The 2022 impact factor (announced end of June 2021) for ISJ is 7.767. This is one 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

Digital technologies have a recognised potential to build more efficient, credible, and innovative public institutions in Latin America. Despite progress, digital transformation in Latin American governments remains limited. In this work, we explore a peculiar yet largely understudied opportunity in the region: pursuing digital government transformation as a collaborative process between the government and civil society organisations. To do so, we draw from information systems research on digital government and platforms for development, complemented with governance theory from political science and conduct an interpretive in-depth case study of an urban reporting platform in Montevideo called ‘Por Mi Barrio’. The study reveals three mutually reinforced orders of governance in the trajectory of the project and explain how the collaboration unfolded over time: (i) a technical decision to use open platform architectures; (ii) the negotiation of formal and informal rules to make the project thrive and (iii) a shared, long-term ideology around the value of open technologies and technical sovereignty grounded in years of political history. Using a contextual explanation approach, our study helps to improve our understanding on the governance of collaborative digital government platforms in Latin America, with specific contributions to practice.

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Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source

Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source

Abstract

Many companies gain external expertise, lower their costs and generate publicity by using crowdsourcing platforms to complete tasks by leveraging the power of the crowd. However, the number of solvers attracted by crowdsourcing tasks varies widely. Although some well-known crowdsourcing contests have attracted large numbers of participants, many tasks still suffer from low participation rates. Prior research aimed at solving this problem has focused on factors such as task rewards and durations while overlooking whether a well-written description might motivate solvers to choose a task. Based on signalling theory, this study investigates the effect of task descriptions on solvers’ participation by focusing on informational and affective linguistic signals. Our model is validated by analysing 13?929 descriptions posted in single-winner tasks on epwk.com, a Chinese competitive crowdsourcing platform. For informational linguistic signals, the results reveal that there are inverted U-shaped relationships between both concreteness and specificity and solver participation, whereas linguistic accuracy has a positive effect on solver participation. For affective linguistic signals, positive emotional words have a positive relationship with solver participation, whereas negative emotional words have the opposite effect. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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Abstract

Digital entrepreneurship relies not only on the individual entrepreneurs’ skills and effort but also on rules and structures related to institutions, especially in developing contexts such as Latin America. Considering this, we analyse how institutional factors can affect digital entrepreneurship by SMEs and startups and what types of institutional changes are needed to support digital entrepreneurship by these companies. Based on institutional theory as a theoretical lens, we conducted two case studies in Brazil. The research results indicate that the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem’s actors perform institutional work that generates changes related to the regulative, normative, and cultural/cognitive institutional pillars. These changes affect both the legitimacy of digital innovations created by SMEs and startups and the legitimacy of these companies as ecosystem players, which is vital for them to access the resources needed to innovate and thrive. Based on these results, we propose a theoretical framework and provide suggestions for practice and public policies related to digital entrepreneurship by SMEs and startups in the context studied.

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Abstract

Platformization is gathering pace because it is capable of restructuring the value creation process for ecosystems. Despite its merits, the failure rate of platformization is alarming for incumbents because it demands collective commitment from ecosystem partners who are already intricately connected due to their embeddedness in pre-existing value networks. Consequently, the question of how incumbents can prepare for platformization has attracted attention from both academics and practitioners alike. By conducting multiple case studies of three distinct ecosystems that have successfully embraced platformization, we arrive at three separate process patterns of preparation for ecosystem platformization that elucidate the dimensions of organisational readiness required of the initiating firm and its partners. Particularly, we delineate between shared readiness and situated readiness, each with its own constituent sub-dimensions underlying ecosystems’ preparedness for platformization.

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Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source

Information Systems Journal, EarlyView. Source

Abstract

Online extremism remains a persistent problem despite the best efforts of governments, tech companies and civil society. Digital technologies can induce group polarization to promote extremism and cause substantial changes to extremism (e.g., create new forms of extremism, types of threats or radicalization approaches). Current methods to counter extremism induce undesirable side-effects (e.g., ostracize minorities, inadvertently promote extremism) or do not leverage the full potential of digital technologies. Extremism experts recognize the need for researchers from other disciplines, like information systems, to contribute their technical expertise for understanding and countering online extremism. This article aims to introduce the field of information systems to the issue of online extremism. Information systems scholars address technology-related societal issues from a sociotechnical perspective. The sociotechnical perspective describes systems through a series of interactions between social (structure, people) and technical components (physical system, task). We apply the sociotechnical perspective to (1) summarize the current state-of-the-art knowledge of 222 articles in a systematic multi-disciplinary literature review and (2) propose specific research questions that address two questions (How do digital technologies augment extremism? How can we successfully counter online extremism?).

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Abstract

With this research opinion article, we aim to contribute to the ongoing conversation concerning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within the IS community. Following Windeler et al.’s (2020) research on perceptions of DEI among members of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), we focus on how conferences should be convened in the post-COVID-19 era to maximise inclusivity. What are the benefits, challenges and implications of holding online and hybrid conferences? Informed by feedback from a survey involving IS scholars in the Global South and from a wide array of AIS senior scholars and conference leaders, we identify several challenges and opportunities of online and hybrid conferences (or, more generally, conferences allowing remote access) for the IS community. We weigh these tradeoffs and implications for DEI and provide reflections to generate constructive discussion on the future of AIS conferences.

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