The purpose of the Journal of Information, Information Technology, and Organizations (JIITO) is to encourage authors to develop and publish quality papers that address in a balanced manner all three entities signified in its title: information, information technology (IT), and the organizational context.
Other information systems journals commonly focus on either IT or on information, all but excluding the other. In contrast, JIITO gives equal treatment both to IT and information, while conceiving information broadly in terms of knowledge, wisdom, meaning, and data. Information and IT need to be studied in the context of tasks or processes, spanning over appropriate levels of analysis - individual, group, organizational, interorganizational, community, and so on. JIITO welcomes investigations of organizations of any sort, any industry, and any relevant social domain.
JIITO encourages articles that use rich, detailed accounts of information and IT. Any topic and any philosophical perspective that help us to make sense of information and IT in organizations is welcome. Of particular interest are empirical studies that explain how organizations cope, prosper, change, fail with respect to using, managing, designing and adopting information systems. In the conceptual realm, JIITO encourages articles that take a critical look at advent, genesis and and uses of models that have influenced IS research for considerable time; see more on this in the Editorial Statement.
Call for a Special Issue of JIITO on Digital Divide
Ravi Sharma & Bob Travica
Special Issue Editors
Digital information and communication technologies and systems (ICTS) are now seen as necessary infrastructures for development. The traditional developed economies where ICTS had originated no longer exclusively enjoy advantages of ICTS, as it penetrates into the lifeblood of other emerging powerhouses such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) and other parts of the world. This growth measures in hundreds and thousands of percent annually. Still, since these parts of the word started from a relatively smaller ICTS footprint, they still lag behind developed countries in absolute growth measures, such as the penetration rate of the Internet, access devices such as laptops and mobile phones, availability of content and software, and so on. And there are parts of the world where the ICTS draught has all but subsided. A digital divide within and between countries and continents still appears significant, even as it narrows.
Digital divides do not apply only to the global context. In many countries there is a gap between the ICTS availability in urban vs. rural areas. Even economically advanced countries are not spared of this disparity. Within the urban milieu itself, digital divide may correlate with the economic status of neighbourhoods. Moreover, at the organizational level of analysis, there can be a digital divide between the white collar and blue collar employees.
This problematic situation charts a space for framing digital divide as an ongoing and theoretically relevant research problem. This special issue of JIITO intends to address some of the contemporary issues. We invite authors from different academic and practitioner disciplines who may be interested in the indications, aspects, causes and effects of the digital divide. Conceptual research, empirical studies, as well as practitioner accounts are welcome.
Specific topics include but are not limited to the following themes:
ICTS and economic inequality/inequity. Which is the cause and which the effect? Why does it exist? Can it be eradicated? Are we destined for a flat world or is it a myth? Is this a universal problem or restricted to the developing world?
The omnipresence of a digital divide as a multi-level and resilient phenomenon. What are the indications, causes and effects of digital divide at the global level? Country level (within society)? Municipal level? Organizational level?
The digital divide and data (information) and knowledge management. What are the consequences of data (information) and knowledge asymmetry at various levels? How does digital divide at any level relate to knowledge management or to the knowledge economy?
The digital divide and globalization. What is the relationship between digital divide and economic development (what is the cause and what the effect)? What is the relationship between digital divide and economic inequality that is currently brought into global public discourse (e.g., by the Occupy Movement)?
Overcoming digital divide. What are the possibilities, opportunities, models and methods of overcoming digital divide at different levels (e.g., one laptop per child, affordable technology, flexible technology using locally available sources of energy, etc.)? What are the cases (success stories) of overcoming digital divide at different levels?
Submission guidelines: Please visit http://jiito.org for instructions to authors and for online submission. Papers are due by July 1, 2012.
Bob Travica
