Article Index

Workshop description

As our lives become immersed by powerful digital devices and services, questions of implications for individuals’ lives as well as their social interactions and structures arise. IS research has traditionally focused rather on institutional contexts (Baskerville 2011). However, the digitization of individuals' private contexts offers manifold important research questions to be solved (Hess et al. 2014). In everyone’s life outside the organizational context these pertain individual behavior and decision making and the positive and negative consequences thereof, but also communication and interactions with other individuals as well as firms. The emerging fully digitized and connected environment implies changes to the development, exploitation and management of personal IS. While particular scenarios (e.g. smart home, connected cars, social networks) have received partial attention in different fields, this workshop seeks to gather these fragmented views and bring together researchers interested in the impact of digitization on individuals.

Research in this area is beneficial in two ways. First, understanding the implications, opportunities and threats of the digitization of private lives enables suppliers of digital technologies to form closer and stronger connections with their customers and to build services and devices that better match their expectations and improve their everyday lives. Second, this research can help to develop policies and practices that improve the usage and exploitation of digital technologies on a societal level. By encouraging a systematic focus on the individual, this workshop strives for a common understanding of the role of the individual and the challenges and opportunities owing to novel digital technologies.

The 2nd workshop on the Digitization of the Individual will be held in Seoul, South Korea, in conjunction with ICIS 2017 and is scheduled for December 10 2017, 1:00 PM - 5:30 PM. To promote further impactful research on individuals, strong emphasis during the workshop will be given to paper development discussions, among others, facilitated by discussants providing direct feedback. Workshop participants will be charged a registration fee that will include snacks and coffee breaks (details will be announced as the conference program is finalized).

Possible topics of submissions include, but are not limited to:

  • Individual behavior in connected digital environments, such as
    • Choice making in digital environments
    • Individual behavior in social networks and the sharing economy
    • Individual communication and consumption patterns
    • Digital collaboration among individuals
  • Positive and negative outcomes of digitization and connectivity, such as
    • Effects of usage of digital devices and ubiquitous connectivity on individuals’ attitudes, behaviors and performance
    • Techno-overload and techno-stress
    • Privacy and IT-security issues for individuals’ private lives
    • The impact of quantification on the self
  • Development, exploitation and management of personal IS
    • IT-facilitated learning
    • Individual’s information system architectures and connected environments
    • Development of solutions for individual use
    • Personal health devices

References:
Baskerville, R. (2011): Individual information systems as a research arena, European Journal of Information Systems, 20, 251–254; doi:10.1057/ejis.2011.8
Hess, T.; Legner, C.; Esswein, W.; Maaß, W.; Matt, C.; Österle, H.; Schlieter, H.; Richter, P.; Zarnekow, R. (2014): Digital Life as a Topic of Business and Information Systems Engineering?, Business & Information Systems Engineering 6(4), 247-253