Bridging physical and digital borders in information systems
Track 5
Track chairs
Katharina Drechsler
University of Cologne
Johanna Lorenz
Osnabrück University
Johan Sandberg
Umeå University
Track description
In many contemporary information systems, the physical world is not merely a scenery, a stable backdrop against which digital technologies operate, but an active constituent of the system itself. From the Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber-physical systems to robotics, augmented and virtual reality, phygital services, and spatial computing, digital technologies are becoming deeply entangled with material environments, human bodies, and multisensory experiences. Rather than replacing the physical, they give rise to tightly coupled physical-digital configurations that fundamentally reshape how organisations operate, how individuals interact with technology, and how value is created, delivered, and experienced. These configurations take many forms across IS domains. In industrial settings, IoT and cyberphysical systems connect machines, sensors, and analytics into precisely coordinated operations. In service and consumer contexts, phygital offerings and AR-supported interactions blend online and offline experiences. In workplaces, hospitals, and homes, collaborative robotics reshapes how humans and machines share space, tasks, and decision-making. Across these constellations, a common challenge emerges: how to meaningfully integrate and align physical and digital elements into coherent systems that surpass the capabilities of either domain alone.
Addressing this challenge requires moving beyond a view of information systems as purely digital artifacts, in which physical components are reduced to static material bearers. It calls for understanding information systems as embedded in, and interacting with, physical contexts and embodied human experience. As such systems become more prevalent across domains, including work, industrial production, healthcare, education, retail, and public services, questions of alignment, orchestration, and integration become central to system design, value creation, and user experience.
Despite their growing importance, physical-digital configurations remain insufficiently theorised in IS research. Established theories have largely emphasised cognition, representation, and discrete interactions with digital artifacts. In doing so, they have largely overlooked the embodied, somatic, and materially embedded dimensions of system use that become unavoidable when digital and physical are tightly coupled. Bridging physical and digital borders, therefore, presents not only a design challenge but also a vital theoretical opportunity to extend and revise the conceptual tools we use to study how information systems are designed, experienced, and sustained.
Building on ECIS and AIS traditions in digital innovation, sociomateriality, and human-centered IS, this track extends these conversations toward an explicit focus on physical-digital constellations in their many forms, including IoT, cyber-physical systems, robotics, AR/VR, phygital services, and spatial computing. It invites research that examines how such information systems are designed, implemented, and used, and how the resulting configurations reshape practices, experiences, and organisational outcomes.
The track closely aligns with the ECIS 2027 theme of Bridging Digital Borders by exploring how information systems transcend and reconfigure physical and digital boundaries. It deepens our understanding of how digital technologies reshape human activity, organising, and experience in increasingly interconnected environments, and emphasises the importance of holistic, context-aware perspectives on the interaction between digital systems, physical settings, and human senses. The track aims to attract diverse contributions, including conceptual, empirical, and design-oriented work, and to foster a vibrant discussion that advances our understanding of how to meaningfully integrate physical and digital elements. It also seeks to explore what that integration demands of IS theory, design practice, and organisational life.
Topics of interest
- Design and use of information systems across physical–digital contexts, including IoT, cyber-physical systems, robotics, AR/VR, phygital services, and spatial computing
- Mediation between physical and digital realms as a source of digital innovation and value creation
- Integration of digital technologies into physical environments and everyday practices (e.g., ambient sensing, wearables, robots, AR overlays)
- Alignment of physical, digital, and social elements in complex sociotechnical systems
- Reconfiguration of work, services, and user experiences in physical–digital settings, including human–robot collaboration and phygital service design
- Novel complexities of physical–digital integrations, such as interoperability, calibration, and safety
- Value creation and capture in physical–digital settings, from industrial IoT and cyber-physical production to smart retail and connected healthcare
- Data, materiality, and infrastructure in physical–digital integration
- Platformisation and ecosystems in IoT, AR/VR, and spatial computing
- Theorising embodied, multisensory, and context-dependent information systems use
- Methodological approaches to studying how to bridge physical and digital realms
- Sociotechnical implications of body–technology entanglements, including agency, control, and responsibility
- Design principles and architectural choices for orchestrating physical–digital experiences and services
Associate editors
Theresa Bockelmann
University of Hamburg
Alina Bockshecker
Fernuni Hagen
Adrian Bumann
Umeå University
TC Eley
Villanova University
Diana Fischer-Preßler
Frankfurt University of Applied Science
Sandro Franzoi
University of Münster
Adeline Frenzel-Piasentin
Hochschule Neu-Ulm
Lucas Göbeler
University of Hamburg
Miriam Gräf
Technical University Darmstadt
Maike Greve
Copenhagen Business School
Janine Hacker
University of Bamberg
Antti Hämäläinen
University of Jyväskylä
Thomas Haskamp
University of Münster
Daniel Heinz
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Katja Maria Hydle
University of Oslo
Lena Hylving
University of Oslo
Gregor Kipping
University of Liechtenstein
Anna Lampi
University of Jyväskylä
Deborah Mateja
University of Mannheim
Phillip Mazur
University of Cologne
Daniel Nylén
Umeå University
Janek Richter
NEOMA Business School
Daniel Rudmark
The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute
Manuel Schmidt-Kraeplin
Technical University Munich
Carolin Vollenberg
University Duisburg-Essen
