You can submit to one of 2 workshops.  We will have virtual options, and times may change. 

Overview

Local and global grand challenges such as political unrest, climate change, and financial insecurity often create crises for businesses, which can challenge—and sometimes overthrow—the way things are done. Little guidance exists to help organizational leaders and employees manage sudden, external shocks to business processes and even core values. For example, what do organizations do when a crisis challenges their existing systems, such as how the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath have impacted just-in-time inventory, supply chain systems, and employment systems?    How do organizations connect employees to their mission and values when many employees now work in hybrid environments?  How do organizations measure the contribution of remote workers without alienating them? While many of these shifts challenge existing business models, they also represent enormous opportunities for companies to adapt to meet the needs disruption creates (e.g., Zoom, Instacart, Amazon).

Navigating these changing societal dynamics forces organizations to reinvent how they interact with their customers, employees, and other stakeholders. Many of these reinvention efforts fall under the broad umbrella of digital transformation. Digital transformation is a process that aims to improve organizations by triggering significant changes to their properties through combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies (Vial 2019, p. 118). Due to its potentially immense organizational impact,  digital transformation has been one of management’s top priorities over the past several years (Society for Information Management 2019). The COVID-19 crisis impressed a dramatic acceleration to it.

The purpose of this special issue is to explore case studies that illustrate the interplay of crisis and digital transformation.  For example, how do previous digital transformation efforts help an organization respond to a crisis, and how does a crisis impact an organization’s digital transformation efforts.  Studies need to highlight organization’s use of SMACIT technologies or technologies using social, mobile, analytics,  cloud, and the Internet of Things (Vial 2019).

 Possible Research Topics

• Digital Workforce
  • How do organizations and their employees operate in a hybrid work environment, and what new skills are necessary?
  • How is digital surveillance changing the nature of work? Case of organizations using digital surveillance and the impacts on the firm or its employees.  
  • How does crisis change employees’ values, and what impact does crisis have on an organization’s ability to attract and retain workers? How has the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting “you only live once economy” impacted work and the relationships between employees and their organization?
  • Studies on the unbundling of work from employment. A trend sometimes referred to as the passion economy (Jin 2019).
• Technology
  • Significant challenges like global working or pandemics are likely to intensify the existing shift toward work automation. What does the future of work look like for digital workers both within existing organizations and as independent contractors?
  • What role do digital technologies play in managing the challenges associated with business operations in a crisis more efficiently or effectively?
  • Studies of how a crisis challenged a firms’ existing technologies and logic and how the firm worked around the challenges
• External Forces on Business Operations
  • How does responding to a crisis change traditional information systems development processes?
  • How have pandemics and other environmental shocks to organizations influence business operations?
• Facilitating Digital Transformation and its Impact
  • How are grand challenges such as a pandemic or climate change impacting organizations’ efforts to innovate new digital products, services, and business models?
  • Case studies of digital transformation and its impact
• Outcomes of Crisis-driven Digital Transformation
  • Studies comparing and contrasting how grand challenges boost some digital efforts and threaten others?
  • What are the security implications of sudden shifts in business operations due to external forces?
  • The need for rapid assessment in times of crisis creates challenges in measuring the effectiveness of digital transformation. How do organizations measure the impact of digital transformation in times of high uncertainty and time constraints?
  • Impact of crisis-driven digital transformation on organizational decision-making efficiency or effectiveness?

Workshop Deadlines:

Submit an abstract of no more than two single-­spaced pages of text and up to 2 figures.  We will not count figures and references in the 2-page limit:  September 15, 2021

Abstract submission link:  https://uab.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_da1M00yfyDshqKO

Notification of workshop acceptance with preliminary editorial feedback:  October 31, 2021

Special Issue Submission Deadlines:

Special Issue full paper submission deadline: March 1, 2022

Full paper submission link:  https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/misqe

First editorial review sent to authors: May 1, 2022

Paper resubmission based on editor feedback deadline: July 1, 2022

Second editorial review, decision, and suggestions to authors: August 1, 2022

Final submission of accepted papers deadline: October 1, 2022

MISQE publication: December 2022

 Special Issue Co-editors

Paul Di Gangi, (Coordinating Special Issue Editor) Collat School of Business, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, pdigangi@uab.edu                                                      

Rashmi Jain, Feliciano School of Business, Montclair University, Montclair, NJ, USA jainra@mail.montclair.edu                                                                             

Vess Johnson, (Coordinating Special Issue Editor) G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas, USA,  vess.johnson@unt.edu                                                                                                                         

Iris Junglas, School of Business, College of Charleston, USA, junglasia@cofc.edu

Gerry Kane, Caroll School of Management, Boston College, USA Kanegb@bc.edu         

Hope Koch (Coordinating Special Issue Editor), Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, USA, Hope_Koch@baylor.edu                                                                       

Martin Mocker, ESB Business School, Reutlingen, Germany, and MIT, USA  mmocker@MIT.edu      

Mahesh (Michael) S. Raisinghani, TWU College of Business, mraisinghani@twu.edu 

Ulrike Schultze, Cox School of Business, SMU, USA, uschultz@mail.cox.smu.edu

Anna Sirdova, G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas, USA,  Anna.Sidorova@unt.edu