Advances in information and communication technologies are associated with a wide and increasing range of social consequences, which are experienced by individuals, work groups, organizations, interorganizational networks, and societies at large. Understanding the relationships between communication, digital technologies and organizations is an increasingly important and urgent societal and scholarly concern in many disciplinary fields.

Information and Organization seeks to publish original articles on the relationships between digital technologies, communication, and organizations. It seeks a scholarly understanding that is based on empirical research and builds novel theoretical contributions. A particular focus of Information and Organization is to publish qualitative and interpretive research which adopts case studies, ethnography and in-depth longitudinal empirical studies, including critical theory and science and technology studies.

Papers that provoke critical thinking on important subjects are welcomed, including articles that focus on research impact and contributions to knowledge in our special section (RICK). The aim is to provide a forum that brings together innovative, reflective, and rigorous scholarship while being relevant for practice.

Of special interest are contributions on the social construction of information technologies, the implications of digital technologies for innovation and organizational change, alternative organizational designs such as virtual organizations and ecosystems, ICT's for institutional and societal change, global strategy and digitalization, data driven organizations and changes in work, ethics of digital technologies and data governance. The journal seeks contributions from fields such as information systems, organization theory, history and philosophy of science and technology, practice theory, institutional theory, strategy, and communication studies.

Special Issue on Organizing for Emerging Digital Technologies: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Submission Date: 2025-02-01

The special issue aims to create a forum for state-of-the-art research on the processes, structures, and practices of organizing for and against emerging digital technologies across levels.

Guest editors:

Prof. Saeed Akhlaghpour
The University of Queensland

Prof. Ali Aslan Gümüşay
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich & Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society Berlin (HIIG)

Prof. Danielle Logue
UNSW Business School

Prof. Christine Moser
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Prof. Georg Reischauer
WU Vienna University of Economics and Business & Johannes Kepler University Linz

Special issue information:

Organizations of the 21st century face a seemingly indeterminable array of emerging digital technologies, which are radically novel and rapidly evolving, with profound transformative potential (Rotolo et al., 2015). Like past non-digital examples such as the steam engine or the electric motor, current emerging digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing, 5G, 3D printing, smart manufacturing and energy, genomics and precision medicine, drones, augmented reality, and autonomous vehicles are transforming markets and societies, as well as the very core of how we organize (Bohn et al., 2023). These and other technologies generate such an impact because they are increasingly ‘autonomous’ and ‘intelligent’, which complements, augments, and even replaces human action (Bailey et al., 2022; Gümüsay et al., 2023). Another feature fueling the transformative potential of emerging digital technologies is their connectivity – devices are interwoven in ways previously unthinkable (Adner et al., 2019). In addition, many current emerging digital technologies exhibit broad applicability across domains (Gambardella et al., 2021; Teece, 2018). They are thus general-purpose technologies (Bresnahan & Trajtenberg, 1995) and in many cases advance to essential infrastructures across markets (Bohn et al., 2020). Finally, many of these emerging technologies exhibit an unprecedented pace of diffusion and adoption. Notably, OpenAI's ChatGPT reached one million users in a mere 5 days – compared with the several decades it took for non-digital innovations like the telephone to gain a similar level of user adoption.

Building on a rich tradition in innovation theory (Jon & Delbecq, 1977; Tushman & Anderson, 1986) and organization studies (Child & Mansfield, 1972; Daft, 1978), scholars have examined the interplay of emerging digital technologies and organizing on multiple levels. Across levels, it has been argued to put relations center stage, thus conceptualize emerging digital technologies as being made of relations and entwined in relations that are constantly evolving (Bailey et al., 2022; Reischauer & Hoffmann, 2023). In addition, an emerging stream of research perceives the link between emerging digital technologies and organizations as sociomaterial where the social and the material are intertwined and mutually influence each other (Glaser et al., 2021; Moser et al., 2021; Orlikowski & Scott, 2023).

At the industry level, institutional theory has emerged as an important lens to explain large-scale changes of enterprise systems, firms, and societies related to emerging digital technologies (Berente et al., 2019; Burton-Jones et al., 2020; Gegenhuber et al., 2022a; Hinings et al., 2018). One set of studies has shown that, in order to promote emerging digital technologies, organizations redefine and work institutions by championing standards (Garud et al., 2002; Vasudeva et al., 2014). Others have shown that the meaning and scope of these technologies was shaped by boundary work interwoven with field-configuring events (Liao, 2016). Recent advances point out that these organizational efforts to promote and shape emerging digital technologies can result in redefined institutional infrastructure (Gegenhuber et al., 2022a; Gegenhuber et al., 2022b; Logue & Grimes, 2022). Shaping institutions to push emerging digital technologies has also been shown to be important to navigate large scale crises such as the COVID19 pandemic (Faik et al., 2020; Gkeredakis et al., 2021; Oborn et al., 2021).

Focusing on the role of relationships between organizations and other forms of organizing for emerging digital technologies and thus the inter-organizational level, scholars have shown how members of social movements and (online) communities draw upon fluid sets of these technologies to coordinate collective action across regional boundaries (Braccini et al., 2019; Gümüsay et al., 2022; Leong et al., 2020; Young et al., 2019) and to mobilize digital technologies to connect and cultivate markets for social impact and investment (Logue & Grimes, 2022). Moreover, studies found that, to assess their potential impact, organizations set up cross-industry cooperation that enabled an open learning climate, prevented intrafirm power struggles, and rendered the development of ‘common sense’ unnecessary due to a focus on parallel perspectives on potential impacts (Gattringer et al., 2021). Likewise, there are first indications of the relevance of meta-organizations for emerging digital technologies (Berkowitz & Bor, 2017; Reischauer et al., 2021). Meta-organizations (or boundary organizations) are legally autonomous organizations that coordinate different organizations following a system-level goal (Gulati et al., 2012; Perkmann & Schildt, 2015). Consider “Farm of the Future” where researchers, farmers, and agencies co-develop digital agricultural solutions to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture.

Studies situated at the (intra-)organizational level identified distinct structures and management innovations that co-evolve with technologies as to profit from and implement them (Akhlaghpour & Lapointe, 2018; Bohn et al., 2023; Kapoor & Klueter, 2021; Khanagha et al., 2013; Pan et al., 2008; van Doren et al., 2022). Moreover, attention of managers to these technologies and multiple initiatives in different units are key to secure sufficient resources to the technology and to enable experimental learning (Khanagha et al., 2017).

Despite these advances, we yet don’t have an in-depth understanding of the interrelated processes, structures, and practices through which people, collectives, organizations, and other forms of organizing push these technologies forward and, even more interestingly, try to push back. Specifically, there is a need for studies explore the various ways that organizations – alone or by collaborating with others – organize for and around constantly evolving emerging digital technologies on and across various levels. In addition, we need to better understand how organizations attempt to hinder certain emerging digital technologies in their further development or cope with the failure of collectively backed emerging technologies – such as 3D television or augmented reality glasses.

To overcome these limits, this special issue aims to create a forum for state-of-the-art research on the processes, structures, and practices of organizing for and against emerging digital technologies across levels. We invite different types of conceptual and empirical work situated in various contexts, including but not limited to for-profit organizations, public administration, politics, and social movements. Given the potential impact of emerging digital technologies, we especially welcome empirical work situated in critical infrastructure sectors (such as food and agriculture, healthcare, energy, water, waste, communications sector, and information technology).

Recognizing the multifaceted nature of emerging digital technologies, we invite submissions that span a spectrum of approaches, from focused information systems studies to interdisciplinary research integrating insights from management, sociology, psychology, law, and other relevant fields. Next, we provide a non-exhaustive list of questions that would be of interest for this special issue.

● What are the affordances of emerging digital technologies and how do actors within and beyond organizational boundaries navigate them?
● How do organizations orchestrate individual and collective resources to push (and push back) emerging digital technologies?
● Which actors shape institutions in which ways to impact the evolution of emerging digital technologies in socially innovative and positive ways?
● Which forms of institutional complexity and infrastructure push and hold back emerging digital technologies?
● How do organizations utilize social evaluations to (not) drive emerging digital technologies?
● How do organizations create and re-direct discourses to push or inhibit emerging digital technologies?
● How do organizations and communities of practice respond to changed expectations tied to emerging digital technologies?
● How do organizations create desirable futures for themselves and their field that position emerging digital technologies center stage?
● How are emerging digital technologies utilized and their path impacted in the face of crisis?
● How are these technologies leveraged to impact the natural environment in positive ways?
● How do organizations employ emerging digital technologies to engage with societal grand challenges?
● How do enterprise systems change or are leveraged to navigate the tensions of emerging digital technologies?
● How is the implementation of emerging digital technologies impacted by different organizational structures (e.g., degree of formalization) and governance modes (e.g., contractual, relational)?
● What paradoxes do organizations and their members face when organizing for and against emerging digital technologies and how do they navigate these paradoxes successfully?
● How do members of organizations and established forms of organizing (e.g., local communities, online communities) mobilize others to (not) take a stand for emerging digital technologies?
● What is the role of meta-organizations in promoting or inhibiting emerging digital technologies?
● What collaboration processes support meta-organizations for emerging digital technologies and how do they relate to the processes of member organizations?
● How do third parties (e.g., competitors, policy makers, media) respond to and shape organizational efforts directed at emerging digital technologies?

Manuscript submission information:

Regular submission to Information and Organization, as well as submissions to the Research Impact and Contributions to Knowledge (RICK) section will be considered. Authors are encouraged to review the aims and scope statement for the journal (https://www.journals.elsevier.com/information-and-organization) and review abstracts of recent publications via the Science Direct link on the website to better understand the journal's focus and publication genre.

Regular submissions should have the potential for a substantive contribution to theory that complements empirical results or case studies reports. RICK submissions are briefer (approximately 8.000 words) and address the impact or translation of scholarly knowledge broadly. Authors considering a RICK submission should review the overview of RICK genre on the website and recent RICK publications.

Submission and publication timeline:

• 1 February 2025: Deadline for submission of complete manuscripts.• March 2025: Reviews are sent to authors. Authors whose papers receive a revise and resubmit will be invited to a hybrid paper development workshop organized by the guest editors.• July 2025: Deadline for second versions of manuscripts.• November 2025: Potential final version of papers.
All submissions deemed suitable to be sent for peer review will be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers.

Keywords:

(digital) OR (digital technologies) OR (organizing) OR (organization) OR (emerging technologies)