The 17th CNoW Workshop
EXPLORING CRITICAL CHALLENGES FOR THE CHANGING NATURE OF WORK
Sunday the 14th June from 9.00 – 13.00 ECIS 2026, Milan, Italy
(submission instructions and agenda below)
The modern workplace remains in flux due to the rapid advances in digital workplace technologies, such as generative AI, virtual and augmented reality, and people analytics. This pace of change has created dynamic workplace arrangements in which individuals and organizations face ongoing challenges, including AI adoption and appropriation, re- and upskilling, and tensions between virtual or hybrid work and return-to-office mandates. As digitalization continues to reshape work, it profoundly impacts employees’ lived experiences, connectedness, engagement, and the formation of productivity, meaning, and identity in daily work. The transformation of work also gives rise to novel forms of organizing. Human-machine configurations emerge; digital nomads work from anywhere in the world; and humans are managed by algorithms. The promised benefits include productivity gains, reduced cognitive stress, and enhanced knowledge management. However, these benefits are offset by potentially harmful effects on employees, their teams, and their organizations. Issues such as digital fatigue, diminished well-being, fears of job displacement, deteriorating training and education, or the erosion of privacy demand immediate attention. Addressing these issues is imperative for shaping the future digitization of workplaces and organizing. This workshop explores these critical dimensions of the changing nature of work. Combining short presentations with roundtable discussions, it aims to foster a meaningful exchange of ideas in an in-person setting. A keynote will stimulate our thinking and provide valuable context for the round table discussions.
Participants are invited to submit extended abstracts of up to five pages. Potential topic areas for extended abstracts include (but are not limited to):
- IT-driven restructuring of work and labour (e.g., algorithmic management, gig work)
- Ethics, sustainability, and governance of workplace technologies (e.g., privacy, dark side of AI, unintended consequences of IT)
- Digital collaboration, infrastructures, and spatial reconfiguration of work (e.g., virtual teams, metaverse, digital nomadism)
- Worker well-being and boundary management in digital work (e.g., technostress, mental health)
- Education, learning, and identity for AI-enabled workplaces (e.g., AI literacy, meaningfulness of work, job identity)
- Designing workplace technologies (e.g., nudging, gamification)
This is the 17th CNoW workshop. It began at ICIS in Milan in 2013 and has been held annually since then. We are a growing community and in 2021 we joined AIS as a Special Interest Group - the Changing Nature of Work with ICT (SIGCNoW).
We invite an audience interested in the changing nature of work and are open to different forms of research including quantitative, qualitative, computational, and conceptual work. The workshop is intended to be inclusive and welcomes participants at any seniority level and submitted works may be completed or in-progress. Attendance without submitting a paper is possible.
Submission Timeline: - 30th April: closing of submissions.
Papers can be submitted at any time up to the deadline and are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Authors are notified accordingly on a rolling basis. Submit via email to: j.huellmann@utwente.nl
Please prefix your email subject with: “ECIS CNoW 2026 Submission”.
Joschka will confirm the receipt of each submission. Please get in touch if you don’t get a confirmation after one week.
Agenda:
09:00 – 09:15 Opening
09:15 - 10:00 Keynote by Ass. Prof. Dr. Louise Harder Fischer
10:00 - 10:15 Coffee Break
10:15 - 12:15 Roundtable Paper Discussions
12:15 - 12:45 Interactive Activity
12:45 - 13:00 Closing
Organizing Committee
Louise Harder Fischer, IT-University of Copenhagen, Louf@itu.dk
Emma Forsgren, Leeds University Business School, e.forsgren@leeds.ac.uk
Pauline Weritz, University of Twente, p.weritz@utwente.nl
Emma Gritt, Leeds University Business School, e.l.j.dunkerley@leeds.ac.uk
Joschka Hüllmann, University of Twente, j.huellmann@utwente.nl
Helena Vallo Hult, University West, helena.vallo-hult@hv.se
Program committee TBA