Abstract

Youngjin Yoo from Fox School of Business, Temple University, USA , is going to share his recent research and thoughts about information systems’ changes and challenges.

“We are living in a markedly different technological environment than when the IS field first emerged several decades ago. Whereas information systems used to be just a reflection or representation of reality, now these systems are creating and shaping reality. Hence in this paper we argue that our reality is now socially and digitally constructed. Human experience today is one where the digital and the physical are seamlessly and inseparably interwoven. Our experience of people, places, things and time is mediated by embedded computing assets, ubiquitous computing assets, algorithm-based services and data analytics. The implications of a socio-digitally constructed world are that IS scholars need to revisit some of the core concepts on which our intellectual work is built, for example, agency, sociomateriality, the meaning of reality, trust, adoption, and performance. This new world also challenges us to think about the role of technology in society. We believe that we have no option but to embrace the new socio-digital construction of reality and change our institutionalized practices accordingly.”