Call for papers

We invite you to submit your contribution for consideration for inclusion in STPIS. Find dates and link to the submission system (EasyChair) to the right.

A socio-technical perspective sees an organization as a combination of two components – a social and a technical one. The pattern of behaviour in the organization is determined by how well these parts fit each other. While analyzing system problems of getting things done, adequate consideration should be given to technology as well as informal and formal interactions of people.

Despite that a socio-technical perspective has been around for over a half century, it is often forgotten in the IS discourse. Consequently, many “new approaches” appear to reflect on IS systems problems, such as modern IT systems poorly adjusted to the external or/and internal environment (e.g., market, organizational culture) of organizations in which they are (to be) deployed. We strongly believe that it is time the social-technical perspective took its proper place in IS research, practice, and teaching.

  • You are invited to submit a short or long paper in the categories mentioned below
  • Authors are required to register and participate in the conference discussions and to present their paper.
  • Accepted papers and reports, that have been presented in the conference, will be published in the conference proceedings (see below).
  • Selected papers will be invited to be extended and submitted to special issues (see below).

We invite submissions of short papers (5-9 pages, excluding references) or long papers (10-20 pages, excluding references) in the following categories:

  • Full research papers: reporting original research results in the area addressed by the workshop. You should report original and finished research, which is based on solid research questions or hypothesis.
  • Work-in-progress/ short papers: provide an opportunity to present early ideas and receive feedback on research-in-progress. You should describe original, but unfinished research, which should be based on solid research questions or hypothesis.
  • Position papers: raising relevant questions in the workshop area, identifying problems, and providing a glimpse of solution for a given problem and these papers are typically short. Representing a basis for discussion, a position paper does not necessarily need to include solutions to its stated problems.
  • Idea papers: exploring the history, successes, and challenges of IS development from a socio-technical perspective. Contrary to position papers, idea papers should provide the in-depth analysis of a problem, review its existing solutions, demonstrate insufficiency of these solutions, and suggest new (not yet evaluated but well argued) solutions.
  • Experience reports: presenting challenges encountered in practice, success, and failure stories. An experience report should clearly describe the working context and be focused on the problems and on the lessons learned.

All submissions need to be prepared using the CEURART style for the papers. Please submit your paper in pdf format.

The main purpose of the workshop is to arrange discussions on using a socio-technical perspective in organizational systems development, the long-term goal being to make this workshop a meeting place for the community of researchers and practitioners interested in the socio-technical approach.

The workshop will take place over two days. We will focus on engaging academics, researchers and practitioners through a keynote presentation and discussion, paper presentations, case studies, and panel discussion. There will be time to network with scholars using socio-technical approaches in information systems (IS) research and stimulate discourse to build collaborations.

Main themes – We invite papers on the following themes, related to socio-technical perspective in IS development:

  • AI, ChatBots and Smart Working
  • Human Resource Management and Work systems
  • Digitalization and Digital Transformation
  • Cybersecurity, Physical Security and Information Security
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) 
  • Health informatics
  • Sustainability

Topics of interest within those themes could include, but are not limited to:

  • Contemporary socio-technical approaches, in practice (case studies) and theory
  • Human Resource Management and Sustainable Organizational Change
  • Industry 5.0 / Society 6.0 as part of socio-technical practice and agenda
  • AI, GenAI, ChatBots and Cobotics usage, practices, issues and concerns
  • Methodological aspects of using socio-technical approaches in practice
  • Socio-technical approach in education and training
  • Information system design using socio-technical approaches
  • Diversity, equity and inclusion of all things related to IS
  • Societal Security from a socio-technical perspective
  • Information Systems Security from a socio-technical perspective
  • Ethnographic and Anthropological aspects of IS design and adoption
  • Philosophical aspects of socio-technical practices
  • Socio-technical human computer interaction
  • Sociotechnical perspectives on Health informatics
  • Digitalization and digital transformation from a socio-technical perspective
  • Systems Thinking and Cybernetics integrated in Socio-technical practices
  • Sociotechnical perspectives on Organizational and Professional Sustainability
  • Knowledge Management, Organizational Learning and Organizational Excellence

Proceedings:

As with the previous editions of STPIS, we are planning to produce proceedings on-line via CEUR services, and index the volume in DBLP, Google Scholar, Scopus, CiteSeer/CiteSeerX, etc. For Scandinavian researchers, the publisher is in the Norska systemet rated as level 1 (which is the highest level for the conferences and workshops), as well as in Finnish JuFo system as level 1. Proceedings for the previous editions of STPIS can be found here: 

Special issues:

In addition to the proceedings, we will organize a special issue in Complex Systems Informatics and Modeling Quarterly where selected papers related to that topic will be invited to be extended and submitted for review to the special issue. These papers will have to pass a double-blind peer review process. More information about the journal is on: https://csimq-journals.rtu.lv. 

There will be a best student paper award (so please indicate if one of the main contributors is a MSc or PhD student in Easychair, when submitting the paper).