题的 IS 文献，推荐系统和在线评论，成为每个数字巨头的特定配置文件。无论如何，本文的分析表明传统的信息系统研究在数字商业活动方面存在盲点的可能性，并为社会福利计算研究议程的未来研究提供了一些建议。特别是，除了孤立的技术特征和商业实践之外，IS 奖学金还应该强调企业参与者。