McBride (in this issue) rightfully stresses some differences between IS and natural sciences (NS). For him, for example, the IS phenomenon is more complex than cancer biology. This is questionable.1 The complexity, however, may be different. Another difference noted by McBride (this issue) is human intentionality, which NS phenomena lack. AI research issues (e.g. ethics of AI), however, may introduce

Blockchain systems afford new privacy capabilities. This threatens to create conflict, as different social groups involved in blockchain development often disagree on which capabilities specific systems should enact. This article adopts a boundary object perspective to make sense of disagreements between collaborating social worlds. We perform a case study of privacy attitudes among collaborating actors

This article furthers a sociomaterial framework to examine inter-organizational boundaries in government IT projects. It engages in a dialogue with the practice theory-based approach to boundary spanning and utilizes analytical tools and epistemologies drawn from the social studies of technology. It aims to contribute to a situated, material understanding of inter-organizational boundaries. We argue

Beliefs about natural science have been influential in information system (IS; Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991).1 For example, a belief exists that ‘the methods of natural science constitute the only legitimate methods for use in social science’ (Evaristo and Karahanna, 1997: 39). These legitimate methods include the use of ‘quantitative empirical methodologies—field experiment, survey, and laboratory

Rigorous research in Information Systems requires an understanding of how scientific foundations drive both the process and outcome. This science duality addresses the effective application of the scientific method (process) as well as the advance of knowledge (outcome) from the research project. This commentary responds to Siponen and Klaavuniemi’s paper with a focus on the uses of knowledge in Information

This is a comment on the paper by Siponen and Klaarvuniemi concerning the natural sciences. It argues that many of their points are correct but have been made before, particularly within critical realism. It suggests that the way forward is via a ‘mechanisms’ view of natural (and social) science.

Blockchain technology has enabled so-called smart contracts between different parties on a decentralized network. These self-enforceable and self-executable computerized contracts could initiate a fundamental paradigm shift in the understanding and functioning of our legal practices. Opportunities for their application are increasingly understood, and numerous tests of feasibility have been completed

Offshoring—the transfer of work activities to providers in offshore countries—has for some time affected the nature of work in onshore locations. Not much is however known about the reactions of onshore job incumbents to such changes. In this article, we use a survey of UK firms to examine the relationship between perceived changes in onshore managers’ work characteristics induced by information systems

Boundary resources have been shown to enable the arm’s-length relationships between platform owners and third-party developers that underlie digital innovation in platform ecosystems. While boundary resources that are owned by open-source communities and small-scale software vendors are also critical components in the digital infrastructure, their role in digital innovation has yet to be systematically

Tensions are a major source of communication problems, coordination issues, and conflict in globally distributed work. In this article, we argue that extant literature falls short of addressing tensions in globally distributed work at two levels. First, it fails to fully account for the intrinsic and entrenched nature of tensions in globally distributed work, suggesting instead that they can be resolved

Robotics and the automation of knowledge work, often referred to as AI (artificial intelligence), are presented in the media as likely to have massive impacts, for better or worse, on jobs skills, organizations and society. The article deconstructs the dominant hype-and-fear narrative. Claims on net job loss emerge as exaggerated, but there will be considerable skills disruption and change in the major

In recent times societal crises such as the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak have given rise to a tension between formal ‘command and control’ and informal social media activated self-organising information and communication systems that are utilised for crisis management decision-making. Social media distrust affects the dissemination of disaster information as it entails shifts in media perception

The ‘conversation’ offers an important contribution to the archaeology of information systems, both in practice as an academic domain or discipline, and a focus on the genealogy of the field, including some of the accidents and deviations that marked later developments. It is derived from a series of conversations and later exchanges that I arranged with Frank Land. The substantive aspects date from

Part 1 of the ‘conversation’ offered important insights into a groundbreaking era for computer development – adding further detail to existing writings by Frank Land, the work of the LEO group in general, and extended accounts such as those by Ferry, Hally and Harding. This should have whetted the appetite for readers keen to know more, also prompting others to offer their own accounts. Part 2 moves

Whaling is one of the most financially damaging, well-known, effective cyberattacks employed by sophisticated cybercriminals. Although whaling largely consists of sending a simplistic email message to a whale (i.e. a high-value target in an organization), it can result in large payoffs for cybercriminals, in terms of money or data stolen from organizations. While a legitimate cybersecurity threat,

Metahuman systems are new, emergent, sociotechnical systems where machines that learn join human learning and create original systemic capabilities. Metahuman systems will change many facets of the way we think about organizations and work. They will push information systems research in new directions that may involve a revision of the field’s research goals, methods and theorizing. Information systems

The scientific method is based on the rigorous testing of falsifiable conjectures. Data mining, in contrast, puts data before theory by searching for statistical patterns without being constrained by prespecified hypotheses. Artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, for example, often rely on data-mining algorithms to construct models with little or no human guidance. However, a plethora

While indigenous theorizing in information systems has clear merits, theory borrowing will not, and should not, be eschewed given its appeal and usefulness. In this article, we aim at increasing our understanding of modifying of borrowed theories in IT-rich contexts. We present a framework in which we discuss how two recontextualization approaches of specification and distinction help with increasing

Researchers often hold a romantic view of theory, which they feel should be a complete, flawless, deep, and exhaustive explanation of a phenomenon. They also often hold a romantic view of theory building, which they envision either as emerging from trancelike writing or as the product of a straightforward deductive process. The perspective I offer is more realistic and pragmatic. I espouse the view

The emergence of “big data” offers organizations unprecedented opportunities to gain and maintain competitive advantage. Trying to exploit the strategic business potential embedded in big data, many organizations have started to renovate their business models or develop new ones, giving rise to the phenomenon of big-data business models. Although big-data business model research is still in its infancy

Vendor capabilities are an important research stream in the IT outsourcing literature. The extant studies have generated rich findings on how vendors develop capabilities, but these findings have mainly been based on the condition of vendors improving their existing business. How vendors develop capabilities to move up the value chain has received little prior research attention. A key challenge for

Maturity models can be seen as support tools for an organization. Their importance is increasing in the scientific community and IT (Information Technology) organizations are starting to implement them. The main objective of maturity models is to evaluate and improve the organization’s practices by creating an improvement roadmap. However, the utilization of the methodologies and methods by this community

Free/open source software users were previously responsible for managing the challenges associated with their software themselves. Recently, a new generation of entrepreneurs seized this emerging market opportunity by positioning themselves as service providers for free/open source software users. Conceptualizing such providers as “institutional entrepreneurs,” we find that due to the nature of the

In an era when technologies have become a backbone of most organizations, IT support functions are under immense pressure not only to ensure provision and reliability of IS and technologies but also to resolve IS incidents of different severity when they disrupt organizations’ “business-as-usual.” This article addresses this challenge by investigating how organizational IT functions coordinate their

The growing business expansion of social media platforms is changing their identity and transforming the practices of networking, data and content sharing with which social media have been commonly associated. We empirically investigate these shifts in the context of TripAdvisor and its evolution since its very establishment. We trace the mutations of the platform along three stages we identify as

In this article, we consider how the notion of the negotiated order can be reinterpreted by drawing on ideas from sociomateriality. We argue that the negotiated order is an ongoing accomplishment in which a heterogeneous set of situated sociomaterial practices (or actors) are implicated. To do this, we draw upon an in-depth study of the use of a computerised physician order entry system in a hospital

Information technology is crucial for modern services. Service delivery may include a complex mix of information technology and telecommunication providers, global networks and customers’ information technology devices. This research focuses on service failures that are caused by information technology problems, which we conceptualize as information technology-based service degradation (ITSD). When

With the rapidly changing institutional and technological environment for information systems research, it is useful to examine how the conduct of research itself has been changing. In this Debates and Perspectives article, based on analysis of over 1800 articles, we first describe trends from 2000 to 2015 in co-authorship, research areas, unit of analysis, and research direction-setting initiatives

High failure rates of information systems development (ISD) projects continue to trouble organizations and information systems practices. Such a state of affairs has been of great concern for the information systems discipline for decades, motivating information systems researchers to focus on and extensively study ISD project failure. However, the increasing complexity and uncertainty of ISD projects

I had no idea what would come next, and I met Karlheinz Brandenburg and he was talking about this great new thing, that would just be the coolest, you could play music on your phone, on your cellphone, and I remember thinking ‘who cares, I don’t need to play music on my phone’, I just did not see what the mp3, what the future was going to be, I did not see it coming. (Suzanne Vega, in: Chermayeff and

Although there has been a growing understanding of theory in the information systems field in recent years, the process of theorizing is rarely addressed with contributions originating from other disciplines and little effort to coherently synthesize them. Moreover, the field’s view of theorizing has traditionally focused on the context of justification with an emphasis on collection and analysis of

In Table 2 of the originally published article, the third social media use type “Collaboration” and the first line of this table section in the second to fourth columns are missing. Please find the correct table as follows.

In recent years, developed economies have witnessed growing healthcare costs as both average life expectancy and chronic disease burdens increase, costs which are expected to rise substantially by 2060 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2013). These challenges are exacerbated by the fragmentation in many nations’ healthcare systems, which is manifest in poor care coordination

Radical shifts in large information technology programmes or digital infrastructures are unusual, but they do occur, usually as a consequence of problems or misalignment. What we know less about is the role of discourse in these shifts. Our interest in this article is to investigate the role of discourse when digitalisation programmes encounter problems. Building on Foucault’s theory of discourse,

We focus on networked arrangements of digital resources that are shared among otherwise independent units to advance conceptual and empirical insights about their governance. We are motivated by the simple observation that, increasingly, independent organizations are engaging in shared activities, often relying on purpose-built digital infrastructures to support this move to inter-dependence. To advance

We investigate the emerging meanings of “value” associated with the Internet of Things. Given the current political economy, we argue that the multiple meanings of “value” cannot be reduced to a single domain or discipline, but rather they are invariably articulated at the juxtaposition of three domains: social, economic, and technical. We analyse each of these domains and present domain challenges

For three decades, research has investigated the role of information systems integration (ISI) in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). This research has improved our understanding of the M&A IS challenges and their solutions. However, consolidation and integration across the research is limited. To redress this omission, we review 70 articles published between 1989 and 2016. To do this, we adopt and extend

This article presents the findings from a longitudinal research study on regulatory technology in the UK financial services industry. The financial crisis with serious corporate and mutual fund scandals raised the profile of compliance as governmental bodies, institutional and private investors introduced a ‘tsunami’ of financial regulations. Adopting a multi-level analysis, this study examines how

The digitisation of data about the world relevant to business has given rise to a new phase of digitalisation of business itself. The digitisation of data about people has linked with the notions of information society, surveillance society, surveillance state and surveillance capitalism, and given rise to what is referred to in this article as the digital surveillance economy. At the heart of this

Despite its prevalence, there is a lack of understanding regarding the effect of telework on an organization’s knowledge base. Recognizing the enabling role of electronic communication media, this article therefore addresses the interaction effects of media synchronicity and temporal as well as spatial separation among colleagues on sharing in knowledge networks. Special attention is paid to knowledge

In this article, we assert that compassion-driven approaches are the sustainable way for information and communication technologies to contribute to economic value. We urge future information systems research to emphasize, with equal vigor, the joint goals of compassion and financial gains from information and communication technologies. We present a broad agenda for future information systems research

Enterprise architecture is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective intended to bridge the communication gap between business and IT stakeholders and improve business and IT alignment. Enterprise architecture consists of multiple different artifacts providing certain views of an organization and the available enterprise architecture literature offers a number of

Considerable research has focused on the positive effects of information technology use. However, emerging research and practice commentary highlight the importance of considering the negative side of information technology use. The current study investigates how enterprise social media use (i.e. work- and social-related use) influences employees’ perceived overload (i.e. information and social overload)

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is an act of delegation of one or more information-intensive business processes to a third-party provider (Borman, 2006; Luo, Zheng, & Jayaraman, 2010). Companies commonly outsource processes in non-core business functions, such as finance and accounting, call centres and human resources, to third-party service providers for various reasons. The extant literature

Grounded in the dynamic capabilities perspective, our study addresses the question of how information technology outsourcing capabilities can interact with other IT strategic capabilities to enable organizational agility through the ongoing reconfiguration of IT solutions. To answer our question, we built on the notion of microfoundations that undergird the high-level dynamic capabilities of sensing

Business analytics (BA) systems include people, processes and technologies that translate the raw data of organizations into meaningful information and insights. Managers rely on the analytical insights of BA systems to make better decisions and take competitive actions. Industry-based studies have emphasized the importance of these systems to managers ( H.Chen, Chiang, & Storey, 2012; Davenport &

This article constructs explanatory theory on trust in e-voting, a term that refers to the use of stand-alone IT artefacts in voting stations. We study e-voting as a techno-organisational arrangement embedded in the process of elections and the broader socio-economic context of a country. Following a critical realist approach, we apply retroduction and retrodiction principles to build theory by complementing

In this study, we explore the role of Chief Digital Officer (CDO) through the perspectives of CDOs in thirty-five organizations. In enacting their emerging role, CDOs must navigate the existing institutionalized context of established information technology (IT) roles and respective jurisdictional claims. We find that CDOs intentionally draw on the term “digital” to distance themselves from existing

Innovation through outsourcing can be hindered as a result of opportunistic behaviour. As a remedy, the extant literature encourages firms to enhance familiarity between the parties and/or consider using advisory services. In this paper, we seek to examine the effect of knowledge familiarity (client-supplier and supplier-client) and relational familiarity on innovation outcomes. Further, we also examine

The increased digitalization of work results in practices that are increasingly networked and knowledge-based. As such, we need to continuously inquire how digital technology leads to changes in work and not be content knowing that it leads to change. This paper contributes to advancing such knowledge through an analysis of digitalized condition-based maintenance of machinery in a Swedish iron ore

Control is vital for IS projects to be delivered on time and within budget. Control theory helps us better understand and explain control in information systems operations and development. However, simplistic notions about control do not correspond to how control actually works. We believe that a social perspective that sees controls as negotiated orders, and not just things imposed by controllers

Technology-mediated learning (TML) is a major trend in education, since it allows to integrate the strengths of traditional- and IT-based learning activities. However, TML providers still struggle in identifying areas for improvement in their TML offerings. One reason for their struggles is inconsistencies in the literature regarding drivers of TML performance. Prior research suggests that these inconsistencies

As digital platforms are transforming almost every industry today, they are slowly finding their way into the mainstream information systems (ISs) literature. Digital platforms are a challenging research object because of their distributed nature and intertwinement with institutions, markets and technologies. New research challenges arise as a result of the exponentially growing scale of platform innovation

In recent years, organizations have increasingly sourced cloud-based enterprise software (ES). Although comprehensively capturing organizations’ requirements considerably affects the success of an ES sourcing project, little is known about how requirements evolve beyond the implementation. We conduct a longitudinal, exploratory single-case study of the life cycle of cloud-based ES in a medium-sized

Backsourcing is the process where a client firm brings previously outsourced services from a supplier back in-house. Traditionally, the existing literature on backsourcing has focused on how firms reach the decision to bring back previously outsourced services. In this paper, we move beyond focusing on IT backsourcing decision to explore the process of backsourcing from a knowledge perspective. The

Conceptual models are intended to capture knowledge about the world. Hence, the design of conceptual models could be informed by theories about what entities exist in the world and how they are constituted. Further, a common assumption within the field of conceptual modeling is that conceptual models and information systems describe entities in the real world, outside the systems. An alternative view

Information systems are a strong and ever-growing discipline of enormous relevance to today's informated world, and yet, as recent reviews have shown, there is still not an agreed and explicit conceptualization or definition of information. After an evaluative review of a range of theories of information, this paper develops and defends a particular theory, one that sees information as both objective

Keynes (The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Harcourt Brace and Co., New York, 1936) had rightfully argued that picking stocks is akin to a beauty contest. The chances of winning are amplified if one's choice matches the likelihood of the panel's choice. In this era of financialization, where profit-making has shifted to speculative sways rather than fundamental trade and commodity

This article deals with the increasing computerization of the financial markets and the consequences of such process on our ability to collect information about financial prices. The concept of information is at the heart of financial economics simply because this notion is a precondition for all investments. Since financial prices characterize an agreement on a transaction between two counterparties

Scholars and practitioners alike increasingly recognize the importance of stock microblogs as they capture the market discussion and have predictive value for financial markets. This paper examines the extent to which stock microblog messages are related to financial market indicators and the mechanism leading to efficient aggregation of information. In particular, this paper investigates the information