Title of the workshop
New Technologies, Organizations and Work
Main Contact Details
Dr Crispin Coombs
Reader in Information Systems
School of Business and Economics
Loughborough University, UK
01509 228835

Organizers
(including contact details)
Crispin Coombs Crispin Coombs
Guy Fitzgerald
Griffiths Marie
Theme of the workshop
Rapid developments in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous systems are having profound impacts on organisations and workers(Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2016; Ford, 2015). These impacts may occur at the work-practice, organizational and supra- organizational levels (Günther, Mehrizi, Huysman, & Feldberg, 2017)and have contrasting outcomes for different stakeholders. For example, new technologies have the potential to augment and enhance worker behaviours and enrich job roles, but also to facilitate high levels of surveillance and control, performance monitoring, and the loss of jobs. The tensions between these possible outcomes have generated considerable debate in the academic press (Günther et al., 2017). However, much of the research underpinning these debates is conceptual in nature. This has ledto calls for more empirical studies on organizations’ actual strategic decisions on the use of new technologies e.g. on the automation of work(Markus, 2017). This also presents an opportunity for IS researchers to bring together literatures from other academic disciplines (Loebbecke & Picot, 2015; Newell & Marabelli, 2015). Operating at the intersection of many scholarly disciplines, considering both social and technical perspectives, Information Systems (IS) researchers are ideally placed to assemble a cohesive understanding of this rapidly advancing research challenge.
The workshop invites short papers that consider these new technologies at the worker, organisation or supra-organisational levels. Example issues to consider may include (but are not limited to):
  • Are there new methods for forecasting use or organisational impacts of new technologies?
  • Can methods or tools be developed to help with understanding the potential purposes, markets and regions for new technologies?
  • How can research in new technologies addressing grand challenges (e.g. sustainable food production, water and energy use)?
  • Research methods relevant for complex and rapidly changing technologies
  • Robot/human decision-making conflict? Do humans stay in the loop with AI informed decision making?
  • The impacts of new technologies on skills (degradation or enhancement)
  • Trust and ethical issues in new technology decision making e.g.can we trust robo-decisions for healthcare and financial decisions?
  • Privacy and surveillance: are we still challenging these issues enough or has apathy replaced empathy?
The workshop particularly encourages empirical submissions but conceptualor viewpoint papers are also welcome. Paper submission is not required for attendance at the workshop.
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2016). The Second Machine Age - Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. WW Norton & Co.
Ford, M. (2015). Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of Mass Unemployment. London: Oneworld Publications.
Günther, W. A., Mehrizi, M. H. R., Huysman, M., & Feldberg, F. (2017). Debating big data: A literature review on realizing value from big data. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 26, 191–209.
Loebbecke, C., & Picot, A. (2015). Reflections on societal and business model transformation arising from digitization and big data analytics: A research agenda. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 24, 149–157.
Markus, M. L. (2017). Datification, Organizational Strategy, and IS Research_ What’s the Score? Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 26, 233–241.
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.” Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 24, 3–14.
Format
(e.g. paper session, panel, hands-on workshop, other)
The workshop will take place over a full day. Participants will be invited to submit extended abstracts about their research (maximum 5 pages) related to new technologies, organisations and work. A combination of short presentations and topic table discussions will be used to facilitate the exchange of ideas.
Suitability to ECIS audience
This workshop will provide an opportunity for scholars to explore and debate these new and emerging technologies in the context of organisation and work. The workshop complements several tracks at ECIS (Big Data Analytics and Digital Transformation; Digital Transformation; Digital Organisation, Work and Beyond) and aligns directly with the socio-technical theme.
Program committee members
(initial list)
Rachel McLeanDavid Wainwright Laurence Brooks, Crispin Coombs, Marie Griffiths, Maria Kutar, Diana Limburg, Gelareh Roushan.Oliver Kayas, Rob Campbell, Guy Fitzgerald, Savvas Papagiannidis,Mareike Schoop,Patrick Buckley, Yu-Chun Pan.
Plan for publications
A set of digital proceedings of the workshop will be made available with a DOI and ISBN number. If a collection of strong publications are submitted, the workshop chairs will aim at developing a special issue in a quality IS journal, to which authors will be then invited to submit extended versions of their papers.
Target audience and expected attendance
It is envisaged that the workshop will appeal to academic and doctoral researchers that are attending ECIS. Researchers that are in the development and research in progress stages are also likely to find the developmental aspect of the workshop attractive. As the workshop complements several tracks and the wider ECIS theme we anticipate that there will be many researchers that would welcome the opportunity to present their work. Our expected workshop size would be up to 30 delegates.
Workshop schedule
Outline schedule
9:00-9:15Welcome
9:15-10:30Paper Session 1
10:30-10:45Break
10:45-11:30Keynote (tbc)
11:30-12:00Topic Table Session 1 (3 parallel sessions)
12:00-13:00Lunch
13:00-13:45Topic Table Session 2 (3 parallel sessions)
13:45-15:00Paper Session 2
15:00-15:15Break
15:15-15:45Group Discussion
Suggested promotion schedule:
Call Issued: early Feb 2018
Deadlines for submission: 30 March 2018
Decision on acceptance: 25 April 2018
Date of the workshop: 25 June 2018
Special equipment needed
(projector and a screen)
Projector and screen.
Prior experience of the proposers in workshops organisation
Crispin Coombs has extensive experience of organising events including distinguished speaker lectures (attracting audiences of over 200), smaller academic development workshops on a range of topics (writing four star publications, using theory) for 15-20 participants. He has served as an AE and session chair for tracks at ECIS, led the IS track at the Operational Research Society Conference in 2017 and is a conference committee member for the UKAIS annual conference.
Guy Fitzgerald also has extensive experience of organising events including ICIS, ECIS, UKAIS and BCS conferences. He also has experience of programme committees for ICIS and ECIS, and was joint Chair (with Shirley Gregor) of the 2014 ICIS Doctoral Consortium.
Marie Griffiths is a Reader Digital Technology and is Centre Director for Digital Business at Salford Business Schools. As part of that role she is involved in organising a number of internal and external workshops (such as the BAM SIG e-business 2 day workshop Dec 2016). Additionally Marie has been awarded funds from the HEI to organise a T&L workshop and she has also run a number of conference workshops. Recent international conferences that Marie has been part of the board on include the 2016 IFIP HCC and the annual UKAIS conference.

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