•The COVID-19 pandemic provides opportunities for IS researchers to develop new expertise in tackling grand challenges.•Combating the COVID-19 pandemic needs technology, information, and data-level ...practices.•Adjusting to a new normal brought by the COVID-19 pandemic needs individual, organisational, and societal level practices.•Digital sustainability could empower IS researchers to play a key role in tackling the sustainable development goals.
The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a significant threat to the healthy lives and well-being of billions of people worldwide. As the world begins to open up from lockdowns and enters an unprecedented state of vulnerability, or what many have called “the new normal”, it makes sense to reflect on what we have learned, revisit our fundamental assumptions, and start charting the way forward to contribute to building a sustainable world. In this essay, we argue that despite its significant damage to human lives and livelihoods, the coronavirus pandemic presents an excellent opportunity for the human family to act in solidarity and turn this crisis into an impetus to achieve the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In this article, we will highlight the six relevant themes that have evolved during the pandemic and the corresponding topics that future researchers could focus on. We conclude by issuing a call for more research attention on tackling SDG through developing the concept and practice of digital sustainability.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for people worldwide. To combat the virus, one of the most dramatic measures was the lockdown of 4 billion people in what is ...believed to be the largest quasi-quarantine in human history. As a response to the call to study information behavior during a global health crisis, we adopted a resource orchestration perspective to investigate six Chinese families who survived the lockdown. We explored how elderly, young and middle-aged individuals and children resourced information and how they adapted their information behavior to emerging online technologies. Two information resource orchestration practices (information resourcing activities and information behavior adaptation activities) and three mechanisms (online emergence and convergence in community resilience, the overcoming of information flow impediments, and the application of absorptive capacity) were identified in the study.
The emergence of Alibaba’s Taobao (e-commerce) Villages in remote China has challenged the assumption that rural, underserved communities must always be the recipients of aid to stimulate ICT-enabled ...development. Based on an in-depth case study of two remote villages in China, this research note shows how ICT (e-commerce) can empower a marginalized community, giving rise to a rural e-commerce ecosystem that can aid self-development. We propose the concept of digital empowerment to explicate our findings in the exploration of community-driven development: first, we identify the critical actors of a rural e-commerce ecosystem and how they use ICTs; second, we illustrate how the same ICT can be used for different affordances by the actors in the evolution of a rural e-commerce ecosystem. The paper also presents unintended consequences of rural e-commerce development. We conclude with suggestions on how to make ICT useful for rural development and, in doing this, challenge some of the prevailing theoretical arguments about this process.
•Actualizing three affordances of blockchain produces business outcomes.•Blockchain implementation includes affordance experimentation and actualization.•Affordance experimentation produces use cases ...for actualization.
Blockchain, the technology underlying bitcoin, is an emerging financial technology (FinTech) that is poised to have strategic impacts on organizations. Because it is a new phenomenon, there are few studies on blockchain, and those studies have focused mainly on the technology’s potential impacts, whereas how to effectively implement it in an organization remains unknown. Our study intends to fill that gap. Using affordance-actualization (A-A) theory as the theoretical lens, we conducted a case study of blockchain implementation in an organization that has effectively implemented it. We identify three affordances of blockchain in the organization and a process model whereby these affordances are actualized. The process model extends A-A theory by adding an experimentation phase where blockchain’s use cases within the organization are identified, developed and tested through conceptual adaptation and constraint mitigation. Our study makes important theoretical contributions to the literature on A-A theory, blockchain, information technology (IT) implementation, and strategic information systems (SIS). Our study can also help IT practitioners to implement blockchain effectively and extract value from their investment.
Multi-sided platforms (MSP) are revolutionizing the global competitive landscape in the new networked economy. Yet, although these MSPs are underpinned by information systems (IS), there is currently ...little research on how the IS capabilities of the platform sponsor can influence, and co-evolve with, the development of the platform over time. The lack of knowledge in this area may account for the difficulties faced by a significant number of platform sponsors in developing their MSPs effectively. Using a case study of Alibaba.com, one of the world's largest and most commercially successful online MSP, we inductively derive a process theory of MSP development from an IS capability perspective to address this knowledge gap. The process model reveals that the role of IS capabilities in MSP development is evolutionary in nature, and the antecedent IS capabilities, nature, and outcomes of MSP development can be dramatically different in the various stages of development.
•We utilize the notion of resource orchestration as a theoretical lens to investigate the nature of the adoption process.•To adopt e-commerce, manufacturers must develop corresponding capabilities ...according to the environment by orchestrating resources.•Resource orchestration plays a critical role in capability development.•Resource orchestration bridges resources and dynamic capabilities.
Although an increasing number of manufacturing enterprises have engaged in e-commerce activities in recent years, there are few successful examples. We utilize the notion of resource orchestration as a theoretical lens through which to investigate the nature of the e-commerce adoption process. The findings generate a process model that can be used to explain how resources are orchestrated in the successful adoption of e-commerce by manufacturers: the predominant competitive environment of each phase gives rise to a specific focal capability that is developed through resource-focused actions. This research benefits both academics and practitioners by contributing to cumulative theoretical developments and by offering practical insights.
Despite an abundance of prescriptions and examples for the conduct of case research in the literature, the fact that most prescriptions tend to (1) articulate general principles/guidelines that are ...difficult to translate into specific, actionable steps, (2) hold only under idealized conditions and may be unworkable in the field, and (3) emphasize the need to be flexible without explaining how flexibility can be achieved, is creating a steep learning curve. To address these gaps, a structured–pragmatic–situational (SPS) approach to conducting case research is proposed with detailed instructions provided for each of its eight steps. The eight steps include (1) access negotiation, (2)conceptualizing the phenomenon,(3) collecting and organizing the initial data, (4) constructing and extending the theoretical lens, (5) confirming and validating data, (6) selective coding, (7) ensuring theory-data-model alignment, and (8) writing the case report. With its prescriptions, the SPS approach introduces a number of conceptual innovations, integrates the different recommendations of some of the most frequently cited works on the case research method into a coherent whole, and suggests resolutions for a number of common issues that confront case researchers.
►A structured–pragmatic–situational (SPS) approach to case research is proposed. ►The 8 steps of the SPS approach ranges from access negotiation to report writing. ►The SPS approach meshes a number of perspectives on the conduct of case research. ►Solutions for the common issues that confront case researchers are suggested.
The emergence of Fintech platforms has revolutionized the way financial services are provided. And yet, in spite of their growing prominence in the global financial sector, there remains a lack of ...understanding of the competitive strategies that are appropriate for these platform‐based businesses, and the implications of those strategies for their performance. Examining four case studies of some of the most successful Fintech platforms in China from the theoretical perspective of the core logics of strategy, we develop a theoretical framework that suggests that the nature of the competitive strategies deployed by a Fintech platform should be contingent on (1) the extent to which their services can be differentiated, as well as (2) the tangibility and physical presence of the platform’s service offerings. More specifically, our framework presents four different combinations of competitive strategies that Fintech platforms can adopt contingent on the nature of their services along these two dimensions. In addition, beyond the two dimensions, our framework suggests that all Fintech platforms should be underpinned by a common strategic core consisting of strategies that align the platform with social pressures. These pressures include those exerted by the government, the market, and society in general. With its findings, it is hoped that our study will provide specific guidance for Fintech practitioners on the appropriate competitive strategies to adopt in order to set their platforms on the path of commercial success.
In recent times, social media has been increasingly playing a critical role in response actions following natural catastrophes. From facilitating the recruitment of volunteers during an earthquake to ...supporting emotional recovery after a hurricane, social media has demonstrated its power in serving as an effective disaster response platform. Based on a case study of Thailand flooding in 2011 – one of the worst flooding disasters in more than 50 years that left the country severely impaired – this paper provides an in‐depth understanding on the emergent roles of social media in disaster response. Employing the perspective of boundary object, we shed light on how different boundary spanning competences of social media emerged in practice to facilitate cross‐boundary response actions during a disaster, with an aim to promote further research in this area. We conclude this paper with guidelines for response agencies and impacted communities to deploy social media for future disaster response.
PDF
