Emma Forsgren, University of Leeds, UK

Emma Gritt, University of Leeds, UK

Track Call

The nature of work and organising is changing as digital technology becomes more entangled in organisational life. For example, the adoption of AI, new digital-human reconfigurations, automation, and the use of social media and digital platforms in the workplace. This is reshaping the meaning of work and has potential to create new work practices, job roles and management styles. Likewise, this has implications for employee connectedness, engagement, and identity. The new digital workplace is becoming more fluid and dynamic enabling new forms of communication, collaboration, and flexible work arrangements beyond traditional boundaries. This creates new and exciting opportunities at the individual, organisational and societal level to improve the landscape of work. However, these ways of working also raise concerns and critical challenges (e.g., ethics, the use of personal data, employee surveillance, work-life balance, and technostress) which need to be further explored. As researchers of IS and related areas, it is our responsibility to engage in questions that examine what makes work, life, and society better, but likewise study what does not, and in doing so, reveal the harmful effects. By engaging in constructive debates on new ways of working within the IS community, this will contribute to co-creating a responsible future of digital work.

 Track Areas

We welcome submissions from any theoretical and methodological perspective on addressing digital work. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • The use of AI in shaping new work practices (e.g., automation, digital-human work configurations)
  • The implications of remote/hybrid work (e.g., trust, flexibility, work-life balance, mental health, and well-being)
  • Mixed realities for work (e.g., Metaverse, augmented/virtual reality)
  • Responsible use of digital technology in the workplace
  • The role of social media/collaborative platforms in new ways of working (e.g., user behaviour, online collaboration, innovation, networking)
  • Control and surveillance in the digital workplace
  • Digital leadership and virtual teams
  • Challenges of digital work (e.g., ethics, the use of personal data, information overload, technostress)
  • Self-organisation in distributed and autonomous work (e.g., freelancing, project-based work)
  • Emerging and shifting skills, new work roles, and careers in the digital workplace