From the Association for Information Systems

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Illustration for: Welcome to AIS Insights

Welcome to AIS Insights

Research for the AI Transformation
The AIS Insights editors · AIS Insights · 2026
  • AIS Insights, an initiative of the Association for Information Systems, brings current Information Systems research to practice, where leaders need it most in times of AI.
  • Every insight starts from a question digital leaders face in practice, answers it with the study's findings, and says what they mean for five roles: CIO or IT executive, IT manager, business strategist, researcher and policymaker.
  • Each study comes three ways: the key question and findings to read, a short episode to listen to, and its core idea in one visual, all in eleven languages.
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What it means for you:

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79 insights from AIS journals, conferences and related outlets

Illustration for: How can digital experimentation platforms help city leaders make better, more adaptive urban sustainability policies?

Key question

How can digital experimentation platforms help city leaders make better, more adaptive urban sustainability policies?

How to Cope with the Dynamics of Urban Sustainability: Urban Experimentation Platforms as Tools for Adaptive Policy-Making
Rehm, McLoughlin, Donnellan · ECIS · 2022
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Audit current urban data platforms to ensure they include incoming feedback channels from local experimentation trials, rather than functioning solely as one-way broadcast tools.
  • IT Manager Configure dashboard alerts to aggregate and flag real-time stakeholder feedback and usage metrics from ongoing urban sustainability pilots.
  • Business Strategist Initiate a meeting with municipal authorities and local business ecosystem partners to design a recurring framework for collaborative problem-solving using platform data.
  • Researcher Apply system dynamics modeling to map the existing stakeholder feedback loops within your city's active urban experimentation platforms.
  • Policymaker Review the latest data reports from active local sustainability trials and draft a plan to update an existing municipal policy based on the trial results.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: What causes organizational inertia during digital transformation, and how does it block successful change?

Key question

What causes organizational inertia during digital transformation, and how does it block successful change?

Understanding Inertia in Digital Transformation: A Literature Review and Multilevel Research Framework
Haskamp, Dremel, Marx, et al. · ICIS · 2021
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Audit your portfolio for socio-technical legacy IT misalignments by scheduling a joint review with department heads to identify legacy systems anchoring obsolete business routines.
  • IT Manager Map your team's current project workflows against the five inertia attributes to pinpoint where cognitive and behavioral rigidity is slowing down daily software deployment.
  • Business Strategist Review the 12 documented inertia antecedents against your current transformation roadmap to identify which cultural and structural barriers threaten your upcoming business model renewal.
  • Researcher Formulate a new empirical study focusing on the interactions between individual-level cognitive inertia and organizational-level structural inertia during enterprise cloud migrations.
  • Policymaker Draft guidelines for state-backed digital grants that require organizations to explicitly account for socio-technical and cultural inertia mitigation strategies before receiving funding.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: How do sending and receiving emails shape employee stress and productivity?

Key question

How do sending and receiving emails shape employee stress and productivity?

Email stress: Towards a new understanding of its causes and impacts
Stich · Systèmes d'Information et Management · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, initiate a discussion with your direct reports and heads of departments to explore piloting a specific email management training program for all employees, focusing on techniques that address both sender eustress and receiver distress, as outlined by the TMES model.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, review the current email client settings and identify opportunities to implement or enhance features that automatically categorize or filter incoming emails based on sender or keywords, thereby reducing receiver distress for your team.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, draft a proposal for a new organizational communication norm that encourages concise and action-oriented email content from senders, aiming to maximize sender eustress by clearly delegating tasks and minimizing receiver distress caused by ambiguity.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin drafting a research proposal to empirically test the TMES model by designing a study that measures sender eustress and receiver distress across different organizational contexts and email usage patterns.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, schedule a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the development of an organizational policy that mandates specific email etiquette training, emphasizing balanced sender and receiver perspectives as informed by the TMES framework.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Illustration for: How can universities better organize themselves to adapt and deliver effective online learning?

Key question

How can universities better organize themselves to adapt and deliver effective online learning?

Improving Self-Organization Capability in e-Learning using Soft System Methodology: A Case from Indonesia
Hapsari, Sensuse, Santoso, et al. · ICIS · 2024
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, initiate a review of existing IT infrastructure and systems specifically identifying which ones are currently siloed and propose an initial phased approach (e.g., Phase 1: Integration of student information system with the learning management system) for breaking down these silos, with a preliminary timeline and resource estimate.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute check-in with a representative from the academic affairs department to discuss how existing IT systems can better support collaborative feedback mechanisms for course design, identifying one specific tool or feature that could be enhanced or implemented in the next sprint.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, draft a one-page outline for a multi-year e-learning strategy document, focusing on how to integrate the identified four core dimensions (strategic planning, personnel development, learning resource management, IT capability) into measurable objectives for the next academic year, and identify one key stakeholder group for initial feedback.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin compiling a list of existing open-dialogue platforms or communication channels within the university and identify two specific instances where they could be leveraged to facilitate cross-faculty discussions on e-learning best practices or challenges.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, draft a memo to the academic senate proposing a pilot program for a collaborative feedback mechanism for course design, outlining the key benefits, the intended process, and requesting their endorsement to explore its feasibility further.
Data & Analytics
Illustration for: What drives digital gullibility, and how can systems be designed to help users critically evaluate online information?

Key question

What drives digital gullibility, and how can systems be designed to help users critically evaluate online information?

A Research Agenda to Understand Drivers of Digital Gullibility
Hall, Haas · ICIS · 2022
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, initiate a cross-departmental working group with representatives from Security, User Experience, and Training to review the research agenda's propositions, specifically focusing on how to integrate 'epistemic vigilance' enhancement into the next IT security awareness training module, prioritizing the 'information context' gap.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute review session with your team to discuss the concept of 'context collapse' as presented in the research and brainstorm one specific system design tweak (e.g., adding a 'source credibility' indicator to internal dashboards) that could reduce information verification costs for your users, to be piloted within the week.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, draft a one-page executive summary for your leadership team that translates the research's core finding on 'digital gullibility as an antecedent to maladaptive online behaviors' into a business risk, proposing a brief for exploring how to quantify the cost of digital gullibility within your organization's operations.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin a literature review focused on the 'individual seeking behavior' gap outlined in the research, specifically searching for empirical studies that measure user-reported 'epistemic vigilance' in different online environments to refine your next research question.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, draft an inquiry to relevant government agencies or industry bodies requesting current data on the prevalence and economic impact of 'digital scams' and 'phishing' within your jurisdiction, framing the request around understanding 'digital gullibility' as a root cause.
Digital Platforms
Illustration for: How do communities use social media to support mental health recovery during natural disasters?

Key question

How do communities use social media to support mental health recovery during natural disasters?

Digital Mental Health Resilience During Natural Disasters: A Scoping Review and Research Agenda
Islam, Marx, Liu, et al. · ACIS · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a brief exploratory meeting with your innovation team to assess existing social media monitoring tools and identify potential enhancements for detecting and analyzing distress signals and misinformation during simulated disaster scenarios.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, review the current moderation policies for any public-facing community forums or social media channels managed by your organization, and identify specific criteria related to 'vulnerability-sensitive content' that could be integrated into moderation guidelines.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, initiate a conversation with your communications and marketing teams to explore how your organization's social media presence could be adapted to proactively offer mental health resources or foster supportive community interactions, especially in light of potential regional disaster risks.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin drafting a concise summary of the 'vulnerability-sensitive channels' and 'cross-sector coordination' findings from this review, identifying specific examples or hypothetical scenarios where these could be applied to digital mental health resilience research.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, draft a short memo to your relevant department heads, flagging the research finding on 'communities actively curate content and self-regulate online spaces' and suggesting a brief discussion on how public digital platforms could be better designed or supported to facilitate this self-regulation for mental health resilience during crises.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Illustration for: How can organizations define and select performance indicators for collaborative business networks?

Key question

How can organizations define and select performance indicators for collaborative business networks?

Managing Performance in Collaborative Networks: A Method for Defining Key Performance Indicators for Collaborative Business Models
van de Ven, Machado, Aysolmaz, et al. · Business & Information Systems Engineering · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, initiate a pilot project to apply the three-step KPI definition method to one specific collaborative network your organization participates in, focusing on identifying and documenting initial network-level KPIs using your existing data infrastructure.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, schedule a working session with a key business stakeholder from a collaborative project to begin the 'KPI specification' step of the research method, focusing on articulating the desired outcomes for that specific collaboration.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, review the research's findings on differentiating KPI scopes and draft a preliminary list of potential network, subnet, and actor-level KPIs for a newly forming collaborative initiative.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin designing a case study to apply and further refine the proposed KPI definition method within a new collaborative business scenario, focusing on the 'multi-criteria KPI selection' and 'attribute operationalization' steps.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, identify a specific public-private collaborative initiative and begin exploring how the research's approach to KPI definition could be adapted to measure its network-wide alignment and individual actor contributions effectively.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: How do laws banning businesses from suppressing negative reviews affect online customer ratings?

Key question

How do laws banning businesses from suppressing negative reviews affect online customer ratings?

Can Regulation Restore Authenticity? Evidence from Policies Against Online Review Suppression
Sanatizadeh, Burtch, Hong, et al. · Information Systems Research · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, initiate a review of our internal policies and legal contracts to ensure no clauses inadvertently threaten or discourage customers from providing honest feedback on public review platforms.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, task your team with monitoring online review platforms for any patterns of review suppression tactics being used by our competitors, specifically looking for increases in negative reviews that are quickly removed or challenged.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, analyze recent customer feedback data, particularly any negative reviews received in the last quarter, and assess if there are opportunities to engage with these customers to improve our offerings and address concerns openly.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, identify and gather publicly available datasets on consumer review sentiment and volume for companies in sectors known for aggressive review suppression prior to recent regulatory changes, to replicate or extend the findings on the CRFA.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, schedule a meeting with your legislative staff to discuss potential avenues for expanding regulatory protections to cover other forms of consumer feedback, such as social media comments or product testimonials, building upon the success of the CRFA.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Illustration for: How can AI governance be adapted to fit local cultural and ethical values around the world?

Key question

How can AI governance be adapted to fit local cultural and ethical values around the world?

Toward Cultural–Ethical Fit in AI Governance: A Global Typology of Governance Profiles
Symeonidis, Schneider, Nikiforova · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute deep dive with your legal and ethics teams to identify which of the eight AI governance profiles identified in the research most closely aligns with your organization's current AI development and deployment practices, and flag any immediate misalignments.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, initiate a review of your team's current AI project documentation and development methodologies, specifically looking for instances where decisions about fairness, transparency, or accountability might have been implicitly influenced by a single cultural perspective (e.g., U.S.-centric) and note them for further discussion.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, begin analyzing your organization's key international markets and identify the primary cultural value orientations that characterize them, then cross-reference this with the meta-tensions (social justice vs. economic competitiveness, autonomy vs. security) to anticipate potential governance friction for upcoming AI initiatives.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin drafting a short literature review outline focusing on how cultural value orientations (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism) have historically shaped the adoption and regulation of other transformative technologies (e.g., the internet, biotechnology) to draw parallels with AI governance.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, review the 'diagnostic decision framework' mentioned in the research, and identify one specific AI guideline (e.g., data privacy regulations) that your jurisdiction currently applies universally, then brainstorm how to adapt its interpretation to better fit the dominant cultural value orientations of your primary constituent groups.
Cybersecurity & Privacy
Illustration for: How does adopting smart speakers change how consumers search for, buy, and consume digital content?

Key question

How does adopting smart speakers change how consumers search for, buy, and consume digital content?

The Voice of Commerce: How Smart Speakers Reshape Digital Content Consumption and Preferences
Son, Oh, Im · MIS Quarterly · 2023
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, task your team with investigating integration points between existing VOD platforms and major smart speaker voice assistant APIs (e.g., Alexa, Google Assistant) to enable seamless content discovery and playback via voice commands.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, analyze the current VOD platform's data infrastructure to identify how to track and log voice-initiated search queries and content playback events, distinguishing them from traditional remote control interactions.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, initiate a brainstorm session to explore new content promotion strategies that leverage voice-activated search, considering how to make titles more discoverable through natural language queries and conversational recommendations.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin outlining a follow-up study to quantify the correlation between specific conversational voice interactions (beyond simple search) and increased VOD content consumption, perhaps through A/B testing of voice-guided discovery features.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, convene a working group to assess the potential implications of increased voice-activated content consumption on digital accessibility standards and to explore how to ensure equitable access to content across all user interfaces.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: How does collaborative course redesign affect student performance, teaching consistency, and instructor confidence?

Key question

How does collaborative course redesign affect student performance, teaching consistency, and instructor confidence?

Efficacy Beliefs and Outcomes: Socio-Cognitive Perspectives on a Faculty-Led coP
Muraski, Heath, Eierman, et al. · AIS SIGED Conference · 2023
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute meeting with your IT academic technology support lead to explore a pilot program implementing a Communities of Practice model for a high-enrollment introductory course, using the provided research as a framework for discussion on potential student outcome improvements and faculty development.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, gather the instructors for the introductory information systems course for a 45-minute session. Share the key findings of this research, specifically highlighting the gains in student performance and instructor self-efficacy. Then, collaboratively brainstorm one small, concrete change to the course syllabus or assessment that can be implemented next semester as a collective first step towards greater consistency.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, analyze the current onboarding and ongoing professional development process for new faculty teaching foundational courses. Identify any gaps in collaborative support and informal learning opportunities, and consider how principles from this research, such as vicarious learning and peer persuasion, could be integrated into existing programs to improve faculty confidence and course consistency.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin drafting a proposal for a follow-up study. Focus on investigating the specific mechanisms of vicarious learning and peer verbal persuasion within the identified Community of Practice, perhaps through targeted surveys or observation protocols, to quantify their impact on instructor self-efficacy and to better understand how to scale these findings.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, initiate a discussion with the Provost's office and the Faculty Senate leadership to present the findings of this research. Propose the development of a university-wide framework or grant program that incentivizes and supports the formation of faculty Communities of Practice for foundational courses, emphasizing the potential for improved student learning outcomes and faculty development.
Cybersecurity & Privacy
Illustration for: How can practitioner researchers overcome the divide between academia and industry to create real-world impact?

Key question

How can practitioner researchers overcome the divide between academia and industry to create real-world impact?

Boundary Spanning and Practical Impact in IS Research: A Bourdieusian Analysis
McCarthy, Scholta, Hausvik, et al. · Information Systems Journal · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute meeting with your direct reports to initiate a 'practice impact review' focused on one ongoing IS project. Ask each person to identify one specific academic insight or research finding from a recent external study or internal research initiative that could be directly applied to improve that project's current proof-of-concept or proof-of-value stage, and assign them to explore this application by end of week.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, identify one specific, recent academic paper or conference proceeding relevant to a current team challenge. Forward this paper to your team with a concise note asking for a brief, 1-2 sentence summary of its most practical takeaway and how it *might* apply to your current proof-of-value stage objective by Tuesday afternoon.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, review the key performance indicators (KPIs) of one strategic business initiative currently underway. Identify which KPIs are not meeting expectations and, using the 'proof-of-value' framework, draft a one-page hypothesis on how a novel IS application or process, potentially informed by academic research, could demonstrably improve these specific KPIs within the next quarter.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, select one recent academic publication where you are the lead author and identify its 'proof-of-use' stage potential. Draft a single-slide executive summary that articulates the core problem addressed, the practical solution proposed, and one tangible benefit for a specific industry practitioner role (e.g., IT manager, business analyst), and share it with three relevant practitioner contacts for feedback by Wednesday.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, review the current grant application criteria for technology innovation funding. Identify if and how 'demonstrable practical impact' is explicitly assessed, and draft a brief proposal to incorporate a specific requirement for applicants to detail their strategy for achieving 'proof-of-value' or 'proof-of-use' within a defined timeframe, alongside theoretical contributions.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: How do virtual worlds help people with lifelong disabilities move from social isolation to social inclusion?

Key question

How do virtual worlds help people with lifelong disabilities move from social isolation to social inclusion?

Affordance-Based Pathway Model of Social Inclusion: A Case Study of Virtual Worlds and People With Lifelong Disability
Stendal, Sein, Thapa · Journal of the AIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, task your accessibility team to conduct an initial assessment of our current platform's 'communicability' features (e.g., real-time chat, group messaging, avatar-based interaction quality) against the research's identified functional affordances to understand potential barriers and opportunities for individuals with disabilities.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute working session with your frontline support staff to review existing user feedback logs for mentions of difficulty with navigation, communication, or customization within our virtual environment, specifically looking for patterns that might align with limitations in perceived 'mobility' or 'personalizability' affordances.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, initiate a competitive analysis focusing on how emerging virtual platforms or digital communities are leveraging 'engageability' and 'self-actualizability' affordances to foster user connection and content creation, particularly noting any strategies that might appeal to or benefit users with disabilities.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin drafting a protocol for a pilot study within our organization's virtual world that focuses on measuring the impact of enhanced 'communicability' features on user-reported feelings of 'engageability' and 'self-actualizability' among a diverse user group, potentially including participants with disabilities.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, convene a brief meeting with your advisory committee to discuss how current digital inclusion policies might be strengthened by explicitly incorporating the research's identified 'functional affordances' (communicability, mobility, personalizability) and 'social affordances' (engageability, self-actualizability) as measurable criteria for assessing technological accessibility and support for social participation.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Illustration for: How can organizations use digital technology to improve environmental performance and achieve economic benefits?

Key question

How can organizations use digital technology to improve environmental performance and achieve economic benefits?

Exploring Digital Sustainability: A Multidimensional Framework for IS Scholarship
Mertens, Haskamp, vom Brocke · ICIS · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, initiate a review of your organization's current digital infrastructure against the 'antecedents' dimension of the digital sustainability framework. Prioritize identifying at least one area where technology can be leveraged for 'automatization' to reduce physical resource consumption (e.g., paperless workflows, virtual meetings replacing travel).
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, identify one specific digital tool or process currently in use (e.g., cloud storage, software updates) and evaluate its potential 'digital energy consumption.' Research and propose to your team one tangible step to optimize its energy efficiency, such as scheduling software updates during off-peak hours or reviewing cloud storage policies for unused data.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, examine your current product or service offerings and identify an opportunity to apply one of the 'sustainability-enabling logics' presented in the research. For example, explore how 'servitization' (offering a service instead of a product) could reduce material waste and extend product lifespan.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, focus on the 'product-level value creation mechanisms' research agenda. Select one of the 14 identified logics (e.g., 'prediction') and brainstorm how it could be applied to develop a testable hypothesis related to reducing a specific environmental impact within an organizational context. Outline the initial steps for designing a pilot study.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, review existing digital infrastructure policies and identify areas where incentives can be introduced or strengthened to encourage 'enhanced green employee/customer behavior' through digital means. For example, consider proposing a policy that rewards teams who demonstrably reduce their digital carbon footprint through technology adoption.
Sustainability & Green IS
Illustration for: Why do traditional approaches to defining requirements cause large-scale IT projects to fail?

Key question

Why do traditional approaches to defining requirements cause large-scale IT projects to fail?

Using a Process Philosophy Perspective in Information Systems Research: Principles of Creative Evolution
Kreps, Rowe · Journal of the AIS · 2024
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute "process thinking" brainstorming session with your heads of engineering and product development to discuss a recent project that faced significant challenges, focusing on how evolving user needs and unforeseen contextual shifts, rather than static requirements, might have been the root cause.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, initiate a 15-minute stand-up with your development team to specifically ask them to articulate one instance from the past week where a change in the team's understanding or a user's evolving need led to a necessary adaptation of their work, and how they managed that 'flow'.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, review the 'success metrics' for your current key strategic initiatives and identify one metric that relies heavily on a static, predefined outcome. Then, draft a brief proposal to reframe that metric to capture ongoing adaptability and emergent value rather than just initial adherence to a plan.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, dedicate an hour to re-reading your current research proposal, specifically highlighting any language that treats concepts as fixed entities. Then, rewrite one paragraph to emphasize the dynamic, experiential, and relational aspects of your subject matter, incorporating the principles of creative evolution.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, identify one current policy or regulation within your domain that is narrowly defined by static criteria or historical precedents. Then, draft a one-page memo outlining how an update to this policy could incorporate principles of ongoing adaptation and feedback loops to account for emergent technological and societal shifts.
Sustainability & Green IS
Illustration for: How do stakeholders' past negative experiences affect their trust and adoption of new technology?

Key question

How do stakeholders' past negative experiences affect their trust and adoption of new technology?

Yoga Sutra-Based Memory Analysis of Information Systems Implementation
Vaidya · Communications of the AIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute discovery call with your Head of User Experience and your Chief Ethics Officer to brainstorm how to proactively identify and mitigate potential 'Samskara' (subliminal impressions) in upcoming system implementations by focusing on past negative stakeholder experiences.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, review the last three system user feedback reports for any recurring themes related to distrust or negative past experiences, and flag the top two recurring issues to investigate further for potential 'Alambana' (external triggers) in your current system.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, draft a brief (one-page) internal memo to your team outlining the concept of 'Samskara' and its potential impact on technology adoption, and request them to identify one instance in recent projects where past negative impressions might have influenced user behavior.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin drafting the introduction to your next research paper by clearly articulating the gap in current information systems research regarding the lack of focus on individual cognitive variations and Eastern philosophical perspectives on memory, using the Yoga Sutra framework as your proposed solution.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, initiate a discussion with your advisory board regarding the importance of embedding ethical and behavioral values into the design and implementation guidelines for all new government information systems, referencing the finding that failures often stem from a lack of adherence to these values, not culture.
Data & Analytics
Illustration for: How do technology projects affect local communities, and what determines whether they succeed or fail?

Key question

How do technology projects affect local communities, and what determines whether they succeed or fail?

Ethics-based ontology in ICT4D
Thapa · Information Technology for Development · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute meeting with your ICT4D project leads to introduce the concept of an 'ethics-based ontology' and ask them to identify one project where technology is deeply integrated into user workflows and cultural practices. Assign them to bring initial thoughts on how the project's impact on lived experience and moral agency could be assessed in the next project review.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, review the support tickets and user feedback logs from the last quarter for your current ICT4D deployment. Specifically, look for recurring issues that are not purely technical but seem to relate to user frustration, resistance to adoption, or a perception of technology not fitting their daily routines. Flag these for further investigation with your team.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, identify your organization's most critical ICT4D initiative. Draft a brief memo outlining how you plan to evaluate its success not just on efficiency metrics but also on its impact on the dignity, agency, and cultural integrity of the end-users. Prepare to discuss this revised evaluation framework with your team by the end of the week.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, revisit the 'implementation challenges' section of the research paper and select ONE challenge (e.g., translating abstract concepts into practical design metrics). Begin drafting a short (1-page) proposal for how you might operationalize this concept for a future ICT4D project you are involved in, focusing on a tangible measurement.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, review existing national or organizational guidelines for technology procurement and deployment in development contexts. Identify sections that address user impact, cultural sensitivity, or long-term sustainability. Draft a short list of questions to investigate how these existing guidelines could be strengthened to incorporate considerations of lived experience and moral responsibility for technology's impact.
Cybersecurity & Privacy
Illustration for: What drives users to stay engaged with location-based games and build real-world communities?

Key question

What drives users to stay engaged with location-based games and build real-world communities?

Gamification for Community Building: Click to Shake Hands
Al Thani, Aoun, Vatanasakdakul · PACIS · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, allocate budget to pilot a location-based gamified application in one of our company's facilities, specifically focusing on fostering cross-departmental collaboration by integrating 'location incentives' for shared project spaces.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, schedule a meeting with your development team to discuss how to integrate elements like 'reward value' and 'achievement' into our existing internal communication platform to encourage more active participation and knowledge sharing.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, initiate a brainstorming session with your marketing and product teams to identify opportunities to leverage 'network influence' and 'herd behavior' in upcoming product launches or community outreach initiatives, perhaps by creating exclusive early-access groups.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, refine the survey instrument to include questions specifically measuring 'sense of belonging' and 'social motive' as distinct constructs, and prepare to recruit participants from diverse community groups for your next study.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, direct your staff to research successful public policy initiatives that have used location-based incentives or gamification to encourage citizen engagement with local services or community events, and identify potential applications for our jurisdiction.
Cybersecurity & Privacy
Illustration for: How does cloud computing affect energy use and carbon emissions across host and user countries?

Key question

How does cloud computing affect energy use and carbon emissions across host and user countries?

An Empirical Investigation of Cloud Computing and Environmental Performance of Nations: Implications for Shared Responsibility in Cloud Computing
Kim, Park, Dedrick · Journal of the AIS · 2025
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, initiate a review of our current cloud infrastructure's geographical distribution and identify which of our cloud services are hosted in countries that are net importers of cloud services (i.e., benefiting from efficiency gains) versus countries that are net hosts of data centers. Then, begin drafting an internal memo to your team outlining the need to assess the environmental footprint of our chosen cloud providers, specifically focusing on the geographical location of their data centers.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, compile a list of all cloud services currently utilized by your department and identify the primary cloud provider(s) for each. Then, locate and review the public documentation of these providers regarding their data center locations and any publicly available environmental sustainability reports or initiatives.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, begin by identifying which key business processes or customer-facing services are heavily reliant on cloud computing. Then, investigate if these services are currently being delivered from cloud infrastructure located in countries that are significant importers of cloud services or from countries that are major hosts of data centers, and flag this for further cost-benefit analysis that includes potential environmental externalities.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, start by drafting an email to your colleagues or supervisor proposing a follow-up study that quantifies the specific cross-border environmental impacts for a subset of countries using the methodologies outlined in this paper. Include a brief outline of the data you would need to gather, such as national IT service import/export data and detailed data center location information for key cloud providers.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, draft a preliminary policy brief for your relevant committee or ministry that summarizes the key findings of this research regarding the uneven distribution of environmental burdens from cloud computing. Specifically, highlight the need for international dialogue on shared responsibility and propose an initial step to investigate incorporating environmental footprint data into public procurement policies for cloud services.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Illustration for: How does making conversational agents appear more human affect customer reactions when errors occur?

Key question

How does making conversational agents appear more human affect customer reactions when errors occur?

Artificial Normality: How Conversational Agents’ Perceived Humanness Inhibits Error Attribution and Preserves Satisfaction
Brendel, Lichtenberg, Hildebrandt, et al. · Journal of Management Information Systems · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, allocate budget to pilot the integration of more human-centric design principles (e.g., nuanced language, empathetic phrasing) into our core customer-facing conversational agent, focusing on areas where process errors are most common, to preemptively reduce user error attribution and maintain satisfaction.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, task your development team to review our current conversational agent's dialogue logs for instances of process errors and identify the top 3 most frequent error types to begin redesigning their responses with more humanlike cues (e.g., slight pauses, conversational fillers) to normalize the situation for users.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, initiate a cross-functional workshop with marketing and product development to explore how to strategically position our conversational agents' perceived humanness in customer communications, emphasizing its role in creating a seamless experience even when minor technical glitches occur.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, begin designing a follow-up study that experimentally manipulates specific humanlike conversational features (e.g., varying levels of politeness, acknowledgment of difficulty) within a simulated error scenario to quantify their direct impact on error attribution and situational normality, building upon the findings of Artificial Normality.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, convene a small working group to draft guidelines for the ethical development of conversational agents, recommending that AI design standards encourage the incorporation of humanlike qualities to enhance user experience and mitigate negative reactions to inevitable system errors, rather than solely focusing on pure efficiency.
Cybersecurity & Privacy
Illustration for: How do individual user behaviors and attitudes impact the business value generated from process mining?

Key question

How do individual user behaviors and attitudes impact the business value generated from process mining?

Unpacking the Role of Individuals in Process Mining: A Literature Review and Research Framework
Dyong, Franzoi, vom Brocke · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Initiate a data audit of the source pipelines feeding your enterprise process mining tools to eliminate data discrepancies, directly addressing the research finding that data inaccuracies severely undermine user trust and derail tool adoption.
  • IT Manager Add a mandatory 'Hypothesis-First' template to your team's process mining workflow on Monday morning, requiring analysts to document their specific diagnostic hypothesis before running queries to enforce structured behavior and reduce analysis duration.
  • Business Strategist Redesign the process mining ROI dashboard to measure actual business value outcomes (e.g., cost savings from process changes) rather than user log-in frequency, linking individual analytical insights directly to operational KPIs.
  • Researcher Draft a research design for a longitudinal study tracking 20 process mining analysts over six months to capture the sequential and temporal dynamics of user affect and trust, directly addressing the static limitations of current literature.
  • Policymaker Establish an internal organizational standard mandating that no department may deploy process mining software without integrating a formal training and methodological guidance program, ensuring compliant and high-quality data execution.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: How should teams structure initial challenges to successfully launch AI projects?

Key question

How should teams structure initial challenges to successfully launch AI projects?

The Anatomy of a Design Challenge for Initiating AI Innovation
Röckel, van Giffen, Janson, et al. · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Mandate that all upcoming AI project proposals use a standardized 'Design Challenge' charter template structured around the 4 robust elements (verb, object of innovation, target group, context) and 3 plastic elements (internal data, technology, potential), explicitly forbidding teams from locking in a rigid technical architecture in their initial pitch.
  • IT Manager Gather your interdisciplinary project team for a 60-minute workshop on Monday morning to co-create a 'Design Challenge' statement, explicitly defining the stable 'robust' elements to align the business and tech members, while leaving the 'plastic' elements (like specific data sources and AI models) open as flexible targets to be negotiated as the project progresses.
  • Business Strategist Review your company's AI project portfolio on Monday morning and intentionally rewrite the 'object of innovation' for each project: frame them as 'modular' if you need predictable, incremental improvements, or rewrite them as 'space-based' (e.g., focused on broad capabilities) if you want to push the team toward radical, disruptive business model innovation.
  • Researcher Update your qualitative coding scheme for ongoing field studies of AI adoption to track how frequently and at what project stages teams modify the 'plastic' elements (internal data, technology, potential) versus the 'robust' elements of their project charters to measure the empirical threshold where technological uncertainty triggers project misalignment.
  • Policymaker Revise the application guidelines for the upcoming public AI innovation grant cycle to replace rigid 'technical specifications' requirements with a mandatory 'Design Challenge' framework, scoring applicants on the clarity of their robust elements (target group, context) and the adaptive flexibility of their plastic elements (data and technology integration plans).
Cloud & Infrastructure
Illustration for: How can educators effectively teach modern industrial software skills without expensive physical equipment?

Key question

How can educators effectively teach modern industrial software skills without expensive physical equipment?

Towards Design Principles for Teaching Industry 4.0 Competencies to CS/IS Students
Salcher · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Direct your enterprise architecture team to draft a transition plan to replace physical IT hardware training labs with virtualized, containerized sandbox environments (e.g., Docker/Kubernetes) to reduce infrastructure costs and align onboarding with modern Industry 4.0 software architectures.
  • IT Manager Review the programming prerequisites of your junior developers and assign them a structured, hands-on troubleshooting task using a containerized microservice mock-up on Monday morning to assess their readiness for complex Industry 4.0 integration projects.
  • Business Strategist Reallocate a portion of next quarter's talent development budget away from high-cost physical equipment training and toward scalable, software-based virtual simulators to cost-effectively build digital twin and data architecture competencies.
  • Researcher Draft a research proposal to conduct a multi-institution comparative study on these eight design principles, incorporating objective pre- and post-intervention technical testing rather than relying on subjective student feedback to measure competency gains.
  • Policymaker Create a state-level educational grant initiative that incentivizes higher education institutions to update computer science curricula with virtualization-based Industry 4.0 frameworks, shifting funding priority away from physical learning factories.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: Can real-time advice keep citizens engaged in collecting local heat data using wearable sensors?

Key question

Can real-time advice keep citizens engaged in collecting local heat data using wearable sensors?

A Context-Aware Urban Heat Companion for Prosumer Participatory Sensing and Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention
von Heyden, Kuhlmeier, Parsons, et al. · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Authorize a pilot project to integrate on-device, context-aware processing capabilities into the company's mobile application roadmap, shifting away from centralized cloud polling to enable low-latency, real-time push notifications driven by on-device sensor data.
  • IT Manager Update the push-notification system's scheduling logic to restrict alerts to high-relevance afternoon windows (12:00 PM to 4:00 PM) and truncate copy to short, single-action prompts like 'Hydration & Cooling' to maximize user compliance rates.
  • Business Strategist Redesign the incentive structure of our data-collection app to offer immediate, personalized 'micro-utility' benefits—such as real-time local comfort scores—directly to the user upon data submission, mitigating long-term participation fatigue.
  • Researcher Draft a research proposal and power analysis for a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a target sample size of at least 150 participants to statistically validate the behavioral impacts and compliance rates of the Heat Companion's adaptive interventions.
  • Policymaker Draft a municipal initiative to equip outdoor public-sector employees (such as postal or sanitation workers) with wearable micro-climate sensors to map urban heat islands where official weather stations lack coverage.
Sustainability & Green IS
Illustration for: What competing tensions and trade-offs do leaders face when guiding national quantum computing ecosystems?

Key question

What competing tensions and trade-offs do leaders face when guiding national quantum computing ecosystems?

Orchestration Paradoxes in National Quantum Computing Innovation Ecosystems
Taipale, Tyrväinen, Tuunanen, et al. · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Schedule a 9:00 AM meeting with your lead enterprise architect to audit your current quantum-readiness roadmap, establishing a formal policy that divides software development and hardware access investments 50/50 to hedge against the performance tension of committing prematurely to a single unproven hardware stack.
  • IT Manager Create a bi-weekly 1-hour 'Quantum Cross-Training' slot in your team's calendar starting this Friday, pairing your specialized quantum physics PhDs with your generalist cloud engineers to address the learning tension between narrow technical specialization and broad-based systems integration.
  • Business Strategist Perform a revenue dependency audit to calculate the percentage of your quantum business unit's funding derived from state grants versus commercial clients, and draft a pitch deck for two private-sector pilots to actively transition away from 'godfather' state-funding reliance.
  • Researcher Draft a pre-competitive collaboration agreement template to send to a peer researcher at a competing institution, outlining a shared framework for baseline algorithm testing while clearly defining IP boundaries to manage the tension of collaboration versus resource competition.
  • Policymaker Draft a revision for the upcoming national quantum funding round guidelines that introduces a 'co-investment requirement,' mandating that state-funded consortia secure at least 25% of their budget from private corporate buyers to counter the 'godfather' dependency paradox.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: How can organizations design and use artificial intelligence to support circular economy practices?

Key question

How can organizations design and use artificial intelligence to support circular economy practices?

The AI-Enabled Circular Economy: Extracting and Synthesizing Design Knowledge
Eckert, Hoppe-Ludwig, Strohmann, et al. · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Schedule a 9:00 AM workshop with your Enterprise Architecture and Sustainability teams to map your organization's existing data infrastructure against the study's two-layered framework, explicitly linking your micro-level AI model choices with macro-level organizational capabilities to support circular workflows.
  • IT Manager Initiate a pilot project on your team's backlog to deploy a predictive maintenance model on a single class of high-wear manufacturing assets, using telemetry data to forecast asset degradation and automatically trigger life-extending maintenance tickets.
  • Business Strategist Conduct a value-chain audit to identify where materials are lost, and draft a business case for integrating computer vision and robotic sorting systems at your primary waste-handling facility to automate material classification and close resource loops.
  • Researcher Draft a research proposal for a 12-month longitudinal field study in partnership with a local electronics manufacturer to empirically validate the paper's four synthesized meta-principles in a real-world operational environment, addressing the literature's lack of longitudinal testing.
  • Policymaker Draft a policy memo proposing a targeted grant program that provides R&D tax credits to industrial recycling facilities that implement integrated computer vision and automated sorting systems to improve regional material recycling rates.
IS & Management
Illustration for: How can businesses use artificial intelligence to transition their business models toward sustainability?

Key question

How can businesses use artificial intelligence to transition their business models toward sustainability?

From Brown to Green: How AI-Driven Transformation Enables Business Model Reconfiguration in the Twin Transition
Mosconi, Boudreau · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Initiate an audit of legacy data pipelines to identify bottlenecks for AI integration, and establish a 'green sandbox' environment with relaxed governance rules to allow developers to experiment with asset-durability algorithms while tracking model energy consumption.
  • IT Manager Hold a 30-minute team sync to map out existing data engineering skill gaps and assign one developer to clean and structure a single historical dataset of asset lifecycle performance to prepare it for future AI model training.
  • Business Strategist Draft a pilot proposal to transition one high-trust client from hourly billing to a recurring, outcome-based pricing model focused on extending their asset lifecycle, and schedule a meeting with operational managers to align on realistic, incremental milestones.
  • Researcher Design a survey instrument targeting business and IT leaders across multiple industries to quantitatively test whether the perceptual gap between executive (radical) and operational (incremental) views on AI-driven green transitions exists outside of the engineering sector.
  • Policymaker Draft a policy brief proposing a targeted grant program that subsidizes data-engineering upskilling and offsets energy-efficiency auditing costs for mid-sized firms adopting AI-enabled, sustainable business models.
IS & Management
Illustration for: How can teams evaluate whether an artificial intelligence project is ready to launch?

Key question

How can teams evaluate whether an artificial intelligence project is ready to launch?

Structuring Readiness for AI Innovation: The Role of the Design Challenge Brief as a Coordination and Gatekeeping Artefact
Hehn, Röckel, van Giffen · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Draft and mandate a standard 'Design Challenge Brief' template that all AI project champions must complete and get approved before receiving formal project launch funding.
  • IT Manager Gather your AI project team for a 1-hour workshop to map your current pre-project planning stage to the three phases of divergent exploration, negotiation/translation, and convergent alignment, explicitly documenting how you will handle fluid data availability.
  • Business Strategist Audit your pipeline of proposed AI initiatives and flag any project that has not yet completed a collaborative 'Design Challenge Brief' to prevent launching projects with high uncertainty around non-deterministic outcomes.
  • Researcher Draft a research proposal and survey instrument to test the generalizability of the three-phase AI readiness model across a quantitative sample of 100+ corporate AI projects outside of academic lab settings.
  • Policymaker Integrate a 'Design Challenge Brief' gatekeeping requirement into your public sector AI procurement and funding frameworks to ensure public agencies evaluate data readiness and outcome uncertainties before awarding AI contracts.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Illustration for: How do IT and sustainability departments interact to shape corporate digital sustainability initiatives?

Key question

How do IT and sustainability departments interact to shape corporate digital sustainability initiatives?

Actor-Networks in Corporate Digital Sustainability Initiatives
Stanlein, Püchel, Juntunen, et al. · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Schedule a 30-minute meeting with the Head of Sustainability to co-design and integrate a 'sustainability impact score' directly into the IT department's project prioritization framework, ensuring green metrics are evaluated alongside traditional cost and efficiency KPIs.
  • IT Manager Review your team's current project backlog and formally assign a senior systems engineer as the dedicated 'Green IT Liaison' to attend the sustainability working group's bi-weekly meetings, ensuring technical resource constraints are communicated early.
  • Business Strategist Draft a charter for a joint IT-Sustainability Steering Committee that outlines a shared governance model, specifically defining a conflict-resolution protocol for when short-term IT cost-cutting clashes with long-term carbon reduction targets.
  • Researcher Draft a research proposal for a multi-case study targeting non-financial sectors (such as manufacturing or retail) that intentionally oversamples sustainability managers to address the IT-biased, single-case limitation of the existing literature.
  • Policymaker Initiate a draft for a voluntary corporate digital sustainability reporting template that requires firms to disclose how their IT infrastructure procurement policies align with national green transition targets.
Sustainability & Green IS
Illustration for: How does delisting a privacy coin from a major exchange impact its price over time?

Key question

How does delisting a privacy coin from a major exchange impact its price over time?

Are the Regulators Winning the Fight with Anonymity-Enhancing Coins? Studying Binance’s European Delisting of Monero as a Natural Experiment
Renwick, Gleasure · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive Audit our organization's digital asset holdings and treasury to identify any exposure to privacy coins like Monero, and immediately initiate a migration plan to convert these assets to compliant, liquid cryptocurrencies to avoid permanent valuation loss from regulatory delistings.
  • IT Manager Update network monitoring tools and firewall rules to detect and block any Monero nodes, mining scripts, or wallet connections on company-owned infrastructure to prevent compliance violations arising from tightening centralized exchange regulations.
  • Business Strategist Review our payment gateway integrations and product roadmap to remove Monero or other privacy coins as accepted payment methods, and pivot our privacy-focused initiatives toward compliant layer-2 scaling solutions (like Zero-Knowledge rollups) that satisfy regulators.
  • Researcher Draft a new research proposal to apply the synthetic control method to other privacy-centric assets (like Zcash or Dash) across different geographic regions, incorporating decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volumes to test if the value shifted off centralized order books.
  • Policymaker Draft an amendment to the national crypto-asset regulatory framework to mandate that all registered centralized exchanges delist anonymity-enhancing coins, citing this empirical evidence that exchange-level bans are highly effective at permanently reducing these assets' market value and liquidity.
Operations & Supply Chain
Illustration for: What are the key factors needed to successfully scale automation across an organization?

Key question

What are the key factors needed to successfully scale automation across an organization?

Time to Turn Off the Lights: A Success Factor Framework for Advancing Hyperautomation in Organizations
Straub, Zeiß, Ibrahimli, et al. · ECIS · 2026
What it means for you
  • CIO / IT Executive On Monday morning, schedule a 30-minute alignment meeting with business unit heads to establish a joint 'Hyperautomation Governance Board' to audit all active shadow-IT automation tools (like RPA and low-code apps) and map them against your long-term IT integration roadmap to prevent fragmented technical debt.
  • IT Manager On Monday morning, block out two hours to audit your current automation deployment backlog and draft a standardized 'API-First Integration Checklist' that your development team must use to ensure new automations do not bypass APIs and create system incompatibilities.
  • Business Strategist On Monday morning, select one high-volume customer-facing workflow and schedule a scoping call with a key strategic partner to co-design an integrated, automated data-sharing process, directly applying the 'Customer Integration' (SF13) and 'Strategic Partner Collaboration' (SF15) success factors.
  • Researcher On Monday morning, draft a research proposal and outreach email to target three non-German, US-based enterprises to secure pilot sites for a comparative case study that measures objective operational KPIs (such as transaction error rates and processing speed) to validate the subjective findings of the 15-factor framework.
  • Policymaker On Monday morning, draft an amendment to your organization's IT Procurement Policy mandating that any new business unit purchasing low-code or RPA tools must submit a 'Systemic Compatibility and Trust Impact Assessment' addressing how the tool aligns with the enterprise IT architecture and employee trust-building guidelines.
Operations & Supply Chain

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