The complexity of establishing causality in a digital environment: an eye to the future

ABSTRACT

Information Systems (IS) researchers and practitioners have to deal with the concept of causality. IS researchers explicitly model and test causal relationships, like Information Technology (IT) investments lead to economic outcomes. IS practitioners implicitly assume that their initiatives (investment, training, strategic initiatives) cause the desirable outcomes they seek. While causality has always been a tricky concept to assess, in the digital world of today, it becomes even more challenging. Below, we describe the changes in “embeddedness” and “agency” due to digitalization that convolute establishment of causality in studying relationships between IT and the social enterprise. We also offer projections into the future based on these changes and some implications for researchers.

Notes

¹ See https://www.yang2020.com/blog/the-jobs-that-will/.

² Generativity reflects the openness of an infrastructure that allows others to further add to it (innovate) beyond the original ideas to achieve new possibilities.

³ During the Coronavirus pandemic, the Internet platform is fostering a number of pedagogical innovations, as resources are integrated to create valuable online courses.

⁴ These models reflect simple X-> Y relationships. We did a rough assessment of MISQ empirical studies from 2011–2019 and found that around 57% of the papers had models with directional association causality.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Varun Grover

Varun Grover is the David D. Glass Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor of IS at the Walton School of Business, University of Arkansas. Over ten recent articles have ranked him among the top four researchers globally based on number of publications in the top IS journals, as well as citation impact. Dr. Grover has an h-index of 91 and around 37,000 citations in Google Scholar. Dr. Grover’s current work focuses on the impacts of digitalization on individuals and organizations.

Le Kuai

Le Kuai is currently a Ph. D student in Information Systems at Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, AR. She finished her MIS program at University of Arkansas and received the BBA degree of Computer Information Systems from James Madison University, VA. Her research interests include the Information Communication Technology, social media and privacy concerns.

Jia Wei

Jia Wei is currently a Ph. D student in Information Systems at Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas. She received her Master of Information Systems from University of Arkansas and Master of City Planning from University of Pennsylvania. Her research on cybersecurity has been published in International Conference on Information Systems proceedings. Her research interests include cybersecurity, management of knowledge and information systems, and IS alignment.

Yaping Zhu

Yaping Zhu is currently a Ph.D. student of Information Systems at Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas. She received her MBA from University of Arkansas and BA with Honors in Finance from Chongqing University, China. Her research interests include privacy concerns, the impact of digital platforms on industries and markets.