The rapid diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) into recruitment and selection is transforming how organizations attract, evaluate, and hire talent. While adoption promises efficiency, it also raises concerns across different stakeholder groups. Prior research has examined these issues from a single perspective, focusing on applicants, employers, or regulators, without capturing how tensions arise across the recruitment pipeline. This theoretical review proposes an integrative theoretical framework for AI-enabled recruitment. Drawing on Stakeholder Theory and Signaling Theory, we reconceptualize AI-enabled recruitment as a multi-stakeholder signaling system, shifting attention from the use of technologies to the meanings they communicate, and providing a foundation for future research on AI recruitment governance and design.
Anthropomorphism—the attribution of human-like characteristics to non-human entities—has been widely studied for its influence on user interaction and technology acceptance. However, much of the existing research focuses on functional design elements or surface-level outcomes, resulting in a fragmented understanding of how anthropomorphism shapes psychological and behavioral outcomes. As a result, a comprehensive integration and cohesive understanding of its strategic role in technology development, integration, and use remains limited. This assessing review synthesizes Information Systems (IS) research on anthropomorphism to clarify its implications for technology design and adoption. We categorize types of anthropomorphic design stimuli, examine the cognitive mechanisms that trigger anthropomorphic perception, and analyze user responses across a spectrum of perceptual and behavioral outcomes. We also identify key variables that moderate the effectiveness of anthropomorphic design, offering insights into how organizations can strategically leverage or mitigate its effects. Building on these insights, we propose a conceptual framework and research agenda to guide IS scholars and industry leaders in optimizing anthropomorphism for enhanced technology adoption.
Central banks of 134 nations explore or develop Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). For example, the United Kingdom's ‘Digital Pound’, Sweden's ‘e-Krona’, or the Bahamian ‘Sand Dollar’ mark a significant shift toward digital-native financial systems. As CBDCs move from proposals to operational reality, it becomes essential to explore and understand their role and potential impact, not merely as digital currencies, but as strategic digital infrastructures that could affect over 98% of global GDP. Specifically, CBDCs are often promoted for their potential to enhance monetary efficiency, security, and financial inclusion. However, critical concerns related to their integration with legacy systems, regulatory complexity, and the risks of government control and surveillance, are emerging. Despite increased awareness of these challenges, the dominant CBDC narrative continues to emphasize technological promise, which hinders the development of a coherent, cumulative, and critical understanding of CBDCs within the Information Systems (IS) discipline. To address this issue, we conduct an integrative, systematic, and IS-oriented PRISMA review and synthesis of 133 peer-reviewed CBDC research articles published between 2018 and January 2025. By synthesizing and interpreting extant CBDC research from an IS perspective, our analysis identifies four key research themes in relevant debates, exposes blind spots in the literature, and reconceptualizes CBDCs as socio-technical systems embedded in evolving institutional arrangements, contested power dynamics, and mechanisms of control. We delineate future opportunities for IS research, while also outlining strategic implications for policy and practice.
Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory, this study explores the impact of digital business capability (DBC) on sustainable performance from a dimensional and configurational perspective. We employ a mixed-methods approach that integrates partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on matched-pair survey and secondary data from 137 Chinese agribusinesses. Our PLS-SEM results indicate that digital market orientation capability significantly enhances economic and social sustainability, while digital process innovation capability significantly improves economic and environmental sustainability. The fsQCA results identify two distinct configurations for each type of sustainable performance. They also show that, under certain conditions of firm size and environmental dynamism, digital market orientation can contribute to environmental sustainability, while digital process innovation supports social sustainability. These findings help clarify the nonsignificant paths observed in the PLS-SEM analysis. This study contributes to the IS literature by theoretically and empirically revealing the impact and boundary conditions of DBC on sustainable performance.
Digital transaction platforms have become the prevailing organizational form in the digital economy. Yet, many struggle to sustain generativity and growth under resource constraints. Prior research largely assumes that generativity depends on continuous centralized efforts from the platform owner, leaving unclear how platforms can sustain generativity when such support declines. Using izi.TRAVEL as a revelatory case, we examine how platform generativity and growth are sustained despite severe resource constraints. Adopting a process perspective, we develop a model that explains this trajectory through the interplay of three mechanisms. Centralized generativity orchestration mechanism stimulates participation and builds accumulated capability among ecosystem actors. The triggering inflection mechanism emerges when resource constraints activate the accumulated capability, reallocating generative agency and enabling the shift from centralized to more decentralized efforts towards generativity. The decentralized generativity orchestration mechanism makes it possible to sustain generativity in the ecosystem through decentralized efforts of independent ecosystem actors. These three mechanisms explain how generativity persists and platform growth continues despite limited centralized support. We contribute to generativity theory by reconceptualizing generativity as a distributed and dynamically reconfigured property of the ecosystem. In particular, we show how resource constraints (i.e. an exogenous influence) by activating accumulated capability (i.e. an endogenous influence), can sustain generativity instead of inhibiting it.
As digital technologies increasingly shape competitive dynamics, firms routinely signal their commitment to digital transformation through strategic disclosures. However, it remains unclear whether such narratives reflect genuine innovation-oriented intent or constitute symbolic posturing aimed at external audiences. Drawing on the Attention-Based View, this study conceptualises Corporate Digital Transformation Attention (CDTA) and examines when articulated digital attention translates into substantive innovation outcomes. Using large-scale textual analysis and longitudinal data from Chinese listed firms (2007-2020), we show that CDTA is systematically associated with breakthrough innovation, but not with incremental innovation or R&D spending. This pattern supports a tension-based view of innovation under limited managerial attention and reveals a directional mechanism through which organisational resources channel toward high-impact innovation trajectories rather than expanding overall innovation investment. By contrasting signalling theory and catering theory, we further demonstrate that CDTA primarily functions as a credible strategic signal rather than market catering. This alignment between digital rhetoric and realised innovation is strongest in contexts characterised by heightened accountability-such as state ownership, institutional scrutiny, and constrained growth opportunities-where the costs of misrepresentation are substantively high. This study advances IS research by reconceptualising digital transformation attention as a dual attentional-communicative construct that links managerial focus with external signalling, and by uncovering a directional mechanism through which digital attention shapes innovation outcomes under varying institutional conditions.
Remote and hybrid work have become enduring features of digitally mediated organizations, yet questions remain about the conditions under which such arrangements can be sustained over time. Prior research on remote work sustainability emphasizes structural and technological enablers, often assuming that flexibility, compensation, or organizational support translates directly into employee acceptance. This study extends that literature by adopting a preference-based perspective. We conceptualize sustainability as grounded in how employees evaluate and trade off multiple, interdependent job attributes. Drawing on a choice-based conjoint experiment with 627 full-time U.S. workers, we examine how employees assess bundled features related to work location, salary, monitoring, scheduling, expense reimbursement, and organizational support. The findings indicate that employee acceptance is shaped less by isolated job attributes than by how these features are configured in relation to employees’ prioritized needs, with the degree of remote work and salary serving as central reference dimensions. By foregrounding employee evaluative logic and compensatory trade-offs, this study clarifies the micro-level conditions under which remote and hybrid work arrangements are likely to be accepted and sustained.
Digital strategies vary in scope, ranging from localized process improvements to large- scale business model transformation. While prior research has portrayed middle managers as implementers of digital strategy, emerging work suggests that they also shape strategic outcomes. Yet we know little about how middle managers influence digital strategy trajectories under different strategic conditions. Drawing on a multi-case study of 63 interviews, we show that middle managers shape digital strategy trajectories by responding to misaligned perceptions of organizational digital capabilities between top and middle managers. We identify three pathways through which middle managers influence digital strategy: broadening, scaling, and narrowing digital initiatives. These pathways emerge when middle managers perceive that top managers underestimate or overestimate the firm’s digital capabilities. In response, they engage in divergent strategizing behaviors that adjust the scope of digital initiatives. We further show that these behaviors depend on the strategizing approach adopted by top managers. Under centralized strategizing, middle managers pursue adjustments through covert “shadow” strategizing. In a more open, decentralized strategy, they engage in overt discussions with top managers. By explaining how cross-level capability perceptions shape digital strategy trajectories, this study advances research on digital strategizing and clarifies the strategic role of middle managers in digital transformation.
Although IT leaders’ technical knowledge is claimed to be critical for their effectiveness, empirical evidence remains mixed and equivocal. We address this gap by shifting focus from knowledge as an asset to knowledge use as the mechanism that explains when and why technical knowledge contributes to effectiveness. We theorize that IT leaders deploy their knowledge through two role-related mechanisms: knowledge application, which supports within-unit problem-solving, and knowledge brokering, which fosters cross-unit collaboration. Drawing on the T-shaped skills framework, we propose a moderated mediation model in which the two knowledge use constructs constitute a specialization–flexibility mechanism to fully mediate the technical knowledge–effectiveness relationship. To examine this model, we develop and validate a second-order construct of IT leaders’ technical knowledge comprising four dimensions: depth, breadth, currency, and complexity, and test the model using a paired field survey of 103 IT leaders and 471 subordinates within a global consulting firm. Our analysis shows that knowledge application fully and positively mediates the relationship between technical knowledge and leader effectiveness, more than doubling the explained variance (from 0.37 to 0.93). Knowledge brokering negatively moderates this effect, underscoring the inherent tension in knowledge use. We discuss practical strategies to manage this tension and outline directions for future research.
Anthropomorphism—the attribution of human-like characteristics to non-human entities— has been widely studied for its influence on user interaction and technology acceptance. However, much of the existing research focuses on functional design elements or surface-level outcomes, resulting in fragmented understanding of how anthropomorphism shapes psychological and behavioral outcomes. As a result, a comprehensive integration and cohesive understanding of its strategic role in technology development, integration, and use remains limited. This assessing review synthesizes Information Systems (IS) research on anthropomorphism to clarify its implications for technology design and adoption. We categorize types of anthropomorphic design stimuli, examine the cognitive mechanisms that trigger anthropomorphic perception, and analyze user responses across a spectrum of perceptual and behavioral outcomes. We also identify key variables that moderate the effectiveness of anthropomorphic design, offering insights into how organizations can strategically leverage or mitigate its effects. Building on these insights, we propose a conceptual framework and research agenda to guide IS scholars and industry leaders in optimizing anthropomorphism for enhanced technology adoption.
This study examines how digital platform introduction drives business model change in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on a case study of four textile firms, we analyze three phases of platform introduction: pre-platform, engagement, and post-platform launch. The findings reveal a dynamic platform orientation, understood as a cumulative and capability-contingent pattern of SMEs’ engagement with the platform over time. All firms initially adopt an efficiency-focused orientation as a resource-conserving entry logic. However, only those that embed the platform deeply enough to enhance their digital, agile, and network capabilities develop episodic innovation-oriented engagement, which may become dominant and enable more transformative business model change. Others remain primarily efficiency-oriented, achieving only incremental gains. The study demonstrates that pre-existing organizational capabilities shape how the platform orientation unfolds and that improvements in these capabilities determine whether an innovation orientation becomes viable. This study theorizes dynamic platform orientation as the mechanism explaining why similar SMEs participating in the same joint digital platform introduction experience divergent business model outcomes. This mechanism advances research on SME digital transformation and clarifies how tightly coupled SMEs can leverage digital platforms for business model change.
Organizations increasingly engage in digital transformation (DT) of work. Previous research has shown that DT of work can engender intended and unintended consequences, such as tensions signaling organizational inertia. Scholars and practitioners often attribute transformation failure to such inertia. However, not inertia but the failure to evaluate and address it entails transformation failure. To evaluate inertia, we must dissect the nature of tensions signaling it. For this, we must understand how the DT of work process, from which they emerge, unfolds.We theorize that DT of work unfolds from an interplay of DT work and function work. We empirically study this interplay through an ethnography of a large car manufacturer’s human resources function. We draw on identity theory—the concepts of identity claim and understanding—and illustrate that DT of work unfolds in three evolutionary periods marked by shifting identity claims and understandings reflected in DT work. We reveal that DT of work involves vertical (i.e., between claims and understandings) and horizontal (i.e., among coexisting understandings) identity tensions. Against previous literature’s contentions, these tensions indicate that DT of work shifts identity by addition, not substitution.We contribute twofold. First, we conceptualize a process model of how DT of work unfolds from an identity theory perspective. This model outlines how revised identity claims initiate DT work and how DT of work produces multiple identity understandings entailing vertical and horizontal identity tensions. While vertical tensions trigger revisions of identity claims that initiate adjustments in DT work, horizontal tensions suggest DT of work shifts identity by addition. Second, we outline how our insights into identity tensions in DT of work can inform research into DT-induced identity tensions and underlying inertia.
Although small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key drivers of economic growth and innovation, they often struggle with digital transformation, which is critical for their long-term competitiveness. And, while state grants are a common policy instrument to stimulate innovation within SMEs, their role in the digital transformation of SMEs is less understood. This study examines the impact of a state grant program designed to accelerate digital transformation based on a novel dataset of 3,087 German SMEs—including companies that received state grants and others that did not. Our findings reveal that state grants significantly boost digital transformation in SMEs, even with modest funding amounts. Notably, higher levels of funding do not further increase the degree of digital transformation. Securing a grant could thus provide vital impetus for initiating the digital transformation in firms by helping them to overcome institutional barriers. We also find that higher internal investments by SMEs can contribute to a stronger change in digital transformation, underscoring the importance of internal commitment alongside external support. By disentangling the company-level effects of state grants on digital transformation, our study advances information systems and management research by demonstrating that even small grants can effectively drive change and may also promote digital transformation priorities. We also introduce a multidimensional framework, tailored to SMEs, to quantify digital transformation. Our findings have important implications for the design of policy instruments that address the distinct challenges and opportunities facing SMEs in the digital age.
Organizations face socio-technical challenges in developing an inclusive collaborative metaverse. Virtual rooms and avatar representations can unintentionally exclude users by reinforcing stereotypes, increasing cognitive load, or constraining participation, thereby undermining interaction quality, belonging, and authenticity as core components of perceived inclusion. Through qualitative analyses of 24 participants from eight VR teams, we identify five dimensions for inclusion: immersion, belonging, authenticity, emotions, and self-efficacy, and link them to three design perspectives: avatar representation, room design, and collaboration technology. This uncovers three socio-technical tension patterns: anonymity vs. authenticity, clarity vs. immersion, accessibility vs. functionality. Building on these tensions, we derive implications for design that are grounded in theories of social presence and belonging and translate into actionable design heuristics for Collaborative Metaverse systems.Our tension-based framework drives research on inclusion in the Collaborative Metaverse. Strategically, it offers organizations concrete guidance on how to configure the Collaborative Metaverse to support inclusive participation and avoid design decisions that inadvertently exclude parts of the workforce.
