The 2021 impact factor for ISJ was 7.767, for 2022 it was 6.4. These are some of the highest impact factors of any IS Journals. See past ISJ impact factors and the Editor’s comment on impact factors here. The next impact factor (2023) will not be available until around mid June 2024.

ABSTRACT

The relationship between digital transformation and regulation is complex and bidirectional: regulation both drives and responds to changes in the technology landscape. Moreover, regulatory efforts to shape industry-level digital transformation often produce unwanted outcomes. Existing theories are insufficient for examining this complex relationship between regulation and digital transformation. Our case study of the Finnish taxi industry illustrates these complexities. The industry underwent a legal reform intended to legalise Uber-type solutions while restricting certain other solutions. By drawing on the notion of regulatory ambiguity and mechanism-based explanation, we show how ambiguity arises from the imprecise regulation in connection with conflicting regulation and technological uncertainties. We model the regulatory ambiguity mechanism consisting of the interconnected elements that, by affecting each other and working together, drive unintended changes in the technology landscape. We theorise regulatory ambiguity as a condition that emerges when regulations are imprecise, inconsistent, or evolving. This ambiguity shapes the technology landscape and related industry-specific practices, impacting digital transformation. Our research contributes to the literature on digital transformation and on the regulation of technology. We identify and analyse the regulatory ambiguity mechanism, providing information systems (IS) researchers with a novel framework to examine the role of regulation in digital transformation. We also conceptualise regulatory impact as a lens for future IS research.

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ABSTRACT

The widespread applications of generative AI (GenAI) have sparked significant interest, with many organisations eager to leverage its transformative potential. Rather than focusing on individual organisations, this study examines GenAI integration within enterprise platforms, which are extensively adopted by many organisations and thus amplify both the benefits and risks of GenAI. We offer targeted recommendations for enterprise platform owners and their complementors, addressing challenges they face when integrating GenAI into these platforms. Drawing on a case study of Salesforce’s experience, we recommend actions in three foundational areas – platform capability, architecture and governance – ensuring that our guidance is broadly applicable across enterprise platforms. In platform capability, we advise developing a unified GenAI stack built on existing platform services, offering generic and industry-specific GenAI use cases to accelerate customer adoption and providing tools for customisation and creation of new use cases to enhance GenAI’s transformational impact. For platform architecture, we recommend adding new layers for accommodating diverse GenAI foundation models and creating a trusted environment for secure data access, privacy and content monitoring. We also recommend implementing a prompt architecture to improve content relevance and accuracy. In platform governance, we recommend establishing new mechanisms to mitigate GenAI risks. Partnerships with GenAI providers and proactive investments in GenAI are essential to retain critical GenAI technologies. Personalised consultancy and training along with joint design and implementation with platform customers are also recommended. These combined actions, pursued in parallel across capability, architecture and governance, form a sustainable roadmap for GenAI integration in enterprise platforms.

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ABSTRACT

To embark on a digital transformation journey, organisations should prepare and adapt their workforce to meet the continuous need for skill adjustments. This paper reports insights from the journey of one organisation—Johnson & Johnson—that developed an employee skills inference platform based on artificial intelligence with the objective of creating a digital-first workforce capable of thriving amid the new reality of continuous digital innovation. We describe the challenges J&J faced during the deployment of the platform and the activities they undertook in response to these challenges. Based on that, we identify three organisational practices critical for the successful deployment of AI: blueprinting the future workforce, managing ethical data work across borders, and compensating for AI blind spots. From Johnson & Johnson’s experience, we derive several important lessons for other organisations interested in using AI to develop a digital-first workforce.

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ABSTRACT

With the emergence of data ecosystems organisations are not only analysing their own data but also utilising data outside of their boundaries. Interorganizational data exchange comes with new challenges in terms of data governance. Inspired by organisational information processing theory, this paper follows an action design research (ADR) approach to create a robust data governance framework. Four design principles, namely flexible digital platform, corporate data broker, mutual trust, and multi-level monetisation, are introduced. Based on these principles, it is possible to develop a lean and robust business process for interorganizational data exchange. The evaluation of this process is based on exemplary projects coming from the Catena-X network. The cross-functional observations from these projects provide practical insights that guide practitioners and managers within networked organisations in identifying best practice principles and processes for effective interorganizational data governance. Thereby, this framework enables organisations to promote a standardised approach to data exchange that can be replicated across different organisational networks.

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Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source

ABSTRACT

Digital transformation (DT) is a complex, lengthy and risky process that can disrupt habituated operations. Thus, the board of directors can and should play a crucial role in strategically steering DT initiatives. However, interviews (n?=?21) with and survey responses (n?=?19) from board members and IT leaders of large enterprises revealed that boards often lack digital awareness, which makes them insufficiently equipped to understand the risks and opportunities presented by new digital technologies (e.g., AI). We identified four ways in which the digital awareness deficit manifested in practice, as well as specific impacts of such deficits on the DT process. Our data also revealed several practices that can be used for increasing the digital awareness of board members and translating this awareness into board DT actions.

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ABSTRACT

This paper examines the IT workforce management practices of auticon, a pioneering international IT consultancy firm from Germany that employs autistic individuals as its core workforce to deliver economically and socially sustainable IT services. Our analysis of auticon‘s approach allows us to distil four key workplace inclusion lessons for companies on how to best integrate neurodivergent professionals in the workplace and three lessons relevant to the IT industry on its journey to become more equitable and inclusive.

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ABSTRACT

Violence against women (VAW) is an endemic phenomenon that adversely affects the entire female population, even those who might not have directly experienced violence. This paper examines VAW’s adverse effects on all women’s employment capabilities by imposing restrictions on mobility in public spaces, a fundamental resource required for capability development. Drawing upon the new mobilities paradigm, this study also posits that information and computer technologies (ICTs) can enable virtual mobility, which could reduce women’s reliance on mobility in public spaces to develop employment capabilities. Country-level data from the WomanStats Project, the World Bank and the International Labor Organization are used to test the propositions. Implications for viewing virtual mobility as a resource to develop women’s employment capabilities in the presence of VAW are discussed.

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Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source

ABSTRACT

Social virtual world (SVW) platforms face a critical challenge to retain a sound base of active users, which is key to their success and requires a deep understanding of how much (lean usage) and how exactly (rich usage) users’ usage behaviours occur in these platforms. While both lean and rich usage are pivotal considerations in the SVW context, prior research has primarily assumed an omnibus conceptualisation of SVW usage that does not differentiate subtypes of usage. This results in limited knowledge about the sophisticated relationships and differences between lean and rich usage, making it difficult to reconcile inconclusive findings regarding how SVW usage is affected by its antecedents (e.g., commitment). In this paper, we draw upon the tripartite view of system usage to substantiate lean and rich usage constructs in the SVW context. Then, based upon the sociotechnical perspective (particularly the concepts of multifinality and equifinality) and the literature on SVW usage, we develop a research model to investigate the curvilinear relationships between lean usage (manifested in the extent and breadth of usage) and rich usage (represented by task variety and cognitive absorption), and the differential effects of two commitment components (affective and calculative commitment) on rich versus lean usage in the SVW context. Using two-wave field survey data from 312 users of Second Life (a pioneering SVW platform), we find sophisticated (linear/quadratic) relationships between lean and rich usage constructs: the extent of usage triggers the breadth of usage and task variety, and has a convex (U-shaped) relationship with cognitive absorption; the breadth of usage is positively related to cognitive absorption and has a concave (inverted J-shaped) relationship with task variety. Furthermore, we confirm that affective commitment positively affects both lean and rich usage, whereas calculative commitment directly triggers only lean usage (the breadth of usage) but not rich usage. These findings have important theoretical implications for the research on SVW usage and commitment and provide useful insights for SVW practitioners to promote users’ prolonged and active usage behaviours.

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