[AISWorld] Global Development at AMCIS 2019 - CFPs

[Sajda Qureshi]

https://amcis2019.aisconferences.org/submissions/track-descriptions/#toggle-id-12

Key dates for AMCIS 2019:
January 7, 2019: Manuscript submissions for AMCIS 2019 begin
March 1, 2019: AMCIS manuscript submissions (completed research and Emergent Research Forum (ERF)) closes for authors at 10:00 am PST

Description:
Scholars in Information Systems are investigating societal impacts of ICTs on people, data and things, research in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT4D) is becoming increasingly diverse. Current innovative uses of blockchain technologies to track refugees, offer new identification mechanisms, healthcare tracking for epidemics and the use of cryptocurrencies to offer payment systems are offering new ways for people to bring about improvements in their lives. Digital innovations are offering financial inclusion, health and wellbeing to those who were previously left out of opportunities to improve their lives from the global economy.
While drawing upon theories that help understand these emerging phenomena, research in ICT4D and IS also requires attention to the contextual challenges facing practitioners in the field. There have been attempts to develop theories that enable these challenges to be understood. An interesting and significant issue is whether ICTs can play a sustaining, value-adding role that enables societies to move beyond the conditions that cause mass discontent to beneficial development for all. Such a role may include supporting social groups in: identifying and defining achievable goals, acquirable resources, and constraints to be acknowledged and if possible overcome; supporting sustainable & secure collaboration, offering health and wellbeing; and financial inclusion.
Opportunities in Leading Journals: Information Technology for Development Journal. https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/titd20/current

Minitrack 1: Blockchain for Development
Paulo Rupino Cunha, rupino at dei.uc.pt
Piotr Soja
Marinos Themistocleous
Blockchain is emerging as a very promising technology. It is based on a shared, distributed ledger, where transactions can only be registered by consensus in a network of peers, using cryptographic mechanisms that render the records virtually immutable. This enables transparency, auditability, and resilience. Additionally, Blockchains can also store and enforce smart contracts - pieces of code that are executed automatically once predetermined conditions are met - further reducing uncertainty and promoting confidence among stakeholders that would not normally trust each other and, thus, dispensing with middlemen.
This has led to innovative experiments in high profile areas, such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, value chains, shipping and logistics, Internet-of-Things, Intellectual Property Rights licensing, and crowdfunding, among others.
In addition, Blockchain also holds a huge potential for development in general and emerging economies in particular. It can foster more democratic mechanisms and help fight corruption. It can enable secure and lean ID mechanisms, reduce the number of unbanked, prevent voting fraud and tax evasion, improve government management of public benefits, reduce commissions on remittances of emigrants, control donations and charity initiatives, or ensure integrity of public records.
In the past, we have seen emerging economies lag in ICT adoption when compared with developed counterparts. With Blockchain, however, the opportunity exists to implement the technology in the same time frame, to address afflicting areas and even leapfrog established solutions in others.
Topics of interest for this minitrack include, but are not limited to:
- The social and organizational impact of Blockchain for Development
- Blockchain for Development case studies, applications, and implementations
- Alternative ID systems based on Blockchain
- Blockchain in e-government and public administration
- Barriers and enablers in the adoption of Blockchain for Development
- Blockchain and traditional pain points in Development
- Blockchain and voting
- Blockchain and the legal system
- Blockchain and regulatory frameworks
- Smart contracts
- Alternative uses of the Blockchain
- Tokens, ICOs, fundraising
- Blockchain and disruptive innovation
- Business models supported on Blockchain


Minitrack 2: Information Communication Technologies in Asia
Xusen Cheng, xusen.cheng at uibe.edu.cn
Siyuan Li
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have long been associated with a country's innovativeness and development. Asia, as one of the fastest growing regions in the world, benefits a lot from its fast development in country-level ICT infrastructures. With the recent initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (the Belt and Road initiative for short, from Asia to Europe and Africa), Asian countries, especially China, will tighten the economical relationships among the countries on the paths of Belt and Road. In this process, ICT will play an important and critical role in the international trade, collaborations and communications. This mini-track targets on the ICT impacts on country-level/organizational level/user level collaboration and developments as well as how ICT affects economic and market performance in the countries/regions in Asia.
Topics of interest in this mini-track include but are not limited to:
- ICT in mobile commercialization
- ICT's impact on developing countries' economy
- ICT and sharing economy in in the developing regions in Asia, Europe and Africa
- The international communications and collaborations among the countries on the paths of the Belt and Road
- How ICT enables and facilitates corporate-level business activities across countries
- Government policies and ICT development
- Cybersecurity in developing countries
- Trust, privacy, and social issues in ICT for development
- ICT's impact on human welfares in the developing countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa


Minitrack 3: ICT4D Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities
Manoj A Thomas, mthomas at vcu.edu
Yan Li
Sustainability of ICT4D programs is essential to maximize its long-term impact and maintain stakeholder support (Heek et al., 2009). Although literature identifies many ICT4D prototypes and pilot studies, issues and challenges related to their long-term viability and sustainability have not been sufficiently explored. Equally important is impact assessment (Weiss, 1995) at all stages of an ICT4D initiative, short of which progress evaluation, program institutionalization, and articulation of development impact will remain unaccomplished (Heeks 2017).
We welcome engaging discourse on the variety of issues, challenges, and opportunities related to sustainable ICT4D programs and impact assessment. Suggested topics include, but not limited to:
*          Issues and challenges in transitioning from prototyping and pilot studies to sustainable long-term solutions.
*          Institutionalization of ICT4D initiatives to achieve long-term development impact.
*          Role of government agencies, NGOs, and local organizations in fostering sustainable capacity building.
*          Business models for revenue generation and funding of ICT4D programs and related challenges.
*          Empirical approaches to assess long-term viability and sustainability of ICT4D initiatives.
*          Novel strategies and cross disciplinary approaches for impact assessment of immediate, intermediate, and long-term ICT4D goals.
References:
Heeks, R. (2017) Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D). London and New York: Routledge.
Heeks, R., & Molla, A. (2009) Compendium on impact assessment of ICT-for-development projects Development Informatics. Manchester, UK: Development Informatics Group.
Weiss, C. H. (1995) Nothing as practical as good theory: Exploring theory-based evaluation for comprehensive community initiatives for children and families. New approaches to evaluating community initiatives: Concepts, methods, and contexts, 1, 65-92.

Minitrack 4: ICTs in Africa: Research on Success Stories and Failures
Solomon Negash, snegash at kennesaw.edu

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are at the center of any business process that links suppliers, customers, government regulators, and competitors. Many organizations in Africa and other developing economies have used ICTs to successfully achieve economic development and growth. This mini-track invites researchers and practitioners to share and analyze their success stories, failures, mistakes, and advice pertaining to the diffusion, adoption, implementation and use of ICTs to enable linkages between stakeholders that can ultimately contribute to development.
The minitrack welcomes research that would further the larger goal of socioeconomic and human development in particular marginalized communities across Africa and developing economies. Papers in the following topics and more are welcome:
*          ICTs in social businesses
*          eLearning, eHealth, eCommerce, and eGovernment
*          ICT in economic development
*          Government policy and institutional frameworks for developing economies
*          Privacy and security issues in developing economies
NOTE: Authors of best papers in the ICTs in Africa Minitrack will be invited to submit revised versions for fast-track review and possible publication in the African Journal of Information Systems (AJIS): http://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/ajis/
Minitrack 5: Digital Innovations for Development
Jolanta Kowal, jolakowal at gmail.com
Pamela Abboth, p.y.abbott at sheffield.ac.uk
Juho Mäkiö, juho.maekioe at hs-emden-leer.de
The current level of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) is a significant part of the modern economy. However, socioeconomic development is not possible without digital innovation. Novel ICT-solutions support different countries to improve their business competitiveness as well as social, and political development. The special challenge of ICR4D is helping poor and socially excluded people and marginalized communities. The objectives of this mini-track focus on how digital innovation opportunities like Cyber-physical systems, blockchain or data analytics can lead to socioeconomic growth, including the human capital development, the well-being of society, and fostering social development. We are interested in ICT4D effects in the spheres of marketing, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, human resource management, alternative trading system, or innovative management systems, among many others. Transdisciplinary innovative bridging the digital divide and providing equitable and sustainable access to technologies as a factor of international development are especially welcome.
We are seeking papers dealing with digital innovation for development in their various facets, such as business, technical, social, political, cultural, economic, legal, and educational. Possible topics of interest to this mini track include but are not limited to the following five issues:
*          The transdisciplinary approach to digital innovation, artificial intelligence and sustainable development (CPS, smart cities, smart grid, intelligent systems, mobile money, etc. )
* Data, ethics and digital inclusion (Blockchain, analytics, social inclusion/exclusion, information literacy, etc.)
* Digital technologies, work, identity and dignity
* Communities, connectedness, digital platforms, and the self
* ICT innovations for Customer relationship management
More detailed themes related to mentioned issues could cover:
* E-governance challenges for innovations
* ICT innovations in IT governance
* Innovative capability in the Human capital of IS development
* Innovative application of IT in education
* Innovations for ICT Social media
* ICT innovations in healthcare
* Innovative ICT strategy and as a tool for Business model design
* Integration IT in Enterprise resource planning systems
* New IT tools for delivering marketing innovations
* Cybersecurity agenda as a basis for innovations
* Open innovation IT solutions
* IT as a driving force of Business Intelligence innovations
* Big data capabilities as a source of competitive advantage for innovations
* IT solutions for alternative innovative trading systems
NOTE: Authors of best papers in the ICTs in Global Development track and mini track Digital Innovations for Development will be invited to submit revised versions for fast-track review and possible publication in one of the journal:
Information Technology for Development (ITD) - http://www.tandfonline.com/


Minitrack 6: Health Equity
Nilmini Wickramasinghe, nilmini.work at gmail.com
Philip F. Musa

As noted by the WHO: equity is the absence of avoidable, unfair, or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically or geographically or by other means of stratification. "Health equity" or "equity in health" implies that ideally everyone should have a fair opportunity to attain their full health potential and that no one should be disadvantaged from achieving this potential. Health Equity comes in multiple forms including access to healthcare, quality across social strata, demographic dimensions, and affordability. Policy under many of these circumstances tends to come from the government at central, regional and local levels. Health Equity and Policy also crosses over international boundaries. Globally, there are institutions such as WHO that have an interest. For example, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and WHO that worries that governments under-invest in human capital because rewards arrive slowly, e.g., it can take 20 years to raise a healthy, educated cohort of young people and another 50 for them and their successors to replace the creakier generations currently in the workforce.
The objective of this mini-track is to identify appropriate, efficient, high quality, high value and sustainable solutions to effect better health equity globally. We are soliciting work-in-progress and completed research papers covering technical organizational, behavioral, economical, and/or managerial perspectives in this area. Topics for consideration would include (but are not limited to):
Policy formation and evaluation
Measurement of health equity
Case studies of local, regional and national interaction
Health literacy
Technology medicated solutions to reduce health inequalities
Social determinants of Health in Developing economies
* Health disparities in Developing Economies
* Healthcare Infrastructure and capacity building
* Public Health Emergency management Systems and Operations Centers
* Lessons learned from Public Health Epidemics (e.g., The 2014 Ebola Outbreak and Zika virus)
* Application of technology for Healthcare Surveillance (e.g., for Flaccid Paralysis)
* Readiness for Cloud Computing to enhance Healthcare in Emerging Economies
* Implementation of cleaner and alternative energy for Healthcare outreach


Minitrack 7: ICT Issues in Emerging and Transition Economies
Grażyna Paliwoda-Pękosz, paliwodg at uek.krakow.pl
Piotr Soja
Paulo Rupino Cunha

Emerging economies are characterized by a low but growing per capita income and an ongoing process of institutional transformation and economic opening. Transition economies are a particular case of emerging economies which have abandoned the communist-style central planning system and committed to substantial reforms to adopt a free market approach.
These fast growing emerging and transition economies play an increasingly significant role in the global market, with information and communication technology (ICT) being a key driving force in this process. However, despite their growing importance, research that specifically addresses the specificities and different challenges of ICT in emerging and transition economies is still scarce, when compared with the body of knowledge for developed countries.
The objective of this mini-track is to encourage more research in this topic by providing a forum for interested authors to disseminate their research, compare results, and exchange ideas.
We are seeking papers dealing with ICT in the specific context of emerging and transition economies in their various facets, such as business, technical, social, political, cultural, economic, legal, and educational. Possible topics of interest to this mini track include but are not limited to the following:
*          Innovative ICT-supported services and business models
* E-government, e-democracy, and citizen participation
* ICT in healthcare
* ICT governance and management
* Design and deployment of ICT in small and medium-sized enterprises
* Success factors, barriers and risks of ICT adoption
* Return on ICT investment (financial and other)
* ICT in global supply chains
* Off-shoring and outsourcing of systems and services
* Applications of ICT in education


Minitrack 8: ICT for Development in Latin America
David Nemer, david.nemer at uky.edu
Sara Vannini
ICTD research has led scholars to conduct studies in a wide variety of countries, spanning the globe. The coverage of countries and regions in the literature, taken together, is extensive; however, some countries and regions have received far greater interest from scholars than others. Multiple reviews of the literature have noted the high number of studies about India, as well as high concentrations of studies about Asian and African. Common to these reviews is the observation that studies about the countries of Latin America are few. Latin American is a region that has been overlooked by ICTD researchers, and is a "continent" full of potential, "waiting" to be studied because it provides researchers with rich settings: desperate disease and poverty, military dictatorships, multinational corporations and political intrigues. Thus, studies of Latin America may be generalizable and useful to ICTD researchers that focus on other regions, it gives us a unique opportunity given the gap in knowledge.
While drawing upon theories that help understand these emerging phenomena, research in ICT4D and Latin America also requires attention to the contextual challenges facing practitioners in the field. There have been attempts to develop theories that enable these challenges to be understood. Global pressures, socio-economic pressures, disruptive technology, and the emergence of multi-stakeholder networks are some of the forces being studied. An interesting and significant question is whether ICTs can play a sustaining, value-adding role that enables societies to move beyond the conditions that cause mass discontent to beneficial development for Latin America. Such a role may include supporting social groups in: identifying and defining achievable goals, acquirable resources, and constraints to be acknowledged and if possible overcome; supporting sustainable & secure collaboration, offering health and wellbeing; and financial inclusion
This minitrack will take place in the Global Development workshop, which addresses questions that provide new and meaningful definitions of Development, such as, Can ICTs support the development that will lead to improvements in lives of individuals, communities and regions? And inevitably, one needs to ask questions about how to better understand these problems and challenges. The papers in this minitrack will also further the knowledge of what we know about how ICT enables the needs of Latin America and how they can be met in a manner that preserves the ability of the planet to support human life.
The relevant topics below are the topics relevant to this minitrack and the papers should also have a focus on Latin America:
Innovations in blockchain, cryptocurrencies for inclusion and sustainable development.
Open source communities that offer innovations for financial inclusion, health and wellbeing
Theoretical lenses and/or empirical studies that enable an understanding of: ICTs & Sustainable Development; ICTs & Peace building; ICTs & Disaster Recovery.
Internet of things and ICT artifacts on the cloud that support holistic Development.
Security & Technological constraints on the use of ICTs for development
The role of government policy in fostering ICT human capital, cooperation and capacity building
Innovations in health and wellbeing
Social networking for Development, ICT human capital and capacity building
Critical and theoretical perspectives on the digital divide and social inclusion
Challenges of ICT human capital and capacity building in remote regions
Educational systems; content provision and delivery; developing ICT skills
Mobile technologies as infrastructure for ICT human capital and capacity building
Frugal Innovation and innovative ways in which technologies are applied in developing regions.


Sajda Qureshi, Ph.D.
Kayser Chair, Professor of Information Systems
Editor-in-Chief Journal of Information Technology for Development
Director ITD Cloud Computing Lab
President AIS Sig GlobDev
Department of Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis, College of Information Science & Technology. University of Nebraska at Omaha
6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE 68182-0116
phone: +1.402.554.2837, fax: +1.402.554.3284
email: squreshi at unomaha.edu<mailto:squreshi at unomaha.edu>