Track Chairs

Matthias Trier, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Email: Mt.digi@cbs.dk

Hanna Krasnova, Professor, University of Potsdam, Germany. Email: krasnova@uni-potsdam.de

Alexander Richter, Associate Professor, University of Zurich, Switzerland & IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Email: arichter@ifi.uzh.ch; aric@itu.dk

Track Description

Social Media – Digital Work, Digital Life

Social media have become part of the digital work and digital life of millions of users. These platforms rely on individual members for content creation and their success hinges on active user involvement and participation. In addition, spurred by the pervasive use of smartphones, social media facilitate paradigm shifts in the ways we develop relationships, communicate with each other, collaborate, procure goods and services, and exchange information. Related platforms allow anyone to virtually share information with a global audience. Despite the ubiquitous nature of social media use, we still need to better understand the role and long-term consequences of this phenomenon for digital transformation on individual, organizational and societal levels.

On the one hand, proponents argue that social media promote creation of social capital, result in increased interconnectedness, or facilitate social support and collective action. For many, social media is opening up a new world of empowerment, in which previously concealed conditions are openly discussed and even celebrated instead of being hidden. Overall, by facilitating interpersonal communication and access to information, social media can create significant benefits across a multitude of social and individual layers.

On the other hand, opponents express strong concerns over the dangers of social media. The sheer quantity and the sensitivity of the information users disclose, gives rise to strong privacy concerns. Furthermore, the impact of social media on users’ mental health has been questioned, with empirical evidence hinting at such undesirable developments as addiction, depression, mood disorders. Moreover, the unprecedented attachment of users to their smartphones, which are often used to indulge with social media, is viewed with a high degree of controversy. In companies the multivocality, afforded by social media, can yield tensions for organizational coherence. Finally, the phenomenon of fake news has recently emerged as a dangerous development, posing significant challenges for platform providers and users. Considering both positive and negative impacts of social media, managers and policy-makers find themselves confronted with a complex choice of whether these platforms should be regulated and, if so, how.

This track seeks submissions examining the role social media is playing in transforming the networked society and businesses at large. We especially encourage research that reaches out beyond IS theories, is grounded in multiple reference disciplines and applies new intriguing perspectives to document and understand the transformatory impact of social media and social media-related smartphone use.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Social media and theories about digital collaboration

• Digital leadership and virtual teams

• Social channels of enterprise knowledge sharing and collaborative work

• Personal knowledge management and social media

• Blurring boundaries of private and business (e.g. Consumerization, Shadow IT)

• Social media-enabled business models

• Organizational networking with social media and collaboration technologies

• Use of social media for citizen and political participation

• The development and use of social media analytics

• Digital methods for understanding social media collaboration (e.g. design science  approaches, the computational turn; big data methods)

• Critical perspectives on social media (e.g. social and information overload; technostress).

• Social media and fake news

• Cyberloafing, cyberslacking

• Problematic Internet Use: Social media and smartphone addiction

• Social Media and Well-Being

• Intersection of Social media and culture/gender/generations

• Value co-creation in Social media contexts

Publishing Opportunities in Leading Journals

If a coherent set of outstanding publications is achieved, the track chairs will aim at developing a special issue in a quality IS journal, to which authors will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers. We have started to discuss the opportunity to channel papers into a special issue with editor-in-chief of ISJ.

Track Associate Editors

1. Janine Hacker, Friedrich-Alexander University Nuremberg, Germany

2. Isabella Seeber, University of Innsbruck, Austria

3. Judith Molka-Danielsen, Molde University College, Norway

4. Julia Klier, University of Regensburg, Germany

5. Kai Fischbach, University of Bamberg, Germany

6. Mathias Klier, University of Ulm, Germany

7. Matthias Söllner, University of St. Gallen & University of Kassel, Germany

8. Florian Johannsen, University of Regensburg, Germany

9. Stefan Stieglitz, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

10. Wietske Van Osch,  Michigan State University, USA

11. Eoin Whelan, NUI Galway, Ireland

12. Daniel B le Roux, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

13. Michael Leyer, University of Rostock, Germany

14. Constantinos Coursaris, Michigan State University, USA

15. Michael Wessel, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

16. Sheng-Pao Shih, Tamkang University, Taiwan

17. Christian Meske, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany

18. Henner Gimpel, University of Augsburg, Germany

19. Sarah Oeste-Reiß, University of Kassel, Germany

20. Christian Reuter, TU Darmstadt, Germany

21. Marina Fiedler,  University Passau, Germany

22. Julie Wade, University of South Carolina Upstate, US

23. Cathal Doyle, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

24. Annika Baumann, University of Potsdam, Germany

25. Fenne große Deters, University of Potsdam, Germany

26. Steffen Lessmann, HU Berlin, Germany

27. Jessi Pallud, EM Strasbourg Business School, France

28. Jens Grossklags, TU Munich, Germany

29. Tobias Dehling, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

30. Olga Abramova, University of Potsdam, Germany