CALL FOR PAPERS

16th International Workshop on the Changing Nature of Work (CNoW)

Pre-ICIS 2025 Workshop - SIG CNoW

Virtual Only

Workshop theme: Integration of human and digital factors in the changing nature of work 

Workshop date and time: Tuesday, 9 December 2025, from 11: 00 AM - 03:30 PM CET 

Submission deadline for extended abstracts (5 pages all included): 2 October 18 September 2025 

Notification of acceptance: 25 October 18 October 2025 

SIG CNoW website: https://communities.aisnet.org/sigcnow/home

Submission via e-mail at: cnowsig@gmail.com 

Please use the submission template linked here.

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WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

The nature of work and organizing is changing with the deeper embedding of new digital technologies in the workplace. New emerging digital work practices and arrangements based on remote and hybrid work are now the new normal way of working in many organizations. Recent developments in, for instance, (generative) AI and VR/AR raise new relevant questions about the collaboration between humans and technologies at work. Digitization is transforming work but also changing and challenging core aspects of organisations such as employee connectedness, engagement and how meaning and identity are formed and reproduced in day-to-day work. Transformations also range from micro to macro in scale and come in many different flavours depending on local contexts, cultures and norms. These complex  effects challenge us to investigate how both local (idiosyncratic, indigenous) and global (common, standardized) practices  are supported, enhanced and also hindered by digital technologies – and also highlight the possible threats that the use of these technologies may pose to those practices. On the one hand, new digital technologies can possibly support more dynamic and fluid work arrangements within and across organisations, enable access to the labor market to larger populations of workers, and allow for more flexibility in terms of when, where, and how we work. There is great potential to leverage the opportunities from this new landscape of work in organisations to improve the lives of workers. Yet, this changing nature of work also raises many concerns and unintended consequences (e.g., challenges in distinguishing between what is “real” and what is virtual, digital fatigue, impact on well-being, meaningless work with algorithmic management, worsening digital inequalities, and the corrosion of privacy and security). We need therefore to consider integration of human and digital factors in the changing nature of work in the future digitization of workplaces and organizing. This is the theme for this workshop where we would like to discuss new and current research that improves or challenges our understanding of these themes.

At the virtual workshop, a combination of short presentations and group discussions will be used to facilitate the exchange of ideas. 

Keynote from Professor Stefan Klein
 'Digital entrapment and Faustian Bargains – revisited and extended by a comparison between Microsoft Viva and Elsevier'

'This talk will be based on “The Open Prison of the Big Data Revolution” (ISR 2024), awarded Best ISR Paper 2025, and add to the empirical evidence in two ways: First, Microsoft Viva has taken profound strategic turns since we concluded our data collection, which warrant further attention and analysis. This also opens an interesting vantage point on the robustness of our conceptual framework and potential lines of refinement. Second, I will introduce an analysis of Elsevier’s waves of digital transformation as a compare-and-contrast case.' 

Stefan Klein is Professor emeritus for Interorganizational Systems at the School of Business and Economics, University of Münster, Germany. He held teaching or research positions in five countries. His main research areas are information infrastructures, risks of digitalization, digital capitalism, and the transformation of work. He studies practices of technology use and organizational transformation from an individual to an industry level. 

You are invited to submit extended abstracts about your research (maximum 5 pages) related to the theme of the workshop. Indicate whether this is a completed research project or research-in-progress. 

Potential topic areas include (but are not limited to):

This is the 16th CNoW workshop. It started out at ICIS in Milan in 2013 and has been held every year since. We are a growing community and in 2021 we joined AIS as a Special Interest Group - the Changing Nature of Work (SIGCNoW). 

Please feel encouraged to officially join our community when signing up to ICIS conference!

The Workshop Program Chairs look forward to welcoming you online

Mari-Klara Stein, TalTech, mari-klara.stein@taltech.ee
João Baptista, Lancaster University, j.baptista@lancaster.ac.uk
Louise Harder Fischer, IT-University of Copenhagen, louf@itu.dk
Liana Razmerita, Copenhagen Business School, lra.msc@cbs.dk  
Bart van den Hooff, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, b.j.vanden.hooff@vu.nl 

Program Committee

Margunn Aanestad, University of Agder

Emma Forsgren, Leeds University Business School

Ella Hafermalz, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Jonny Holmström, Umeå University

Joschka Hüllmann, University of Twente

Mareike Möhlmann, Bentley University

Niki Panteli, Lancaster University

Steve Sawyer, Syracuse University

Lauri Wessel, Europa-Universität Viadrina

Nicola Ens, IT-University of Copenhagen

Mohammad Rezazade Mehrizi, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Stefan Klein, University of Muenster