[AISWorld] CfP HICSS-56 2023 Informing Research: Engaging with Futures Mini-track

[Dirk Hovorka]

HICSS-56 2023 Mini-track
Informing Research: Engaging with Futures (Organizational Systems and Technology track)

The "Informing Research: Engaging with Futures" mini-track invites submissions which explore future and possible worlds rather than being rooted in analysis of what is or has been. We are looking for contributions that break with well-trodden empirical and conceptual conventions to help academia build a novel set of concepts and instruments to generate useful theory for shaping digital future(s).

For us, this objective is soundly anchored in the Information Systems discipline's increasing interest in the process and implications of global, societal, economic, and individual digitalization. We particularly think of this challenge as one where analyses and extrapolation from the present fails to provide meaningful insights beyond projecting that status quo into the future, albeit in a more technicized version of itself. Rather, we seek ways for science to become more insightful, informative, and instructive to active shapers of post-digital life worlds- or even to become an active shaper itself.

Exciting submissions will approach the challenge we are presenting by making either a theoretical contribution or a methodological one. In the former, we are looking for advances in the role and development of forward-looking theory in IS research and encourage research that rethinks the processes of theory formulation, theory replacement, or theory envisioning. The latter will contribute to a collective effort to build methods for engaging with future and possible worlds. Current future-studies approaches (e.g., scenarios; technology foresight) could be extended into new realms. Of particular interest are papers which present speculative or creative processes to address questions regarding, for example, specific methodological setups of studies engaging with post-digital futures, the meaning and evolution of scholarly quality criteria (e.g., rigor or validity), or ways of engaging those with a stake in the future. Papers which use the future as a site of inquiry to inform present research and action have a great potential of being considered for our mini-track's intended program.

We continue our mini-track's mission to challenge scholars to focus attention on "new phenomena, disclose new perspectives on phenomena, and illuminate new research agendas and programs" against the background of, and pushing past existing theorization and methods. We encourage interested contributors to review the mini-track's calls for papers from previous years to further illuminate the thinking which will guide our review and editorial decision processes.

Prospective authors are advised that the track does not look for topical contributions which are best submitted to one of the conference's other (mini-)tracks. Papers in this mini-track must explicitly provide the basis for more speculative future-leaning conceptualizations of phenomenon or provide insight on how to provide such concepts.

The deadline for submission of full manuscripts: June 15, 2022

For further conference details, schedules and submission guidelines please see:
http://www.hicss.org/

We hope to see you on Maui in January 2023!
Mahalo!

Mini-track Co-Chairs:
Dirk S. Hovorka
Professor of Systems and Design
University of Sydney Business School
University of Sydney
New South Wales, AU
dirk.hovorka at sydney.edu.au<mailto:dirk.hovorka at sydney.edu.au>

Benjamin Mueller
Professor for Digital Business
University of Bremen, Germany
Current: benjamin.mueller at unil.ch<mailto:benjamin.mueller at unil.ch>


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Dirk S. Hovorka
Professor of Systems and Design
University of Sydney
NSW, 2006 AU
T +61 2 9351 2949
Senior Editor/Research Perspectives  (JAIS)
2018 BGS Professor of the Year
http://sydney.edu.au/business/staff/dirk.hovorka

Tired of Netflix? Try "From Other Worlds: Speculative Engagement Through Digital Geographies"<https://aisel.aisnet.org/jais_preprints/5/>