Track 21

Social media have become part of the digital work and digital life of millions of users. These platforms rely on individual members for content creation and their success hinges on active user involvement and participation. In addition, spurred by the pervasive use of smartphones, social media facilitate paradigm shifts in the ways we develop relationships, communicate with each other, collaborate, procure goods and services, and exchange information. Related platforms allow anyone to virtually share information and knowledge within a virtual team or even a global audience. Despite the ubiquitous nature of social media use, we still need to better understand the role and long-term consequences of this phenomenon for digital transformation on individual, organizational and societal levels. Overall, by facilitating interpersonal communication and access to information, social media can create significant benefits across a multitude of social and individual layers. However, there are also strong concerns over the dangers of social media. The sheer quantity and the sensitivity of the information users disclose, gives rise to strong privacy concerns. Furthermore, social media can have negative impacts on users’ mental health. Moreover, the unprecedented attachment of users to their smartphones, which are often used to indulge with social media, is viewed with a high degree of controversy. In companies the multivocality, afforded by social media, can yield tensions for organizational coherence. Finally, the spreading of disinformation or hate speech (e.g in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic) has emerged as a dangerous development, posing significant challenges for platform providers and users. Considering both positive and negative impacts of social media, managers and policy-makers find themselves confronted with a complex choice of whether these platforms should be regulated and, if so, how.

This track seeks submissions examining the role social media is playing in transforming the networked society and businesses. We especially encourage research that reaches out beyond IS theories, is grounded in multiple reference disciplines and applies new intriguing perspectives to document and understand the transformatory impact of social media and social media-related smartphone use.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Social media and theories about digital collaboration
• Digital leadership and virtual teams
• Social channels of enterprise knowledge sharing and collaborative work
• Personal knowledge management and social media
• Blurring boundaries of private and business (e.g. consumerization, Shadow IT)
• Social media-enabled business models
• Organizational networking with social media and collaboration technologies
• Human interaction with enterprise bots/social bots
• Use of social media for citizen and political participation
• The development and use of social media analytics
• Digital methods for understanding social media collaboration (e.g. design science approaches; big data methods; artificial intelligence)
• Critical perspectives on social media (e.g. social and information overload; technostress).
• Social media in crisis situations
• Disinformation and hatespeech in social media
• Cyberloafing and cyberslacking
• Problematic Internet Use: Social media and smartphone addiction
• Social media and Well-Being
• Intersection of social media and culture/gender/generations
• Value co-creation in social media contexts