[AISWorld] JSIS CFP: Special Issue on Digital Transformation and the Changing Context of Strategy and Work

Abayomi Baiyere a.baiyere at queensu.ca
Fri Mar 22 12:31:37 EDT 2024 

*** Call for Papers ***



Special Issue on DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF STRATEGY AND WORK Journal of Strategic Information Systems



CO-EDITORS:

Ioanna Constantiou, JSIS Senior Editor Copenhagen Business School, Denmark SPECIAL ISSUE GUEST EDITORS:

Abayomi Baiyere, Queen's University, Canada Marta Indulska, University of Queensland , Australia Virpi Kristiina Tuunainen, Aalto University, Finland



Most studies of Digital transformation (DT) postulate that the process starts from an intentional action planned by managers (Sebastian et al. 2017; Markus & Rowe, 2023, 2023). This type of research focuses mainly on the drivers and conditions that trigger such change. Some colleagues (Wessel et al., 2021; Holmstr?m, 2022) conceptualize transformation as a process that results in ?a qualitatively different organization? (Besson & Rowe, 2012, p. 103). In this conceptualization, DT is not only about the operational activities of organizations or business models, but, instead, it involves deep transformation leading to changes of scale and depth that result in a reconfiguration of the core of the organization, creating a digitally transformed organization (Vial 2019; Baiyere et al. 2020). These studies indicate an elevated role of digital strategy and strategizing as an essential component of digital transformation in contemporary organizations. Yet, the strategic component seems to have taken a back seat in recent accounts of digital transformation ? with notable exceptions (e.g., Chanias et al. 2020).



Information is now abundant and can be autonomously collected, analyzed, and acted upon by ensembles of digital technologies (Berente et al. 2021; Constantiou et al. 2023) and organizations have evolved beyond functioning as systems of interpretation of information, to instead create those very environments with bits of information serving as building blocks that can be added or subtracted (Zimmer et al. 2023). Therefore, strategy becomes less about how organizations adapt to their environments based on the information collected (Gavetti & Rivkin, 2007), and more about using digital technologies to shape the environments with implications for a variety of players (Constantiou & Kallinikos 2015; Gavetti et al. 2017; Cennamo & Santal?, 2019). Indeed, the strategic DT at one organization can disrupt entire industries, and in consequence force other organizations to move toward digital transformation as well (Skog et al. 2018). For example, the digital transformation of Netflix unfolded simultaneously as a digital disruption to Blockbuster.



These shifts call for a revisit of the received assumptions of strategy in the current digital era because, in such dynamic environments as digital transformation (Baiyere et al., 2020; Vial 2019), strategy must account for the new relationships of the organization with information and, consequently, its environment. The advent of digital technologies reverses the relationship between organizations and the environment in information retrieval and reaction. For example, recent theorizing of DT depicted the process as a progressive replacement of humans by digital technologies in performing organizations? fundamental activities (Constantiou et al 2023). The replacement of these activities results in digitally transformed organizations. This process entails a significant change in the relationships between organizations, their environments, and the information that connects the two. In turn, this process demands new socio-cognitive abilities from executives involved in strategic decision-making.



These observations also hold profound implications for the nature of work and its interplay with digital technologies. Besides how digital technologies like artificial intelligence are enabling new forms of work and reorienting existing forms of work (Beane 2019), strategic decisions made about digital transformation, can equally create ripples with consequences that are only apparent in hindsight (Zimmer et al. 2023). As a result, executives need to be actively involved in decisions concerning these digital technologies (Berente et al., 2021), as these cease to be solely operational decisions, but become strategic choices that can be consequential for the whole organization and its environment (Baptista et al. 2020). In this regard, we elevate the need to be mindful of both the business and societal consequences of these aspects of digital transformation on work.



In this call, we invite research that investigates DT as a deep-rooted change in the relationships between technologies, organizations, and the environment. We are interested in empirical and conceptual papers that focus on the transformation of work and the role of strategy. The essence of this call is to illuminate our understanding of the role of strategy in contexts of digital transformation as well as the implications of such strategic maneuvers on work in the digital age. Given the wide range of perspectives from which this can be tackled, we welcome different methodological and theoretical approaches.



Research topics and indicative questions involve:



*Digital Technologies in Organizational Transformation

  *   How do autonomous digital technologies replace human socio-cognitive practices?
  *   What features of digital technologies make it possible to replace human socio-cognitive practices?
  *   How does the autonomous nature of digital technologies lead to changes in organizational processes?

*Digital Transformation of Work

  *   What are the changing practices of organizational members under DT?
  *   How does the role of people in organizations change when they are digitally transformed?
  *   How does the interplay between digital transformation strategizing and digital transformation of work unfold?
  *   What are the implications of digital transformation on the conception and performativity of work?

*Strategy and Digitally Transformed Organizations

  *   How does the strategy process unfold in digital transformations?
  *   What are the micro-level processes, practices, and social activities that characterize successful digital strategizing?
  *   How do organizations change when they are digitally transformed?
  *   What are the implications of different strategic moves on the digital transformation outcome?
  *   What are the impacts of different approaches to strategizing on the digital transformation outcome?
  *   What are the positive or negative consequences of DT on organizations, markets, and environments?
  *   What are the consequences of removing humans from the activities that underpin the core organizational processes?



Submission Process

Submitted papers must be in accordance with the requirements of the Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS). The submission window opens on April 1, 2024. Original manuscripts are due by the submission deadline of April 30, 2024. They must be submitted using the JSIS Submission system at:

https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww2.cloud.editorialmanager.com%2Fjsis%2Fdefault2.aspx&data=05%7C01%7Caba.digi%40cbs.dk%7C2992cdcafa2149fc9f4208dbf28fe3d1%7C875c414e5d004cdbb77adeae5d6ab201%7C0%7C1%7C638370472041843542%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qW9HoWGkLAJi6cTQXEM9be0FWzHJRBP4kOTpWbxKyko%3D&reserved=0<https://www2.cloud.editorialmanager.com/jsis/default2.aspx>

Authors should indicate that they would like the submission to be considered for the special issue ?Digital Transformation and the Changing Context of Strategy and Work?



Further Information

Contact any of the guest editors or the co-editor.



References

  *   Baiyere, A., Salmela, H., & Tapanainen, T. (2020). Digital transformation and the new logics of business process management. European journal of information systems, 29(3), 238-259.
  *   Baptista, J., Stein, M. K., Klein, S., Watson-Manheim, M. B., & Lee, J. (2020). Digital work and organisational transformation: Emergent Digital/Human work configurations in modern organisations. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 29(2), 101618.
  *   Beane, M. (2019). Shadow learning: Building robotic surgical skill when approved means fail. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(1), 87-123.
  *   Berente, N., Gu, B., Recker, J., & Santhanam, R. (2021). Managing Artificial Intelligence. MIS Quarterly, 45(3), 1433?1450.
  *   Besson, P., & Rowe, F. (2012). Strategizing information systems-enabled organizational transformation: A transdisciplinary review and new directions. The journal of strategic information systems, 21(2), 103-124.
  *   Cennamo, C., & Santal?, J. (2019). Generativity tension and value creation in platform ecosystems. Organization science, 30(3), 617-641.
  *   Chanias, S., Myers, M. D., & Hess, T. (2019). Digital transformation strategy making in pre-digital organizations: The case of a financial services provider. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28(1), 17?33.
  *   Constantiou, I. D., & Kallinikos, J. (2015). New games, new rules: Big data and the changing context of strategy. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1), 44-57.
  *   Constantiou, I., Joshi, M. P., & Stelmaszak, M., "Organizations as Digital Enactment Systems: A Theory of Replacement of Humans by Digital Technologies in Organizational Scanning, Interpretation, and Learning" (2023). Journal of the Association of Information Systems , 24(6), 1770-1798.
  *   Gavetti, G., Helfat, C. E., & Marengo, L. (2017). Searching, shaping, and the quest for superior performance. Strategy Science, 2(3), 194-209.
  *   Gavetti, G., & Rivkin, J. W. (2007). On the origin of strategy: Action and cognition over time. Organization Science, 18(3), 337-545.
  *   Hess, T., Benlian, A., Matt, C., & Wiesb?ck, F. (2016). Options for formulating a digital transformation strategy. MIS Quarterly Executive, 15(2), 123?139.
  *   Holmstr?m, J. (2022). From AI to digital transformation: The AI readiness framework. Business Horizons, 65(3), 329-339.
  *   Rowe, F., & Markus, M. L. (2023). Envisioning Digital Transformation: Advancing Theoretical Diversity. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 24(6), 1459-1478.
  *   Sebastian, I. M., Ross, J. W., Beath, C., Mocker, M., Moloney, K. G., & Fonstad, N. O. (2017). How Big Old Companies Navigate Digital Transformation. MIS Quarterly Executive, 16(3), 6.
  *   Skog, D. A., Wimelius, H., & Sandberg, J. (2018). Digital disruption. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 60, 431-437.
  *   Vial, G. (2019). Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda. The journal of strategic information systems, 28(2), 118-144.
  *   Wessel, L., Baiyere, A., Ologeanu-Taddei, R., Cha, J., & Blegind-Jensen, T. (2021). Unpacking the difference between digital transformation and IT-enabled organizational transformation. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 22(1), 102-129.
  *   Zimmer, M. P., Baiyere, A., & Salmela, H. (2023). Digital workplace transformation: Subtraction logic as deinstitutionalising the taken-for-granted. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 32(1), 101757.




Abayomi Baiyere
Associate Professor

Digital Technology Area Group
Smith Business School, Queen's University
Kingston Ontario, Canada
Web: https://smith.queensu.ca/faculty_and_research/faculty_list/abayomi-baiyere.php

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