Digital technologies and our world are deeply enmeshed as they intricately intertwine, shaping our lives into a digital world. Digital technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, blockchain, social media platforms, etc.) relate to values in overt and covert ways that either bolster or challenge these values (Rowe, 2018). We can observe this in research and practice, which tends to either celebrate the role of digital technologies in promoting economic growth and social well-being or demonize them for adverse effects and new types of risks. These contrasting perspectives create visions of utopian and dystopian digital worlds. While there is an abundance of these polarized and contrasting perspectives, we find that work considering and reflecting on the values underpinning these contrasting views on our digital world barely finds its way into mainstream Information Systems research. This is unfortunate because technological potency sets the stage for problematizing around the bearings of technology on our world (Conboy, 2019; Monteiro et al., 2022; Walsham, 2012). We invite researchers to embrace contrarian thinking (Nandhakumar, 2010) and take a value-reflexive perspective that examines and problematizes values in digital technology design, implementation, and use. Contrarian thinking refers to taking a different perspective and seeking alternative viewpoints that may contradict prevailing attitudes or trends in order to understand a phenomenon. In particular, we ask scholars, "Which values do we value?" and encourage them to collectively engage in reflection and action on how values underpin, inform, and perform the digital world in which we live.


The unquestioned and often hidden values inscribed in digital technology surface when we examine the intended and unintended effects (positive and negative) of technology (Tarafdar et al., 2015). For instance, always-on enables flexibility and autonomy but simultaneously has shown to distort images of the self and others (Prasopoulou, 2017). Artificial intelligence has potency to drive progress in society and economy, for instance, by helping people with disabilities, optimizing energy generation and consumption, or supporting the development of new drugs, while it can also fuel discrimination, undermine freedom of speech or disassemble entire democracies (Mikalef et al., 2022; Vassilakopoulou et al., 2022). All too often, digital technologies are built on the principle of privacy violation rather than of privacy as a basic human right, and security is used as an argument for enhanced surveillance and control rather than for human wellbeing and protection in the digital sphere (Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2019; Zuboff, 2015). At the same time, it is our responsibility as academics and citizens to tackle the social and environmental sustainability issues such as climate change, poverty and inequality in which digital technologies can have a pivotal and positive role (Henriksen et al., 2021; Melville, 2010; Zimmer & Järveläinen, 2022) but are also part of the issue they seek to address. These examples underpin the criticality of value positions – both hidden, or taken-for-granted, and explicit – for developing and leveraging digital technology in our world (Conboy, 2019; Stahl, 2012). For research to co-enact a better digital world (Walsham, 2012), we need to reflect on and problematize the values we help to inscribe, whether consciously or unconsciously (or intentionally/unintentionally) in technologies and their use. Unless exposed and problematised, these value positions, their relations, evolution over time, provenance, and origin remain hidden and find their way into informing subsequent research and practice on digital technology (Zimmer et al., 2022).

In this call, we ask researchers to employ contrarian thinking by reflecting and problematizing values underpinning and defining our digital world. We invite to take a value-reflexive perspective, and to ask "Which values do we value?", when investigating and theorising the dynamics around digital technologies. Specifically, we seek studies that exemplify how we as a community can engage with the values in digital technologies, their design, development, and use. Articles accepted to this special issue should have the potential to inform future Information Systems research on making a better world by understanding the values inscribed in digital technology and how these values enact our worlds through digital technology.

Illustrative focus areas
We welcome conceptual and empirical papers employing different theoretical perspectives, different levels (e.g., societal, organisational, group, individual, etc.) and methodologies including ethnographies, case studies, design science research, action research, mixed-method research and specifically critical approaches.

Some of the key topics we are interested in include (but are not limited to):

Value-reflexive research into digital transformation, artificial intelligence, privacy, cybersecurity, digital infrastructures, blockchain, social media and other digital technologies

Value-driven digital transformation of society, organisations and the individual
Values in digital innovation, business model design, business process design, data analytics, digital entrepreneurship, etc.
Values in designing, implementing and adopting digital technologies and policies for enacting cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection, etc.
Value positions in the design and development of digital technology
Values in the governance of digital technology (e.g., artificial intelligence, blockchain, digital infrastructures)
The role of values in user experience design and human computer interaction (e.g., nudging, persuasive design, universal design, value-sensitive design)
Societal, economical, institutional value structures and digital ecosystems, platforms, or infrastructures
Competing values in digital technologies at the societal, organisational or individual level
Contrarian thinking on digital disparities, e.g., digital divide, digital dignity and digital equality or in-equality
Value-washing (e.g., green-washing) in corporate digital responsibility, privacy, cybersecurity, business models, digital innovation and digital entrepreneurship
Manifestation of values in digital technology
Materialisation of values in digital technology
Theorising around values in digital phenomena
The socio-technical nature of values