Data studies in IS research

Track 9

Track chairs

Aleksi Aaltonen
Stevens Institute of Technology

Frederik Möller
TU Braunschweig

Dragana Paparova
University of Oslo

Track description

Data is the key resource of our time, increasingly taking a central position in business and society. By way of their unique and diverse characteristics (e.g., non-fungibility, non-rivalry, rapid deprecation, context-specificity), data have become highly valuable not only for fuelling modern AI applications, but also for innovative business solutions, daily operations and interorganisational value creation. Yet, the prevalence of data also raises questions concerning governance, quality, security, and value, especially when shared across complex data ecosystems between within and beyond organisational boundaries.

Although data is at the core of information systems, our intellectual foundations for explaining and examining how data can be effectively prepared, used and appropriately governed remains under development. This track aims at establishing a common ground and further advance this important field of research. It is part of the international movement towards developing data studies into a distinct area of concern, to question its impact on socioeconomic life. Data studies in IS research adopts a broad view of data’s lifecycle and welcomes studies that examine a range of issues, from its sourcing and application in complex business and societal problems to the ethical, legal and philosophical questions about what counts as data and how it should be governed across ecosystems, infrastructures and value chains.

The track is open to any research paradigm from design science and qualitative/interpretative research to quantitative and behavioural studies.

This track proposal continues the successful track “Data Studies in IS Research” at the European Conference of Information Systems 2026 and can thereby rely on experienced track chairs and AEs. It also aligns with the international movement towards data studies (see https://www.datastudiesbibliography.org/) and the initiative to create a SIG DATA in the Association of Information Systems.

Data is a pivotal component of digital technologies and increasingly shared and repurposed in the age of AI. More and more digital infrastructures emerge, which, predominantly, enable the (re-)use of data in and beyond organisations (e.g., in data meshes or data marketplaces) and regions (e.g., in data spaces). Putting data at the center of this track, thereby connects very well to the ECIS 2027 conference theme “Bridging Digital Borders”.

As the research community on data-related topics (beyond artificial intelligence) is growing, the track has big potential to attract many submissions and to make a contribution to the success of ECIS 2027. The track chairs and associate editors are very active in the emerging movement on data studies, and we expect an increase in submissions from 57 submission at ECIS 2026 to 60-80 submissions.

Topics of interest

This track invites contributions on topics related to studying digital data as the focal object of research, including but not limited to the following:

Data for AI and interplay with AI

Data reuse and repurposing

Data quality definition, assessment, and improvement

Data governance and management

Unstructured data management and semantic layer

Impact of regulation on data use and data sharing practices

Data management and data sharing in organisations and ecosystems

Data collaboratives, data cooperatives and other forms of data intermediaries

Data privacy, security, and sovereignty

Data value chains within and across organisations

Data spaces, data platforms and other data sharing infrastructures

Distributed data architectures in organisations and ecosystems

(Case) Studies on data value and data quality in organisations

Data value economics and data accounting

Associate Editors

Elena Parmiggiani
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

Mathias Klier
University of Ulm, Germany

Barbara Krumay
Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Angelo Romasanta
ESADE Business School, Spain

Markus Helfert
Maynooth University, Ireland

Felix Naumann
Hasso-Plattner-Institute, Germany

Martin Gersch
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Hosea Ofe
Halmstad University, Sweden

Sandra Geisler
RWTH Aachen

Thorsten Schoormann
Roskilde University, Denmark

Marius Mikalsen
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

Hippolyte Lefebvre
University College Dublin, Ireland

Marc De Reuver
TU Delft, Netherlands

Esko Penttinnen
Aalto University School of Business, Finland

Silvia Maseiro
University of Oslo, Norway

Christine Legner
University of Lausanne, Switzerland