Digital Responsibility: Building bridges between organization theory and information systems for a sustainable future
In an era of rapid technological advancement, the intersection of organization theory and information systems has become a focal point for discerning a sustainable way forward. In their recent editorial, Barley & Orlikowski (2023) call for a closer collaboration between scholars from the field of organization theory (OT) and information systems (IS) by learning from each other as they attempt to understand how technologies change the worlds we live and organize in. Indeed, we see calls and emerging research on sustainable futures in both organization theory (e.g., Gümüsay & Reinecke, 2022) and IS (Zimmer, Vassilakopoulou et al. 2023; Recker et al. 2022; Beverungen et al. 2023) but limited cross-disciplinary exchange. The proposed workshop thus aims to integrate insights from both fields to explore the broader concept of “Digital Responsibility” - a paradigm which emphasizes not just the growing technological integration into organizations and society but also its ethical, social, and environmental implications.
Through an interactive workshop format, we aim to connect organization research on digital technologies, platforms and digital responsibility with parallel debates being led in the IS field. The concepts of “digital responsibility” and “corporate digital responsibility” (Lobschat et al., 2019; Trier et al. 2023) highlight the need for a critical research agenda (cf. Trittin et al., 2020) on digitalization at the societal, organizational and individual level. Several contributions illustrate that both disciplines research and engage with digital responsibility for a sustainable future, these contributions often remain fragmented and isolated reflecting disciplinary silos. Our workshop therefore aims to bridge insights from both disciplines.
The main aims of this idea workshop are first to share ongoing research ideas and enable a dialogue across different research communities so as to facilitate new networks and possibilities for collaboration in shaping a future research agenda for business administration scholars in this highly socially relevant domain.
Applying ideas from an idea lab format, the moderators will start the workshop by providing some inputs to introduce and open the debate, and the group will then move into more interactive, interdisciplinary sub-groups that share and collect ideas on various dimensions of digital responsibility. Each group will be assigned to a specific question or topic to discuss in-depth. After the breakout sessions, each group reports back to the larger group, summarizing their discussions and key insights.
The workshop will consist of a fixed group of scholars from both WKs (confirmed participation; see below) who confirmed their participation in a joint exchange (here named "discussants or symposium participants"). However, the workshop will use an interactive format that is open to include everyone who is interested in joining this debate. We have gathered additional notes of interest from scholars, who would be interested in joining the workshop if approved.
First organization theory perspective
Georg Reischauer, WU Wien
Organization theory perspective
Leonhard Dobusch, Universität Innsbruck
Information systems perspective
Benjamin Müller, Universität Bremen
Information systems perspective
Jan Recker, Universität Hamburg
Organization theory perspective
Maximilian Heimstädt. Universität Bielefeld
