Bridging digital borders

Track 1

Track chairs

Araz Jabbari
Université Laval

Thorsten Schoormann
Roskilde University

Sofie Wass
University of Agder

Track description

The theme of the conference, Bridging Digital Borders, captures the imperative for Information Systems researchers, business leaders, and policymakers to align technological innovation with strategy and policy in an increasingly interconnected world. Digital technologies are rapidly reshaping markets, institutions, and society in ways that build some bridges while burning others. By expanding connectivity, digital technologies have enabled individuals, organisations, and societies to communicate and collaborate across borders at an unprecedented speed and scale. At the same time, digital technologies also introduce new barriers: algorithmic decision-making, the spread of generative artificial intelligence, rules and policies associated with security and privacy, platform and enterprise architecture, and data governance arrangements, for instance, all help define who can, and who cannot, participate, and how such actors can benefit from digital technologies. Bridging digital borders requires more than linking systems or scaling infrastructures. It calls for critical reflection on how these borders arise, whose interests they serve, and whom they disadvantage.

This track calls for submissions that take bridging as their central concern. We welcome research that moves beyond diagnosing the barriers and asymmetries of digital participation to examine the mechanisms, interventions, and conditions through which borders can be bridged. How can organisations design and govern digital systems that are genuinely inclusive? What institutional arrangements and regulatory frameworks best support equitable cross-border data flows? How can the adoption of artificial intelligence be governed in ways that distribute its benefits more broadly? What strategies enable firms and public institutions to navigate the growing complexity of digital governance while remaining open, interoperable, and accountable? These are the kinds of questions this track seeks to address.

By foregrounding the act of bridging, this track aims to generate scholarship that is not onlycritically engaged with the challenges of digital participation but actively oriented towardunderstanding how those challenges can be addressed. We welcome theoretical, empirical, anddesign science contributions, and encourage diverse methodological approaches.

Topics of interest

Conceptual frameworks to represent and tear down digital borders
Design and governance approaches to advance meaningful connectivity
Rethinking inclusion and removing borders as design principles
Bridging regulatory fragmentation in cross-border data governance and data sovereignty
Interoperability, platform governance, and enterprise architecture as enablers of digital integration
Democratisation of digital architecture and infrastructure
Affective and embodied human-technology connectivity and interactions
Privacy and cybersecurity frameworks that balance protection with open participation
Digital sustainability: Social, environmental, and economic consequences of digital borders
Managing the tensions of unintended consequences of crossing digital borders
Rethinking global ecosystems across borders
Principles and technologies for responsible and ethical cross-border collaborations
Cross-border digital transformation and change management
Crisis management and resilient digital architectures across borders
AI-driven healthcare systems and their role in building or removing borders around care
Digital architectures and their silent role in deciding who participates in innovation ecosystems

Associate editors

Mahd Abouei
University of Manitoba

Malmi Amadoru
University of Sydney

Kirsti Askedal
University of Agder

Ransome Bawack
Audencia University

Cansu Ekmekcioglu
MacMaster University

Attila J Hertelendy
Florida International University

Bijan Khosrawi-Rad
Leuphana University

Stephan Kühnel
Martin-Luther-Universität

Julian Marx
University of Melbourne

Elina Niemimaa
University of Agder

Mairead O’Connor
The University of New South Wales

Jiyong Park
University of Georgia

Sepi Sadeghi
Toronto Metropolitan University

Arman Sadreddin
Concordia University

Yancong Xie
RMIT University

Andrè Hanelt
University of Kassel

Özgün Imre
Kristianstad University

Hendrik Scholta
German University for Administrative Sciences Speyer

Pepe Bellin
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

Sandra Zilker
Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm