[AISWorld] CFP -- Future of Work -- MISQ Executive

[Fred Niederman]

Colleagues.  Please consider submitting to the workshop or special issue detailed below.


Call for Papers
Brave New Work: The Future of Work, Tasks and Jobs

MISQE/SIM Pre-ICIS 2024 Workshop & MISQE Special Issue
Guest editors:
Fred Niederman
Damien Joseph
Hope Koch

SIM and MISQ Executive are sponsoring a pre-ICIS 2024 workshop and a MISQ Executive special issue on the topic of the future of work.
As computing platforms evolve (Hirschheim and Klein, 2012; Niederman et al., 2016), we have seen the need for tasks and the skills to undertake those tasks through platforms rise, become obsolete, or change. Increasingly fueled by generative AI, new platforms and applications will continue to emerge, tasks will change, and organizational and societal approaches to employment will be transformed (Boyd and Holton, 2018). These transformations affect IT professionals, IT users, and even those engaged in jobs that involve minimal use of computing. Evolution of technology affects not only the number of jobs and how they are distributed, but how and where work is performed. For example, initial investigations suggest that the benefits of current implementations of artificial intelligence accrue to IT users who are more educated and creative (Dell’Acqua et al. 2024). It comes as no surprise that such users are also more highly paid. The pandemic lockdown, and the sudden shift of jobs from face-to-face to remote, or hybrid, continues to present problems and opportunities for organizations (Bailey and Barley, 2020).
By looking at the future of work pertaining to individuals, teams, organizations and ultimately society, we can detect the plausible effects of individual technologies (e.g., robots, chatbots, blockchains, large language models) while observing their technical, functional, and social impacts (Chiasson, et. al, 2018). Workers will need to consider emerging work opportunities in terms of their preferences and skills. Organizations will need to consider which tools (products and service) to invest in, with emphasis on the most efficient and humane means of production. Human resource concerns across the lifespan of engagement with employees—from recruiting to retirement—will be reconsidered, redesigned, and reorganized. IT leaders planning for future personnel needs must account for strategic initiatives while remaining responsive to outside trends and forces.
Society, via multitudinous individual decisions and their emergent effects, will set limits on what is allowable and acceptable in creating employment relationships (Susskind, 2020). Relationships between humans and work may need reconsideration as software-guided agents master a broader range of tasks (Fügener et al., 2022). Will humans find ways to maintain opportunities for work if machinery can better perform any task? If jobs become unnecessary or scarce, how will basic resources be distributed among humans?  Will a future with more leisure lead to utopian freedoms or dystopian nightmares?  If the time comes when humans no longer need to work for financial compensation, what will they substitute for the contribution to their identity, role in society, and structuring of time that work provides?
The central concern is: How can organizations (particularly IT managers) and employees (especially IT specialists or "power users") best prepare for the changes suggested by the rapid evolution of computing technologies?
The workshop and special issue seek future-oriented papers (Glenn and Gordon, 2009, Gray and Hovav, 2008; Hovorka and Peter, 2022) that address the concerns and interests of IT personnel, including:

Longer term views:
1.      Structured futures studies, particularly Delphi and/or scenario-based studies regarding either how individuals currently conceptualize the future of work or envision plausible futures and the values they suggest (Fergnani and Song, 2020, Markus & Mentzer, 2014; Walsham, 2012); backstepping and working back from future visions to the present, suggesting decisions and actions more likely to lead to desired outcomes are encouraged; and
2.      Speculative works, drawing from current trends and “weak signals” to explore the implications of converging technologies on potential future states for organizations and society (e.g., Hovorka and Peter, 2022).  For example, impacts of AI generated creative materials on the process of changing how organizations produce and deliver products and services.  A speculative paper may examine this and other technological influences on the various ways that work is organized, and how social structures are either needed or will be shaped as a result.
Nearer term views:
1.      Empirical studies, particularly cases and qualitative studies, showing current conceptualizations of the future and planning for future organizational work-related systems and/or recent actions taken, anticipating future work needs, relationships, or structures (Lalot et al., 2020);

2.      Design approach studies, demonstrating solutions (or possible solutions) which can be implemented addressing problems resulting from existing or developing technologies (e.g., Kane, et al. 2021);

3.      Education-oriented studies for organizations and/or educational institutions to plan for future skills and abilities for emergent or prospective technologies, such as metaverse applied to learning and pedagogy.

The intended primary audience for this work, and for MISQ Executive, are practitioners and academics valuing practice; thus, relevance is essential. Three main criteria will be:
1.      Usefulness – Can such a future stimulate useful planning, values, and/or actions?
2.      Plausibility – Can intermediate steps leading to such a future be articulated, even if requiring some leaps of assumed not yet realized capabilities?
3.      Novelty – Can readers experience: “I hadn’t thought of that before”?

Note that futures studies require a different paradigm and mindset from traditional information systems (IS) research. Future studies are not about prediction (Carmel and Sawyer, 2023), but about setting out multiple logical possibilities (or scenarios) in the spirit of “what if” analysis. Futures studies is not about “proving” the strength of causal relationships among variables, but rather illuminating the interrelationships within and between systems. While there are multiple methods for conducting such research, strict adherence to a particular method is less important than using solid judgment revealing important insights.
The centrality of IT in such studies may vary but must be present. Submissions and subsequent publications or presentations must speak to the IT practitioner and/or an IS academic audience. There must be a strong and clear connection to IS in the paper. Where articles focus on geographic locations or individual organizations, we look for specificity while encouraging discussion, even speculation, about how the lessons (or cautions) might be generalizable.
Some potential topics are shown below. Other relevant topics are welcome.
·        As the nature of work changes, how will IT faculty adjust teaching style, curriculum, and courses to accommodate these changes?
·        How will organizations convey changing needs, requirements, and preferences for consideration by IT faculty?
·        How can technology or specific families of them (e.g., generative AI, metaverse, blockchain) be expected to change work, jobs, or tasks?
·         How will technologies affect the way organizations are structured and individual connect into them?
·        Given radical reshaping of how society structures work and jobs, and how society distributes resources, what support can IT provide?
·        How can IT contribute to the new order? What secondary and tertiary impacts might arise from such changes?
·        Are there examples of current work arrangements that can provide a glimpse of future possibilities? How did these come about? What seems to be required to make these effective (to the extent that they are)?
·        Average or typical generational characteristics (e.g., boomers versus gen Z) seem to be evolving and taking new forms; how would this affect the trajectory of organizational work, and what role would IT play in supporting or inhibiting?
·        Given the continuing evolution of IT and its capabilities, what ethical, moral, and practical consequences might we infer?
·        Are there lessons from adoption of technologies in the past that might guide the equity and benefits derived from the emergence of new ones?
Pre-ICIS Workshop Submissions and Review Schedule
·        Abstract submissions should be between 1,000 and 2,500 words in length, exclusive of figures and references. This translates to roughly two single-spaced pages of text.
·        Email your abstract submission by September 1st, 2024. You may address the email to Fred Niederman (fred.niederman at slu.edu) and/or Damien Joseph (ADJOSEPH at ntu.edu.sg).
·        Notification about pre-ICIS workshop acceptance: October 18, 2024
·        Authors will receive feedback they will wish to consider prior to presentation
·        Attend SIM/MISQE Pre-ICIS workshop on Saturday, December 14th in Bangkok, Thailand
MIS Quarterly Executive Submission and Review Schedule
·        Submissions should be in English and follow MISQE’s author guidelines available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/misqe/policies.html
·        All papers must be submitted to MISQE’s online review system at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/misqe
·        Consult the following MISQE editorials before submission:
o    “Guidance for Research Articles Submitted to MIS Quarterly Executive – Where Research Shapes and is Shaped by Practice” (Volume 22, Issue 2), and
o   “Pathways to Writing MIS Quarterly Executive Articles” (Volume 23, Issue 1)
·        Submissions will be subject to an initial screening for suitability; suitable papers will be peer- reviewed by the special issues editors and members of the editorial board
·        Note that a workshop participation is not requirement for a journal submission
·        Full paper submissions are due March 1, 2025
·        First round notifications will be sent to authors on May 1, 2025
·        Paper resubmissions, based on editorial feedback, are due July 1, 2025
·        Second round notifications will be sent to authors on August 1, 2025
·        Publication time: December 2025

REFERENCES
Dell'Acqua, Fabrizio and McFowland III, Edward and Mollick, Ethan R. and Lifshitz-Assaf, Hila and Kellogg, Katherine and Rajendran, Saran and Krayer, Lisa and Candelon, François and Lakhani, Karim R., Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality (September 15, 2023). Harvard Business School Technology & Operations Mgt. Unit Working Paper No. 24-013, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4573321 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4573321
Bailey, D.E. and Barley, S.R. (2020).  Beyond design and use: How scholars should study intelligent Technologies.  Information and Organization 30 (2020) 100286.  1-12.
Boyd, R., and Holton, R. J. (2018). Technology, Innovation, Employment and Power: Does Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Really Mean Social Transformation? Journal of Sociology 54(3), 331-345.
Carmel, E. and Sawyer, S. (2023).  The multi-dimensional space of the futures of work.  Information Technology & People. Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 1-20.  DOI 10.1108/ITP-12-2020-0857.
Chiasson, M., Davidson, E. & Winter, J. (2018) Philosophical foundations for informing the future (S) through IS research. European Journal of Information Systems, 27(3), 367-379.
Fergnani, A., and Song, Z. (2020).  The six scenario archetypes framework: A systematic investigation of science fiction films set in the future.  Futures 124, 102645, pp. 1-21.
Fügener, A., Grahl, J., Gupta, A., and Ketter, W. 2022. Cognitive Challenges in Human-Artificial Intelligence Collaboration: Investigating the Path toward Productive Delegation. Information Systems Research 33(2), 678-696.
Glenn, J.C., & Gordon. (2009). Futures research methodology (Version 3). American Council for the UN University, Washington, DC.
Gray, P. and Hovav, A. (2008).  From Hindsight to Foresight: Applying Futures Research Techniques in Information Systems.  Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Volume 22 Article 12, pp. 211-234. DOI: 10.17705/1CAIS.02212.
Hirschheim, R. and Klein, H.K. (2012).  A Glorious and Not-So-Short History of the Information Systems Field.  Journal of the Association for Information System, Vol. 13, Issue 4, pp. 188-235.
Hovorka, D.S., & Peter, S. (2022). Speculatively engaging future(s): four theses.  MIS Quarterly, 45(1), 461-466.
Kane, G.C., Young, A.G., Majchrzak, A., and Ransbotham, S.  (2021). Avoiding an oppressive future of machine learning: A design theory for emancipatory assistants.  MIS Quarterly Vol. 45 No. 1, pp. 371-396.  DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2021/1578
Lalot, F., Ahvenharju, S., Minkkinen, M., and Wensing, E. (2020). Aware of the Future?  Development and Validation of the Futures Consciousness Scale.  European Journal of Psychological Assessment (2020), 36(5), 874–888.  https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000565.
Markus, M. L., & Mentzer, K. (2014). Foresight for a responsible future with ICT. Information Systems Frontiers, 16(3), 353-368.
Niederman, F., Ferratt, T.W., Trauth, E.M. (2016).  On the Co-Evolution of Information Technology and Information Systems Personnel. Database for Advances in Information Systems; 47(1), 29–50.  https://doi-org.ezp.slu.edu/10.1145/2894216.2894219.
Susskind, D. (2020).  A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond.  New York, Henry Holt and Company.
Walsham, G.  (2012). Are we making a better world with ICTs? Reflections on a future agenda for the IS field.  Journal of Information Technology, 27(2), 87-93.