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Special Issue: The Role of Digital Technologies in New Normal: The
Emergence of Contactless Digital Technologies and Services
Call for Papers for: Internet Research
The entire world is experiencing a significant transformation due
to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current event, which produces an
enormous number of infectious and fatalities in most countries
around the world within a very short period, threatens our society
with very strong propagation power. In response, most countries
lockdown businesses, limit the movement of citizens, and implement
social distance to slow the rate of transmission of this virus
among people. As a result, the entire world is moving toward
contactless businesses and daily environments, a.k.a. the
contactless, un-tact, or remote society as the new normal (e.g.,
Dwivedi et al., 2020; Gursoy & Chi, 2020; Pani et al., 2020).
In line with this social transformation, the role of digital
technologies in such new personal and organizational environments
has been disruptively increased and evolved (Carroll & Conboy,
2020; Leclercq-Vandelannoitte & Aroles, 2020; Pan & Zhang,
2020).
This special issue is intended to recruit studies about the role
of digital technologies in the new normal environments in various
aspects. According to the co-evolution perspective, a societal
evolution happens through the co-influences among the different
levels of evolutions (Lewin & Volberda, 1999; Johnson et al.,
2016; Volberda & Lewin, 2003). Particularly, this special
issue focuses on socio-technical phenomena at the individual,
technology, service, and organization levels. Which are
interdependent to each other and are likely to co-evolve through
the current event that affects all aspects of human and
organizational activities.
Topics of Interests
1. Contactless Technology Artifacts
In the process of rapid change to a new environment, the roles of
information technology (IT) are becoming more important. In
traditional environments, products or services have been delivered
mainly face-to-face in analog manners. In the new environment,
however, not only the delivery of products and services but also
the work environments are changing in contactless manners (Lee
& Lee, 2020). Behind this digital evolution, there are
contactless technology artifacts that constantly interact with
users (e.g., self-service systems, remote working systems,
distance education systems, internet streaming platforms, etc.).
In this case, the scope and depth of functions that can be
provided by contactless technology artifacts can be varied
according to the needs of users. Accordingly, the types and roles
of information technology (Brem et al., 2020; Froehle & Roth,
2004) and their impacts on the new society will also be changed.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- New concepts and theories of the contactless technology
artifacts
- Types and roles of contactless technologies and their impacts on
the new society
- Scope and depth of the contactless technology artifacts
- Interactions between users and the contactless technology
artifacts
- Case studies about contactless technology artifacts
2. Contactless Service Design
In emergent situations like the COVID-19, every individual and
organizational environment becomes complicated. As Verganti (2009)
argues, “design” is a vehicle to understand human behaviors and
synthesize new design features beyond the technology-driven
innovation. With this notion, information systems and innovation
studies have considered a variety of features of digital
innovation and transformation (Nylén & Holmström 2019;
Nambisan et al., 2017; Yoo et al., 2010). Therefore, “contactless
service design” will deal with a research dilemma—how do
contactless service design features could represent unexpected
human behaviors (desires, needs, and requirements) and transform
organizational issues? On this research dilemma, the research
topics and issues can be diverse as follows:
- Discovering contextual inquiries about unexpected human
behaviors (desires, needs, and requirements) and creating new
contactless service design features
- Developing contactless service design scenario planning,
illustrating the temporal and longitudinal problems, interactions,
and solutions
- Understanding the role of design discipline on the emergent
situations (e.g., COVID-19) and providing design policy for the
contactless service design
- Delivering contactless service design theories as a new
disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge and practice beyond
technology-driven and market-driven innovation
3. Individual Behaviors
Individual user’s adoption and usage behaviors are still an
important research area in the information systems society and
other academic disciplines. This special issue will also cover
this adoption and user’s behavior issues as a core part of
understanding the contactless digital technology development and
its diffusion in society and the market. Topics of interest
include, but are not limited to, the following:
- New theory and perspective for the contactless digital
technology adoption and diffusion
- Success and failure factors of the contactless digital
technologies
- The benefits and risks of adopting contactless digital
technologies
- Individual’s privacy and security issues of the contactless
digital technologies
- Cross-cultural issues related to disruptive information
technologies
- Digital literacy and digital divide issues of the contactless
digital technologies
- Cultural and psychological issues in the technological
development of contactless digital technologies
- User interface, usability, the user experience of the
contactless digital technologies.
- Individual adaptation of the contactless digital technologies
4. Organizational Transformation
As the business environments have been dramatically changed during
the pandemic period with emerging or disappearing market demands
and changing compliance requirements, organizations are facing
significant challenges to adapt to the huge uncertainties (e.g.,
Carroll & Conboy, 2020; Gursoy & Chi, 2020;). While many
organizations have failed to adapt to such hyper-uncertain
environments, some organizations have successfully adapted to the
new environments through organizational transformations
particularly using contactless digital technologies (e.g., Lee
& Lee, 2020). Hence, another set of research topic will be the
role of digital technologies in transforming organizations or
businesses to be responsive to the contactless society and its new
requirements. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to,
the following:
- Digitally-enabled organizational transformation processes and
outcomes
- Organizational IT resources and capabilities for contactless
organizational transformations
- The emerging and new role of digital technologies in contactless
business environments
- The impacts of contactless digital technologies on internal
operations, supply chain, and customer management - The impacts of
contactless digital technologies and services on industry
competitions
- Digitally-enabled organizational capabilities for a firm’s
survival in the new normal
- IT governance policies and practices for the contactless digital
technologies
- Emerging IT architectures for the contactless technologies and
services
Research Design and Methodological Requirements
This special issue encourages a variety of research design and
methodological approaches including (but not limited to):
- Conceptual and empirical studies
- Quantitative, qualitative, and multi-method approaches
- Using data from direct observations and secondary sources
- Using correlation-based, econometrics, configurational
approaches, data mining, and text mining for data analysis
Important Dates
- Submission and Review Schedules
- Submission system open: May 1, 2021
- Paper submission due: July 31, 2021
- First review result: October 31, 2021
- Revision due: January 31, 2022
- Second review result: March. 31, 2022
- Final decision: June 30, 2022
Please find more details from:
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/intr/role-digital-technologies-new-normal-emergence-contactless-digital-technologies-and
Guest Editors
One-Ki (Daniel) Lee, College of Management, University of
Massachusetts Boston, USA (
Daniel.Lee@umb.edu)
Jaehyun Park, Department of Design and Architecture, Kyoto
Institute of Technology, Japan (
jaehyun@kit.ac.jp)
Juyeon Ham, School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute
of Technology, China (
juyeon.ham@gmail.com)
Younghoon Chang (Managing Guest Editor), School of Management and
Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, China
(
younghoonchang@bit.edu.cn)
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