Information Systems, Management, and Digital Innovation: Complexity, Integration, and Transformation

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of the rapid digital transformation, the deep integration of the digital economy with artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally reshaping how information systems, organizations, and innovation ecosystems evolve. Advances in big data analytics, complex networks, platform technologies, and generative AI have intensified the complexity, interdependence, and dynamism of contemporary digital innovation. As a result, traditional boundaries between technology development, organizational management, and value creation are being increasingly blurred.

Despite significant technological progress, a persistent gap remains between technological innovation and managerial practice. Existing theories related to Information Systems (IS) and management often struggle to fully explain or guide organizational transformation under conditions of high complexity, uncertainty, and rapid technological change. Addressing these challenges requires integrative perspectives that combine IS research, management theory, and digital innovation studies while embracing complexity, emergence, and system-level interactions.

This special issue, ‘Information Systems, Management, and Digital Innovation: Complexity, Integration, and Transformation’, aims to provide a broad interdisciplinary forum for research at the intersection of IS, management, and digital innovation in complex socio-technical systems. We invite cutting-edge contributions that explore how organizations design, govern, and leverage digital technologies to achieve sustainable transformation, resilience, and value creation in an increasingly complex digital environment.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Design, implementation, and governance of AI-enabled and data-driven information systems;
• Digital innovation, digital transformation, and platform-based ecosystems;
• Management and strategic decision-making in complex digital environments;
• AI, big data, and algorithmic governance in organizations and societies;
• Complex networks, multi-agent systems, and digitally enabled organizational coordination;
• Data governance, data trust, and ethical challenges in digital systems;
• Digital innovation in business, e-commerce, public services, and cross-sector contexts;
• Organizational resilience, sustainability, and green digital transformation.

We welcome original empirical studies, theoretical and conceptual contributions, meta-analyses, and in-depth case studies from scholars working in the fields of Information Systems, management, economics, public administration, complexity science, or related disciplines. By integrating theoretical advances with insights from real-world digital innovation practices, this special issue seeks to advance the next generation of IS and management research.

Overall, this Special Issue aims to deepen the academic understanding of the complex and multi-dimensional interactions between AI-driven technological change, organizational and ecosystem governance, and digital value-creation in the evolving digital economy.

Dr. Peng Qin
Dr. Jiepeng Wang
Dr. Yufei Yuan
Guest Editors

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