About two decades ago, new waves of digital revolution began to tide in and started to fundamentally change the nature of work (Baptista et al 2017). The rise of the Internet and e-mail communication (Markus 1994, Watson-Manheim et al 1998), as well as the implementation of sophisticated intranets facilitated novel forms of internal and external digital-mediated interactions. Organizations started investing in knowledge management systems and virtual knowledge networks (Jarvenpaa and Tanriverdi 2003) or engaged in outsourcing and offshore collaborations (Levina and Vaast 2008). Also, these new waves turned the conception of technologies into more integrated and ubiquitous ones: cloud computing, bigdata analytics, social media, mobile access, Internet of Things, etc. These developments resulted in the transformation of work practices (Lee 2016) and work identities (Stein et al 2013) that offered opportunities to organizations to create a more engaged, empowered, and connected workforce.
For example, the use of social media networks (Huang et al., 2013, Leonardi and Vaast, 2016) or multiple media in organizations (Watson-Manheim and Belanger 2007) substantially shapes modern workplaces. In addition, research started to address the role of large external market players such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook in offering complete digital solutions for organizations (Andriole, 2010). There is increasing interest in how changes in strategic and structural organizational arrangements (Fischer & Baskerville, 2022, Baptista et al 2017) such as the rise of digital platforms (Deng et al 2016, Möhlmann and Jarvenpaa 2019) and mobile work (Porter and van den Hooff 2020) may affect work environments. In particular, robotic innovation (Barrett et al 2012), datafication, and data-driven intelligent engines (Newell and Marabelli, 2015, Galliers et al., 2017, Stein et al. 2019) as well as artificial intelligence (Möhlmann and Henfridsson 2019) seem to have a great potential to fundamentally change work environments.
Organizations need to carefully navigate their digital efforts in order to address risks and challenges (Baptista et al., 2010, Kane et al., 2010), while also leveraging on the advantages that digital advances may bring for digital-mediated work. This is reflected in the literature stream on the changing in the nature of work and several special issues of journals emerged last decades.
AIS SIGCNoW will provide a forum for AIS members to discuss, develop and promote ideas about a range of issues related to the changing nature of work with advanced technologies. Members discuss issues related to the design, history, theory, practice, methods and techniques, new developments, and applications of computing and networking technologies to support the changing nature of work at various levels and domains of individuals, groups and organizations.
SIG CNoW Benefits and Services
- Provide a community for a currently dispersed group of scholars to collaborate and advance research on the Changing Nature of Work within AIS. Specifically,
- Establish a platform for both senior and junior members to share early research ideas that address the key interests of the SIGCNoW
- Facilitate and encourage discussion of fundamental concepts relevant to the SIGCNoW – senior members transfer to junior
- Provide feedback and insights to members and in particular PhD students and early career researchers through submissions and discussions in smaller groups with senior scholars
- Design debates among senior scholars that inform the community and trigger challenging discussions
- Foster community building by designing events that include structured presentations/breakout sessions/panels but also reserve space for networking
- Communicate highlights of the yearly gathering through a short report – email digest
- Share latest news relevant to the community
- Align existing conference mini-tracks (and other events) and introduce new events related to the changing nature of work. SIGCNoW will aim to integrate related research across conferences and make the positioning of digital research more consistent so researchers can keep up with emerging research trends, facilitate networking opprortunities and establish opportunities for collaboration.
REFERENCES
Andriole, S., 2010. Business Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies. Communications of the ACM 53, 67–79.
Baptista, J., Newell, S., Currie, W., 2010. Paradoxical effects of institutionalisation on the strategic awareness of technology in organisations. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 19, 171–183.
Barrett, M., Oborn, E., Orlikowski, W. J. and Yates, J. 2012. Reconfiguring boundary relations: robotic innovations in pharmacy work, Organization Science, 23, 5. 1448-1466.
Baptista, J., Stein, M.-K., Lee, J., Watson-Manheim, M.B., Klein, S., 2017. Call for Papers: Strategic Perspectives on Digital Work and Organizational Transformation, Journal of Strategic Information Systems 26 (4).
Deng, X., Joshi, K. D., and Galliers, R. D. 2016. “The Duality of Empowerment and Marginalization in Microtask Crowdsourcing: Giving Voice to the Less Powerful Through Value Sensitive Design,” MIS Quarterly (40:2), pp. 279-302 (doi: 10.25300/MISQ/2016/40.2.01).
Fischer, LH and Baskerville, RL., 2022. Explaining Sociotechnical Change: An Unstable Equilibrium Perspective. European Journal of Information Systems. DOI: 10.1080/0960085X.2021.2023669
Galliers, R.D., Newell, S., Shanks, G., Topi, H., 2017. Datification and its human, organizational and societal effects: The MARK strategic opportunities and challenges of algorithmic decision-making. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 26, 187–190.
Huang, J., Baptista, J., Galliers, R.D., 2013. Reconceptualizing rhetorical practices in organizations: The impact of social media on internal communications. Information & Management 50, 112–124.
Jarvenpaa, S., Tanriverdi, H., 2003. Leading virtual knowledge networks. Organizational Dynamics 31, 403–412.
Kaarst-Brown, Michelle; Quesenberry, Jeria; Niederman, Fred; and Weitzel, Tim (2019) "Special Issue Editorial: New Approaches to Optimizing the Digital Workplace," MIS Quarterly Executive: Vol. 18 : Iss. 1 , Article 3.
Kane, G., Majchrzak, A., Ives, B., 2010. Special issue on enterprise and industry applications of social media. MIS Quarterly Executive 9 iii-iv.
Lee, J., 2016. Drivers and Consequences in Transforming Work Practices. The Impact of ICT on Work. Springer, Singapore.
Leonardi, P. & Vaast, E. 2016. Social Media and Their Affordances for Organizing: A Review and Agenda for Research. Academy of Management Annals.
Levina, N. and Vaast, E, (2008). Innovating or Doing as Told? Status Differences and Overlapping Boundaries in Offshore Collaboration. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp 307-332, June 2008.
Markus, M.L., 1994. Electronic Mail as the Medium of Managerial Choice. Organization Science: A Journal of the Institute of Management Sciences 5, 502.
Möhlmann, M. and Henfridsson, O., 2019. What people hate about being managed by algorithms, Harvard Business Review, 30 August 2019.
Möhlmann, M. and Jarvenpaa, S. L. (2019): Cognitive Challenges on Digital Exchange Platforms: Exploring Misspecifications of Trust, Hawaii International Conference on Information System Sciences HICSS-52, Hawaii, US.
Newell, S., Marabelli, M., 2015. Strategic opportunities (and challenges) of algorithmic decision-making: A call for action on the long-term societal effects of ‘datification’. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems 24, 3–14.
Stein, M., Wagner, E. L., Tierney, P., Newell, S. and Galliers, R. D. 2019. Datafication and the pursuit of meaningfulness in work, Journal of Management Studies, 56, 3, 685-717.
Stein, M.-K., Galliers, R.D., Markus, M.L., 2013. Towards an understanding of identity and technology in the workplace. Journal of Information Technology 28, 167–182.
Porter, A., and van den Hooff, B. (2020): The complementary of autonomy and control in mobile work, European Journal of Information Systems (in press).
Watson‐Manheim, M.B., Narasimhan, S., Rhee, H.-S., 1998. Communication and Coordination in the Virtual Office. Journal of Management Information Systems 14, 7–28.
Watson-Manheim, M.B., Belanger, F., 2007. Communication Media Repertoires: Dealing with the Multiplicity of Media Choices. MIS Quarterly 31, 267–293.