As digital transformation accelerates, the convergence of AI, data governance, and ecosystem thinking is reshaping how organizations create strategic value, build competitiveness, and sustain innovation advantage. Digital and data ecosystems are increasingly complex, spanning cloud, edge, and decentralized architectures such as data meshes and lakehouses, raising critical questions of trustworthiness, responsibility, and sustainability in AI integration.
This AMCIS2026 mini-track (by Association of Information Systems (AIS)) explores how AI, including increasingly agentic systems, acts as both a strategic enabler and active participant in digital and data ecosystems, enhancing governance, augmenting and automating decision-making, and transforming how organizations create value, while raising important governance, ethical, and human-agency considerations. We invite research examining how these ecosystems can remain responsible, resilient, and sustainable, while enhancing organizational agility, competitiveness, and long-term strategic performance across sectors such as government, healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and education.
The track bridges perspectives from information systems, data science, AI governance, and sustainability research to understand how the strategic and responsible design and management of AI-driven data ecosystems can support long-term value creation, competitiveness, and societal transformation. We invite interdisciplinary contributions from fields such as computer science, management science, data science, process science, decision science, organizational design, policy-making, complexity, behavioral economics, and the social sciences. Submissions may include conceptual, design science, empirical, theoretical, or case-based studies, including literature reviews.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
AI for governance, accountability, and trustworthiness in digital and data ecosystems;
human–AI collaboration and delegation, human-in-the-loop and hybrid governance;
responsible, sustainable, and strategically aligned management of AI-augmented data ecosystems, including Green AI;
governance and data management in emerging architectures (e.g., data mesh, data lakehouse), including data quality, transparency, and explainability;
transition from centralized to decentralized data architectures – organizational and design challenges;
ethical, interoperable, observable, and explainable AI in connected and cross-sectoral data ecosystems;
co-evolution of digital and data ecosystem components;
coopetition between digital and data ecosystems;
resilience, sustainability, and long-term governance of digital infrastructures;
socio-technical, organizational, and policy approaches to trustworthy and responsible data ecosystems;
emerging technologies (e.g., blockchain, edge computing, generative AI, digital twins, IoT, AR/VR) shaping responsible, sustainable, and energy- or resource-efficient strategic ecosystem innovation;
empirical studies and sectoral case analyses (e.g., healthcare, finance, government, education) on evolving AI-driven ecosystems;
design science, conceptual, and interdisciplinary frameworks for responsible, sustainable, and strategically effective data ecosystem innovation.
This mini-track will serve as a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue on the critical role of responsible, sustainable, and strategically oriented digital and data ecosystems in driving competitive and societal innovation. Researchers and practitioners are invited to share insights, theoretical perspectives, and empirical findings in this rapidly evolving domain.
Anastasija Nikiforova – University of Tartu, Estonia Daniel Staegemann – Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany Asif Gill – University of Technology Sydney, Australia Martin Lnenicka – University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic George Marakas – Florida International University, USA
It is already a good tradition at the end of the year to take a moment and wrap up the year, thus reminding myself of what was actually done, thus explaining to myself that maybe I am not as lazy as I think. However, in this post I would like to rather thank those colleagues who were with me in this. As such, let me very briefly summarize what happened (or rather with whom) and what to come in the first months of next year with the later to be spotlighted by me early next year accordingly.
This year I had the opportunity to share my experience, but more importantly, learn from others by participating in panels or plenary sessions, some of which stood out as generating some of the liveliest discussions during and after the events:
“Citizen urban data and smart metropolis monitoring” together with Jaewon Peter Chun (President of World Smart Cities Forum), Redouane El Haloui (President of APEBI Fédération des technologies d’information de télécommunication et de l’offshoring), Mahdi Barouni (The World Bank), Khouloud Abejja (Digital Transformation Director, Agence de Développement du Digital-ADD), Youssef El Maddarsi (CEO Naoris Consulting) that held as part of a Casablanca Smart City event (read a bit more here);
panel on Trust in AI together with Nicolas Cruz B., Korbinian Bösl, and Anamika Chatterjee as part of the Digital Life Norway conference oganized by Centre for Digital Life Norway (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)), with my big thanks to Elisabeth Hyldbakk, Ingrid Shields, Kam Sripada, and many more colleagues for hospitality;
To continue on discussions around research that I truly enjoyed, several conferences or tracks to which I served as one of organizers to be highlighted with credits to go to my colleagues, namely:
Data for Policy 2024 “Digital & Data-Driven Transformation in Governance” track with Sarah Giest, Sharique Manazir, Keegan McBride, Francesco Mureddu, Sujit Sikder (a bit more here)
Selected papers from DGO2024 and EGOV2024 were invited to the “Towards sustainable public and open data ecosystems” Special Section with Information Polity, which we successfully a few weeks ago with the very last preparations before we can announce its final version – big thanks to both co-editors – Anthony, Pedro, and Anneke, as well as Albert Meijer, Kim Willems, William Webster, who supported us in the process, and the authors – Mohsan Ali, Georgios Papageorgiou, Abdul Aziz, Euripidis Loukis, Yannis Charalabidis, Charalampos Alexopoulos, and Francisco Javier López Pellicer, Alejandra Vargas, Rikke Magnussen, Birger Larsen, and Ingrid Mulder and Hsien-Lee Tseng. Stay tuned for the information about this Section!
While the two above are those we are ready with, there is another very special issue we have together with Asif Gill, Ina Sebastian, Martin Lněnička and Anushri Gupta and tremendous assistance of Katina Michael – Special Issue “Trustworthy Data Ecosystems for Digital Societies” with IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society (read a bit more here) and we look forward your submission by 30 June 2025 very much!
And of course, several conferences where I shared my own research, gathering feedback and inspiration for future research, with brightest moments coming from The 25th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (DGO2024) (read a bit more here), and big thanks to my personal host Hsien-Lee Tseng, EGOV2024 and my special hosts Cesar Casiano Flores & Caterina Santoro, 27th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI 2024) (read a bit more here), International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2024) (a bit more here), and several more, where I was fortunate this year to not only present my own research but also introduce my students to the community. Some of these conference papers have already expanded into journal papers, with some exciting news to share early next year!
I am also very grateful to my colleagues for their invitations to join the International Journal of Information Management (IJIM, Elsevier) and Government Information Quarterly (GIQ) Editorial Boards, Communication Committee at Digital Government Society (and one of its Chapter on which I will post later, similar to several other recent updates), and European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) FAIR Metrics and Digital Objects task force, which is rather continuation of the TF I participated in the past (“FAIR Metrics and Data Quality”).
On a slightly different note, similar to previous years, I continued delivering some courses and lectures to other universities, such as:
and several more events, including some local ones we organized for our current and prospective PhD students at the Institute of Tartu – hope to see all attendees with us!
I am also grateful for several recognitions I have received this year (e.g., being named the best reviewer for a journal, or called to be “the top 2% of scientists“ for the second year in a row (Stanford Elsevier Top Scientists List) and top 0.5% of all scholars worldwide (0.2% in Government specialty) by SholarGPS), but probably the proudest moment for every academic is the success of our students, and as such, I want to especially mention Kevin Kliimask, whose thesis recognized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia at the annual Open Data Forum (Avaandmete foorum) as the best thesis of the year 🏆 🥇 🏅 (read a bit more here).
I also want to acknowledge achievements of others – this year I witnessed 3 PhD defenses and would like to congratulate Eric Jackson, Richard Dreiling and Lisa Miasayedava again, especially for such insightful discussions – I know I am quite a tough person to have in the committee (esp. as opponent – sorry Liza and Eric), but you all did a great job and I really enjoyed our discussions!
And I will skip the part about published conference and journal papers, as well as submitted project proposals and those currently in development. Instead, some disclaimer about what is to come, with some posting at later point:
in the very first weeks of January, meet my very good colleagues– Anthony and Nicolas – at HICSS presenting our paper “Artificial Intelligence as a Catalyzer for Open Government Data Ecosystems: A Typological Theory Approach”, which has been already spotlighted several times, including by The Living Library, whose main goal is to identify the “signal in the noise”
keep an eye open for several conferences for which together with colleagues of mine we organize (mini-) tracks, with probably the most important for me at the moment:
EGOV2025 – Emerging Issues and Innovations Track – we continue in the updated form welcoming Paula Rodriguez Muller who will be joining me and Francesco Murredu!
And for Data for Policy CIC, we will slightly change the role we played the last year, and together with Sarah Giest, Bram Klievnik Iryna Susha, Florin Coman Kund, Leid Zejnilovic Laura, we are very excited to invite you to the Data for Policy CIC 2025 Conference (Leiden University, The Hague, Netherlands 🇳🇱) for which we serve as Regional Conference Committee
Finally, do meet me at European Open Data Days 2025 in March to discuss recent (and future) advances in the world of open data with me sharing insights on how Artificial Intelligence can serve as a catalyst for transforming public and open data ecosystems, exploring the various AI roles at data, portal and ecosystem levels driving innovation, enhancing governance, and boosting citizen engagement;
and meet me as a keynote for the International Conference on Innovative Approaches and Applications for Sustainable Development (I2ASD) in April with more details to come!
This is rather a very short list of the events and people I wanted to emphasize, and my apologizes if I missed someone (and I definitely missed). All in all, it was a busy and eventful year, – really grateful for all the opportunities it brought to me and lessons (both positive and negative, rather willing to have positive ones only though) and people I met. I really hope that the next year will be even better. And in this regard, I wish us all a peaceful, joyful and productive year!
The Association for Information Systems (AIS) organized America’s Conference on Information Systems is coming! This year it will be held in Montreal (Canada), running under the general theme of “Intelligent technologies for a better future” and the revised list of (mini-)tracks, where the special attention I invite you to draw to is a new “Sustainable Digital and Data Ecosystems – Navigating the Age of AI” mini-track (chairs: Anastasija Nikiforova, Daniel Staegemann, George Marakas, Martin Lnenicka).
In an increasingly data-driven world, well-designed and managed digital and data ecosystems are critical to strategic innovation and competitive advantage. With the rise of new data architectures, the shift from centralized to decentralized systems, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in data management, these ecosystems are becoming more dynamic, interconnected, and complex.
The growing importance of emerging data architectures such as data lakehouses and data meshes coupled with the emerging technologies of AI, blockchain, cloud computing to name a few, requires us to rethink how we manage, govern, and secure data across these ecosystems. Moreover, AI is no longer a mere component but an active agent/actor in these ecosystems, transforming processes such as data governance, data quality management, and security. Simultaneously, there is a pressing need to address how these systems can remain resilient and sustainable in the face of technological disruption and societal challenges, and how interdisciplinary approaches can provide new insights into managing these digital environments.
This mini-track seeks to explore the evolving nature of these ecosystems and their role in fostering sustainable, resilient, and innovative digital environments.
We encourage research from an ecosystem perspective (grounded in systems theory) that takes a holistic view, as well as more focused studies on specific components such as policies, strategies, interfaces, methodologies, or technologies. Special attention will be paid to the ongoing evolution of these ecosystems, especially their capacity to remain trustworthy, sustainable, and resilient over time.
Potential topics include but are not limited to:
data management and governance in emerging data architectures (data lakehouse, data mesh, etc.), including data governance, data quality management, and security;
the role of AI in data management, including AI-augmented governance, data quality management, and security;
AI-driven resilience and sustainability in digital and data ecosystems, incl. AI-augmentation of data lifecycle- and business- processes;
conceptualization and evolution of digital and data ecosystem components and their interrelationships;
emerging technologies, such as blockchain, cloud computing, sensors etc., shaping the strategic development of digital and data ecosystems;
case studies on the transition from centralized (data warehouse, data lake, data lakehouse) to decentralized data architectures (e.g., data mesh);
human/user factors in digital and data ecosystems (acceptance, interactions, participation etc.);
empirical studies on the sustainability, trustworthiness, and resilience of digital ecosystems;
methodologies and strategies for managing evolving digital ecosystems in different sectors (e.g., finance, healthcare, government / public sector, education).
interdisciplinary approaches to building, managing, and sustaining digital and data ecosystems.
The research and innovation in digital and data ecosystems requires an interdisciplinary approach. Therefore, this track invites papers from various disciplines such as information systems, computer science, management science, data science, decision science, organizational design, policy making, complexity, and behavioral economics, and social science to continue the problematization exploration of concepts, theories, models, and tools for building, managing and sustaining ecosystems. These can be conceptual, design science research, empirical studies, industry and government case studies, and theoretical papers, including literature reviews.
As such, this mini-track will serve as a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue on the critical role of sustainable digital and data ecosystems in driving strategic innovation and competitive advantage. We invite researchers and practitioners alike to share their insights, theoretical perspectives, and empirical findings in this rapidly evolving domain.
This mini-track is part of “Strategic & Competitive Uses of Information and Digital Technologies (SCUIDT)” track (chairs: Jack Becker, Russell Torres, Parisa Aasi, Vess Johnson).
For more information, see AMCIS2025 website (for this (min-)track, navigate to “Strategic & Competitive Uses of Information and Digital Technologies (SCUIDT)” track).
Is your research related to any of the above topics? Then do not wait – submit! 📅📅📅Submissions are due February 28, 2025.
IEEE Transactions on Technology & Society launches the new Special Issue on the “Trustworthy Data Ecosystems for Digital Societies“, edited by Asif Gill, Anastasija Nikiforova, Ina M. Sebastian, Martin Lnenicka, Anushri Gupta. On behalf of the editors of this SI, I sincerely invite you to consider submitting your work to it.
Key topics surround intersection of data ecosystem and AI topics, i.e., AI in and for trustworthy data ecosystems, and include, but are not limited to:
Impact of trustworthy data ecosystem on digital societies at the local, national and global levels
Conceptualization of trustworthy data ecosystems domains and characteristics for digital societies
Data trust regulations, polices, strategies and standards
Trustworthy data ecosystem infrastructure as a social construct
Trustworthy data ecosystem architecture, interfaces, methodologies, orchestration, patterns, solutions, and technology platforms
System and data quality, governance, security, privacy, protection, and safety
Data linking, interoperability, sharing and observability
This May, I had a pleasure to take part in International Week in Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania) 🇷🇴 delivering 6-hour long “Crafting Success: The Art of Business Process Management” course for undergraduates, Master and PhD students that was based on the course we (with Marlon Dumas) deliver at the University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science.
As part of this course, we delved deep into the fundamental principles and methods of business process management along the lifecycle of business processes were introduced, providing students with the understanding on:
Process Identification and Organization: students learned how to identify key business processes and organize them into a coherent architecture, laying the foundation for effective management and improvement;
Performance Measurement and Prioritization: we explored methods for defining performance measures and prioritizing initiatives for process improvement, ensuring that efforts are focused on areas that deliver the most significant impact;
Process Modeling and Analysis: through the BPMN notation, students were equipped to capture and analyze business processes effectively, facilitating clear communication and understanding across teams;
Process Redesign: The course also delved into strategies for analyzing and redesigning processes to align with performance objectives, employing transformational and transactional approaches such as Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and redesign heuristics.
Additionally, an overview of BPM tools for process automation and monitoring, highlighting the pivotal role of BPM models in driving the design of IT solutions that support seamless process execution, was provided to students.
One of the most rewarding aspects of the course was witnessing the genuine interest and active participation of our students. Their enthusiasm and engagement presented a delightful challenge when selecting the most outstanding contributors for recognition at the course’s conclusion.
Beyond the confines of our classroom, involvement in the International Week themed “Business Education without Borders” opened doors for students to a myriad of interdisciplinary explorations. From data mining with AI to delving into digital market research ethics, students embarked on a journey encompassing finance, law, accounting, multicultural consumer behavior, supply chain dynamics, and risk management. This immersive experience, enriched by guest lecturers from diverse cultural backgrounds, fostered cross-cultural exchange and equipped participants with invaluable skills and knowledge essential for success in today’s global business landscape.
A heartfelt thank you to the organizers for the opportunity to be part of this enriching experience. While I regret not being able to join in person, I am certain that the event was a resounding success, thanks to the dedication and hard work of everyone involved.
Anastasija Nikiforova, PhD 