The ethics of business information systems: the present state of the discussion and avenues for future work

Alexander Bock, Sergio España, Jens Gulden, Katharina Jahn, Livinus Obiora Nweke, Andreas Richter

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    Despite occasional pleas to incorporate the ethics of information systems into the field’s research agenda, the analysis of the moral ramifications of information systems has remained unsystematic in nature. Work on a remarkable variety of ethical issues has appeared, but the field has yet to produce a coherent conception of how it construes and studies the ethics of information systems. In this research-in-progress paper, we report on work to redress the situation by addressing three goals. First, we provide an overview of contributions made to the study of ethics in information systems research in recent decades. Second, we present a classificatory scheme to organize past and future work on the subject. Third, we identify themes that have received little attention to date, proposing routes for future work. In particular, we find that our field has yet to fully explore the moral implications of the very artifacts of its own design. We conclude with a call to action for information systems researchers to work towards a structured account of ethics as part of the field’s research agenda.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationECIS 2021 Research-in-Progress Papers
    Number of pages11
    Publication statusPublished - 2021
    Event29th European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2021 - Marrakech, Morocco
    Duration: 14 Jun 202116 Jun 2021
    Conference number: 29
    https://www.ecis2021.com/

    Conference

    Conference29th European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2021
    Abbreviated titleECIS
    Country/TerritoryMorocco
    CityMarrakech
    Period14/06/2116/06/21
    Internet address

    Keywords

    • Ethics
    • moral philosophy
    • information systems
    • methodology
    • research agenda

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