[AISWorld] CFP [Due: July 31] The Role of Digital Technologies in New Normal: The Emergence of Contactless Digital Technologies and Services, Internet Research (SSCI, ABDC 'A' JCR Q1)

[Young Hoon Chang]

Special Issue Call for Papers - Internet Research – Editor: Prof. Christy
M.K. Cheung (IF: 4.708, SSCI, JCS Q1, ABDC A, ABS 2)

The Role of Digital Technologies in New Normal: The Emergence of
Contactless Digital Technologies and Services



Guest Editors

One-Ki (Daniel) Lee, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA

Jaehyun Park, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan

Juyeon Ham, Beijing Institute of Technology, China

Younghoon Chang, Beijing Institute of Technology, China



Submission system open: May 1, 2021

Paper submission due: July 31, 2021



The entire world is experiencing a significant transformation due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. The current event, which produces an enormous number of
infectious and fatalities in most countries around the world within a very
short period, threatens our society with very strong propagation power. In
response, most countries lockdown businesses, limit the movement of
citizens, and implement social distance to slow the rate of transmission of
this virus among people. As a result, the entire world is moving toward
contactless businesses and daily environments, a.k.a. the contactless,
un-tact, or remote society as the new normal (e.g., Dwivedi et al., 2020;
Gursoy & Chi, 2020; Pani et al., 2020). In line with this social
transformation, the role of digital technologies in such new personal and
organizational environments has been disruptively increased and evolved
(Carroll & Conboy, 2020; Leclercq-Vandelannoitte & Aroles, 2020; Pan &
Zhang, 2020).

This special issue is intended to recruit studies about the role of digital
technologies in the new normal environments in various aspects. According
to the co-evolution perspective, a societal evolution happens through the
co-influences among the different levels of evolutions (Lewin & Volberda,
1999; Johnson et al., 2016; Volberda & Lewin, 2003). Particularly, this
special issue focuses on socio-technical phenomena at the individual,
technology, service, and organization levels. which are interdependent to
each other and are likely to co-evolve through the current event that
affects all aspects of human and organizational activities.

Under the current pandemic situations, for example, most office workers
have been forced to work at home using remote-work computing platforms like
video conference applications, which requires significant transformations
of organizational work processes and practices (Carroll & Conboy, 2020).
Likewise, as most people are required or want to limit their daily travels
even for basic daily needs like grocery shopping, on-line purchases, and
their deliveries have been dramatically increased in terms of both volume
and variety, which requires new service designs and corresponding changes
in business strategies and operations (e.g., Gursoy & Chi, 2020; Pani et
al. 2020). Therefore, the current changes or transformation to a
contactless society triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic need to be
understood and explained in terms of the interdependent relationships or
co-influences among the above four components as well as their own
evolution phenomena.



Topics of Interests

1.            Contactless Technology Artifacts

In the process of rapid change to a new environment, the roles of
information technology (IT) are becoming more important. In traditional
environments, products or services have been delivered mainly face-to-face
in analog manners. In the new environment, however, not only the delivery
of products and services but also the work environment are changing in
contactless manners (Lee & Lee, 2020). Behind this digital evolution, there
are contactless technology artifacts that constantly interact with users
(e.g., self-service systems, remote working systems, distance education
systems, internet streaming platforms, etc.). In this case, the scope and
depth of functions that can be provided by contactless technology artifacts
can be varied according to the needs of users. Accordingly, the types and
roles of information technology (Brem et al., 2020; Froehle & Roth, 2004)
and their impacts on the new society will also be changed. Topics of
interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

●           New concepts and theories of the contactless technology
artifacts

●           Types and roles of contactless technologies and their impacts
on the new society

●           Scope and depth of the contactless technology artifacts

●           Interactions between users and the contactless technology
artifacts

●           Case studies about contactless technology artifacts



2.            Contactless Service Design

In emergent situations like the COVID-19, every individual and
organizational environment becomes complicated. As Verganti (2009) argues,
“design” is a vehicle to understand human behaviors and synthesize new
design features beyond the technology-driven innovation. With this notion,
information systems and innovation studies have considered a variety of
features of digital innovation and transformation (Nylén & Holmström 2019;
Nambisan et al., 2017; Yoo et al., 2010). Therefore, “contactless service
design” will deal with a research dilemma—how do contactless service design
features could represent unexpected human behaviors (desires, needs, and
requirements) and transform organizational issues? On this research
dilemma, the research topics and issues can be diverse as follows:



●           Discovering contextual inquiries about unexpected human
behaviors (desires, needs, and requirements) and creating new contactless
service design features

●           Developing contactless service design scenario planning,
illustrating the temporal and longitudinal problems, interactions, and
solutions

●           Understanding the role of design discipline on the emergent
situations (e.g., COVID-19) and providing design policy for the contactless
service design

●           Delivering contactless service design theories as a new
disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge and practice beyond
technology-driven and market-driven innovation



3.            Individual Behaviors

Individual user’s adoption and usage behaviors are still an important
research area in the information systems society and other academic
disciplines. This special issue will also cover this adoption and user’s
behavior issues as a core part of understanding the contactless digital
technology development and its diffusion in society and the market. Topics
of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

●           New theory and perspective for the contactless digital
technology adoption and diffusion

●           Success and failure factors of the contactless digital
technologies

●           The benefits and risks of adopting contactless digital
technologies

●           Individual’s privacy and security issues of the contactless
digital technologies

●           Cross-cultural issues related to disruptive information
technologies

●           Digital literacy and digital divide issues of the contactless
digital technologies

●           Cultural and psychological issues in the technological
development of contactless digital technologies

●           User interface, usability, the user experience of the
contactless digital technologies.

●           Individual adaptation of the contactless digital technologies



4.            Organizational Transformation

As the business environments have been dramatically changed during the
pandemic period with emerging or disappearing market demands and changing
compliance requirements, organizations are facing significant challenges to
adapt to the huge uncertainties (e.g., Carroll & Conboy, 2020; Gursoy &
Chi, 2020;). While many organizations have failed to adapt to such
hyper-uncertain environments, some organizations have successfully adapted
to the new environments through organizational transformations particularly
using contactless digital technologies (e.g., Lee & Lee, 2020). Hence,
another set of research topic will be the role of digital technologies in
transforming organizations or businesses to be responsive to the
contactless society and its new requirements. Topics of interest include,
but are not limited to, the following:

●           Digitally-enabled organizational transformation processes and
outcomes

●           Organizational IT resources and capabilities for contactless
organizational transformations

●           The emerging and new role of digital technologies in
contactless business environments

●           The impacts of contactless digital technologies on internal
operations, supply chain, and customer management

●           The impacts of contactless digital technologies and services on
industry competitions

●           Digitally-enabled organizational capabilities for a firm’s
survival in the new normal

●           IT governance policies and practices for the contactless
digital technologies

●           Emerging IT architectures for the contactless technologies and
services



Research Design and Methodological Requirements

This special issue encourages a variety of research design and
methodological approaches including (but not limited to):

●           Conceptual and empirical studies

●           Quantitative, qualitative, and multi-method approaches

●           Using data from direct observations and secondary sources

●           Using correlation-based, econometrics, configurational
approaches, data mining, and text mining for data analysis



Submission and Review Schedules

 Submission system open: May 1, 2021

Paper submission due: July 31, 2021

First review result: October 31, 2021

Revision due: December 31, 2021

Second review result: February 28, 2022

Final decision: April 30, 2022



- Contact the Guest Editors

For any questions or concerns about this call for papers, please contact
any of the guest co-editors below:

One-Ki (Daniel) Lee, University of Massachusetts Boston, Daniel.lee at umb.edu

Jaehyun Park, Kyoto Institute of Technology, jaehyun at kit.ac.jp

Juyeon Ham, Beijing Institute of Technology, juyeon.ham at gmail.com

Younghoon Chang, Beijing Institute of Technology, younghoonchang at bit.edu.cn



Editorial Review Board

Ajay Kumar, EMLyon Business School, France

Anant Joshi, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Arkalgud Ramaprasad, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Aron Lindberg , Stevens Institute of Technology, USA,

Brian Donnellan , Maynooth University, Ireland

Christian F. Libaque-Saenz, Universidad del Pacifico, Peru

Chulmo Koo, Kyung Hee University, South Korea

Daniel Perez Gonzalez, University of Cantabria, Spain

Haejung Yun, Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Harminder Singh, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Helen S. Du, Guang Dong University of Technology, China

Jae-Nam Lee, Korea University, South Korea

Jinxing (Gordon) Hao, Beihang University, China

Jinyoung Han, Chung-Ang University, South Korea

Josephine Namayanja, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA

Jung Lee, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea

Kalle Lyytinen, Case Western Reserve University, USA

Keongtae Kim, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

Kyung Young Lee, Dalhousie University, Canada

Loo Geok Pee, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Namho Chung, Kyung Hee University, South Korea

Namil Kim, Harbin Institute of Technology, China

Natt Leelawat, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Noha A. Mostafa, Zagazig University, Egypt

Novandra Pratama, University of Indonesia, Indonesia

Philip Sugai, Doshisha University, Japan

Richard Boland, Case Western Reserve University, USA

Shan Jiang, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA

Shan Wang, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Siew Fan Wong, Sunway University, Malaysia

Soo Il Shin, Kennesaw State University, USA

Soo Jeong (Chris) Hong, Pepperdine University, USA

Sujeong Choi, Mokpo National University, South Korea

Sumin Han, Auburn University, USA

Sunghan RYU USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry, China

Yoko Ogushi, Sugiyama Jogakuen University, Japan

Zakaria Abdelgawad, Fayoum University, Egypt

Zeyu (Zerry) Pang, East China University of Science and Technology, China