UKAIS Seminar – JAIS paper: Organizations as Digital Enactment Systems

Abstract: Digital transformation has become a dominant phenomenon of interest among information systems scholars. To account for the phenomenon, it is imperative to develop a theoretical understanding of its processes and objects. We adapt a seminal organizational theory that conceptualizes organizations as interpretation systems to a possible future of organizations. We theorize digital transformation as a progressive replacement of humans by digital technologies in performing an organization’s fundamental activities underpinning the processes of scanning, interpretation, and learning that encompass an organization’s interaction with its environment. As a result, organizations cease to be human interpretation systems, and instead turn into digital enactment systems where digital technologies, instead of humans, nearly autonomously create and act upon information. We illustrate this digital transformation theory using the example of high-frequency trading. This transformation redefines the relationship among organizations, information, and environment, changing the role of humans, and reshaping strategic decision-making. Thus conceived digital transformation offers a concrete way of theorizing and accounts for deep implications on the nature of organizations and organizing in the digital age.

Bio: Marta Stelmaszak is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Daimler Truck Professor of Analytics at The School of Business, Portland State University. She holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science and postgraduate degrees in Management, Information Systems and Innovation (also from LSE) and Data Science (Birkbeck, University of London). Marta’s research interests concern data science and analytics, and their responsible, sustainable, and ethical development and management within organizations. In her work, she combines various conceptual and theoretical approaches to information systems research with quantitative, data-informed and computational tools with the aim to develop methodological techniques allowing for new insights regarding data for management research and practice. She serves as a reviewer for information systems journals and associate editor for leading conferences, and she also serves as an early career board member at the Journal of Strategic Information Systems.