Event
ISF 2026 Workshop
The 2026 workshop will be the 11th in the series of workshops, begun in 1999 by Kit Dampney at Macquarie University and continued biennially from 2002 at the ANU, focussing on the theoretical foundations of the discipline of information systems.
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Paper submission extended until 31 July!
The 11th Information Systems Foundations Workshop
“Theorising for Information Systems Resilience in a Turbulent Digital World”
2-3 November 2026
Location: Brisbane, Australia
National Centre for Information Systems Research (NCISR), Research School of Management, Australian National University, in conjunction with the ARC Training Centre for Information Resilience, and the UQ Business School’s Business Information Systems discipline at The University of Queensland.
The 2026 workshop will be the eleventh in the series of workshops, begun in 1999 by Kit Dampney at Macquarie University and continued biennially from 2002 at the ANU, focussing on the theoretical foundations of the discipline of information systems. This year’s workshop will be held in conjunction with the ARC Training Centre for Information Resilience and the UQ Business School’s Business Information Systems discipline at The University of Queensland.
Previous workshops have generally been regarded by attendees as great successes because they combined thought-provoking presentations with stimulating discussions and highly enjoyable social programmes to complement the more formal part of the gatherings. Many of the papers workshopped at ISF have gone on to be published in highly regarded journal outlets. The workshop enjoys a reputation for providing an atmosphere of helpful, constructive support for new ideas.
High quality papers that have not been previously published are solicited for presentation at the 2026 Workshop. Submitted papers will undergo a double-blind review process, with at least two independent reviewers per paper.
Workshop Theme
“Everything fails, all the time.” – Werner Vogels (Amazon CTO)
As with previous Workshops, this Workshop focuses on the theoretical foundations of information systems. The 2026 workshop concentrates this focus on theorising resilience in technical, informational, organisational, social, and environmental dimensions. Building on the legacy of previous workshops, this event seeks to address the transformations in our socio-technical landscape since the onset of the global pandemic, the rise of AI and digital infrastructures, and the growing urgency of crises such as climate change, misinformation, and deepening social inequities.
A focus on resilience is essential because modern digital environments are no longer defined by occasional, extraordinary disruptions but by continuous, compounding, and everyday shocks. Rather than preparing for a single catastrophic event, organisations, governments, and societies now face a stream of smaller but frequent disruptions, from algorithmic failures and data leaks to supply‑chain disturbances, platform outages, misinformation bursts, and rapid shifts in digital infrastructure. These “everyday shocks” accumulate and interact, producing systemic turbulence that traditional stability‑oriented models cannot address. Resilience, therefore, becomes a foundational concern: it enables information systems to anticipate, absorb, adapt, and recover in ways that support continuity, trust, and equitable outcomes in an environment where disruption is the norm, not the exception.
This calls for a re-examination of how information systems can be designed, governed, and theorised to foster resilience in individuals, organisations, and societies. The resilience lens in the information systems context includes:
- Technical resilience: How systems can withstand failures, cyber threats, or scalability challenges (e.g. AI ethics, secure infrastructures).
- Information resilience: How organisations can create, protect, and sustain agile data pipelines, capable of detecting and responding to failures and risks across the information value chain in which the data is sourced, shared, transformed, analysed and consumed.
- Social resilience: The role of IS in addressing inequality, fostering inclusion, and empowering marginalised communities.
- Environmental resilience: Sustainable practices in IT design, energy-efficient computing, and the ecological footprint of digital systems.
- Organisational and institutional resilience: Theoretical frameworks for navigating disruption in governance, public services, and crisis management.
This workshop seeks to advance critical inquiry into how resilience in information systems can be theorised, ensuring that our theoretical foundations remain responsive to the complexities of the 21st century.
We invite submissions that challenge, critique, or advance theoretical understandings of resilience in information systems. Papers may explore how existing theories (e.g. actor-network theory, critical realism, complexity science) can be adapted to address resilience challenges, or propose novel conceptual models for understanding the interplay between technology and socio-technical ecosystems under stress. We welcome papers that challenge, address, highlight or improve the purpose, place, and future of theory in information systems.
Suggested Topics
Suggested topics for the Workshop include (but are not intended to be limited to):
- Resilient digital infrastructures and ecosystems in an era of constant disruption (e.g., capability for managing continuous shocks, adaptability, and robustness in digital systems)
- Data, information, and AI resilience (e.g., how organisations build capabilities to anticipate, absorb, and respond to data failures, AI risks, and unintended consequences)
- AI governance and accountability in resilient organisations (e.g., oversight, transparency, responsibility, and controls for AI in high-stakes contexts)
- Workforce resilience in AI-driven organisations (e.g., skills development, reskilling and deskilling, job displacement, diversity at work and the reconfiguration of work)
- Organisational AI capabilities for navigating AI-driven uncertainty (e.g., AI evaluation, value, learning, and adaptation in the face of rapid technological change)
- IS in crisis and high-impact contexts (e.g., pandemics, disasters, systemic shocks, and large-scale disruptions)
- Sustainable and environmentally responsible digital systems (e.g., balancing digital innovation with environmental and societal resilience)
- Digital inequality and inclusive resilience (e.g., who benefits from, or is excluded by AI and digital transformation)
- Policy and regulation for resilient digital worlds (e.g., how societies design and implement regulatory frameworks, manage compliance, and build resilient structures to address AI risks, accountability, and unintended consequences)
- Critical perspectives on resilience, power, and unintended consequences (e.g., how resilience narratives may reinforce inequalities or shift risks across actors)
We also strongly encourage papers that fall outside the central theme, including contributions that engage with broader theoretical debates, examine contemporary technological phenomena, or advance the philosophical foundations of information systems as a discipline.
Fast-track for Australasian Journal of Information Systems
A select number of high-quality papers from the workshop will be invited to submit a revised and extended version for fast-track review in the Australasian Journal of Information Systems.
Important Dates
- Paper submission date (full paper): Extended to 31 July, 2026
- Notification of acceptance/rejection: 21 August, 2026
- Final papers due: 21 September, 2026
Submission Requirements
Papers are to be submitted electronically to: infsys-foundations@business.uq.edu.au
Paper Format
The workshop invites two types of submissions:
- Completed papers (up to 10 pages, inclusive of references, figures, tables, and appendices)
- Research‑in‑progress papers (up to 6 pages, inclusive of references, figures, tables, and appendices)
As a developmental workshop, ISF particularly welcomes submissions presenting important ongoing research and emerging theoretical ideas.
Paper submission template
Submitted papers must use the workshop paper template:
Other details
Submission of a paper implies that, if it is accepted, at least one author will register for the workshop and present the paper at the workshop.
For further queries, email: infsys-foundations@business.uq.edu.au
FULL PAPERS
Thirty minutes each. Twelve minutes presenting, eight for a named discussant who has read the paper closely, eight for the room.
IGNITE
Three minutes each, hard stop, three or four slides. One discussant responds across the whole session.
POSTERS
Up across both days beside the catering, so authors can be found at any break rather than in a single slot.
Monday 2 November
Teaching Suite 227, UQ Brisbane City, 308 Queen St, Brisbane City, Queensland
08:30 Registration, coffee and chat
08:45 Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country
09:00 The Nature of Theory, Twenty Years On
A dialogue with Professor Emerita Shirley Gregor, The Australian National University
A short reflection on ‘The Nature of Theory in Information Systems’ (MIS Quarterly, 2006) twenty years after it appeared, then conversation and questions from the room.
Moderated by Professor Sigi Goode, The Australian National University.
10:00 Theorising machines and organising
Full Paper Session 1
7 Beyond the Black Box: Toward an Interpretivism of Machine Behaviour in Organising – Julian Prester, The University of Sydney
4 When Algorithms Manage Humans: How Uber Customers Experience Agency — Sanduni Senaratne, Queensland University of
Technology
29 Resilience and Digital Transformation: A Tale of Applying Entity- and Flow-oriented Thinking – Ralf Plattfaut and Karlheinz Kautz, University of Duisburg-Essen and RMIT University
11:30 Judgement and AI in high-stakes work
Ignite Session 1
17 Understanding Evaluative Convergence and Divergence in Human–AI Creative Work – Yanpei Lin, Stockholm School of Economics
19 Arousing Cognitive Dissonance through Disclosing AI-Recommendation Motives – Jiesen Lin, The University of Sydney
24 A Theory-driven LLM Agentic Framework for Emergency Department Triage Decision Support – Iman Izzati, Mohamad Firdaus, The University of Queensland
36 Dynamic Data Capabilities for Emergency and Disaster Management – Olga Vasilyeva, The Australian National University
9 Maintaining Technological Frame Congruency Through Accommodations and Compromises – Claire Cunningham, The
University of Queensland
12:55 The Runtime Economy: Designing for Generative Capacity
Keynote · Professor Youngjin Yoo, London School of Economics
Generative AI changes how value is created at the moment of use, when models, data, tools and human knowledge come together in a particular situation. Endogenous utility, generative externalities and generative capabilities explain how successive interactions can expand what people and organisations can do. Architecture shapes who controls these resources and retains the learning they generate.
13:55 AI and the reshaping of work
Full Paper Session 2
23 Technology-Enabled Liminality: Generative AI and Occupational Transitions – Jorge Retamales Moreno, The University of
Queensland
27 Skill Erosion and Identity Shifts under AI Delegation in Imaging-based Medicine – Mint Tanprasert, , The University of
Queensland
18 A Capability-based Model of Relational Expertise Development in Human–AI Embedded Work — Leyla Yacine, Hanken School
of Economics
15:45 Provocation and debate
Is generative AI a foundational change for IS research? Moderated by Professor Dirk Hovorka, The University of Sydney
Martin Chesbrough demonstrates a generative AI research workflow covering literature search, knowledge synthesis and the coding of papers and interview transcripts. The panel then takes up three questions: in what way, if at all, this represents a change in the epistemic foundations of IS research; what evidence would be needed to sustain the claim that it does; and what the implications would be for IS phenomena and for IS scholars. The aim is not to settle whether such tools should be used, but to expose the commitments to knowledge that researchers assume when they do — and to do so as genuine disagreement rather than consensus.
Panel: Professor Kai Riemer, The University of Sydney; Professor Jörgen Sandberg, The University of Queensland; Professor Youngjin Yoo, London School of Economics; Professor Michael Davern, The University of Melbourne
18:00 Workshop dinner, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
Long Gallery (GOMA) Two course dinner and the IRIS games
The workshop dinner, in the Long Gallery at GOMA. Our Nordic colleagues bring the IRIS games, the Scandinavian tradition of the Information Systems Research Seminar, which run through the evening alongside dinner. Professor Shazia Sadiq speaks. The night closes with the scavenger hunt prize and the handover to next year’s game host.
How to travel to the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
Tuesday 3 November
Teaching Suite 227, UQ Brisbane City, 308 Queen St, Brisbane City, Queensland
09:00 Keynote
Keynote · Professor Dirk Hovorka, The University of Sydney
Title to be announced.
10:20 Governance, fairness and the sociotechnical frame
Full Paper Session 3
35 What Needs to Be Governed? IT Governance in the Age of Agentic AI – Navya Navya, The University of Queensland
14 A Lifecycle Framework of AI Fairness and Research Agenda in Information Systems – Jiajun Wang, UNSW Sydney
39 Sociotechnical Dualism Considered Harmful — Rodney Clarke, University of Wollongong
11:50 Governing data, infrastructure and digital development
Ignite Session 2
1 Governing Securitized Innovation Ecosystems with Dual-Use Logic – Satu Vasamo-Koskinen, Prime Minister’s Office, Finland
26 Metadata as Information Resilience Infrastructure – Hui Zhou, The University of Queensland
25 From Know-How to See-How: Cognitive Out-Dwelling in AI-Assisted Development – John Williams, The University of Queensland
37 Conceptual Convergence in Global Digital Governance – Theresa Blissing, Queensland University of Technology
31 Sensors, Sense and Social Logics: Digital Sustainability Deployment in Indonesian Aquaculture – Muhammad Izharuddin, The University of Queensland
13:30 Platforms, products and resilience
Full Paper Session 4
34 Platformization as Adaptive Cycles – Karolina Mikołajewska-Zając, Copenhagen Business School
16 How Modular Data Products Emerge: A Configurational Analysis of Analytics Projects – Martin Chesbrough, The University of
Melbourne
8 Building Digital Resilience Against Cyber Attacks on Software as a Service — Michael Lane, University of Southern Queensland
15:00 Afternoon tea · posters
15:20 Theory and practice
Does our theory help anyone? Moderated by Professor Stan Karanasios, The University of Queensland
A conversation with Ryan van Leent of SAP and Professor Christine Legner of the University of Lausanne on the relation between theory building and the more immediate insight practice asks for. It considers what makes an industry collaboration worth sustaining and what brings one to an end; whether an academic model has ever altered a decision or a system design inside a large vendor, or whether it must first be translated into operational language; how a research consortium persuades firms to fund knowledge creation rather than consultancy; and how much of a top-tier paper answers the question those firms actually cared about. The audience joins throughout, with doctoral and early career researchers invited in first, and roundtable discussion follows. Ryan closes with SAP’s agentic AI work as a practical problem against which to test what the field has built.
Posters
Up on Tuesday morning. The poster session is lunch on Tuesday, 12:15 to 13:30, with authors at their boards.
3 Why Do Digital Technology Waves Disrupt Some Business Models and Not Others? – Erwin Fielt, Queensland University of Technology
5 Beyond Fragmented Control: A Multilayered Conceptualisation of Control for Agentic AI – Surabhi Nigam, The University of Queensland
12 A Viable Systems Model Perspective on Organisations Surviving to Thrive in the Age of AI – Nova Sepadyati, The University of Queensland
21 Data Storytelling Capability for Collaborative Decision-Making in Cybersecurity Incident Response – Jia Xu and Hanh Nguyen, Deakin University
38 AI and the Nordic Way of Life – Olgerta Tona, University of Gothenburg
Breakout room 217, Heritage Creative Suite, is available across both days for individual meetings as required.
Programme as at 27 October 2026 and subject to change.
Programme Chairs: Ida Asadi Someh, Sigi Goode, Dirk Hovorka.
Organising Chairs: Avijit Sengupta, Maylis Saigot.
Enquiries: infsys-foundations@business.uq.edu.au
Professor Youngjin Yoo
London School of Economics and Political Science
Youngjin Yoo is Professor of Information Systems and Innovation in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Academic Director of LSE Lifelong Learning Digital.
As a leading voice on digital innovation, he has published over 170 peer-reviewed articles, cited more than 33,000 times, in MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, the Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Communications of the ACM. His 2010 paper on layered modular architecture is the most-cited work in the field of digital innovation.
A Fellow of the Association for Information Systems, Professor Yoo serves as Senior Editor at Information Systems Research and previously at MIS Quarterly, Journal of Information Technology, Journal of the AIS, and Journal of Strategic Information Systems. He was Program Co-Chair of ICIS 2017. His research has attracted over $10 million from the US National Science Foundation, NASA, the Knight Foundation, the Walmart Foundation, and Samsung Electronics.
Beyond academia, Professor Yoo served as Chief Innovation Architect at University Hospitals Cleveland and has collaborated with Samsung Electronics, LG, Goodyear, Penske, Progressive Insurance, Key Bank, Sotera Health, Sherwin-Williams, and American Greetings. He co-founded Halo Harbour, a privacy-preserving AI platform.
Professor Dirk S. Hovorka
The University of Sydney
Dirk S. Hovorka is a Professor in the Business Information Systems discipline at The University of Sydney. His current research addresses how scientific and societal practices bring forth ‘worlds’ through theory, design, and conceptualizations of ‘the future’. Recognizing that the future is implacably resistant to full prediction and control, and that increasing rates of societal change render our knowledge about the past less indicative of future states, his research focuses on speculative approaches to ‘knowing’ regarding technology, society, and biophysical environments.
Registration
Registration Rates
Category Amount (GST Incl)
Academic/Staff $450
Student $225
Authors
Every paper accepted requires at least one registration before October 10, 2026 to guarantee inclusion in the proceedings and presentation at the workshop.
Registration includes:
- Two Day Workshop Program
- Daily Catering
- Workshop Banquet (Monday 2 November)
Refunds:
- Full refund until 16 October 2026. No refund after that date.
- You may transfer your registration to a colleague at any time.
- Presenting authors are not eligible for refund. Authors not able to attend must transfer their registration to an alternative presenter. To do this contact the email below.
For registration queries, email: infsys-foundations@business.uq.edu.au
Please follow this link to register
Accommodation
We’re pleased to have The Manor Apartment Hotel as the preferred accommodation partner for ISF 2026. Ideally located near the venue at 289 Queen St, The Manor offers spacious apartment-style accommodation and has extended exclusive corporate rates to our delegates.
All rates inclusive of breakfast.
- Hotel Queen Room – $225/night
- 1 Bedroom Apartment – $265/night
- 2 Bedroom Apartment – $355/night
To take advantage of these special rates, contact the hotel directly and quote the booking code below:
Booking code: ISF2026
Email: info@manorapartments.com.au
Phone: +61 7 3319 4700
Rates are subject to availability, so we encourage delegates to book early.
Program Chairs
Ida Asadi Someh, The University of Queensland
Sigi Goode, Australian National University (Australia)
Dirk Hovorka, The University of Sydney
Organising Chairs
Avijit Sengupta, The University of Queensland
Maylis Saigot, The University of Queensland
Program Committee
Joao Baptista (Lancaster University)
Hind Benbya (Western Sydney University)
Andrea Carugati (Copenhagen Business School)
Kevin Desouza (Queensland University of Technology)
Erwin Fielt (Queensland University of Technology)
Boh Wai Fong (Nanyang Technological University)
Ahmed Imran (University of Canberra)
Marta Indulska (The University of Queensland)
Atreyi Kankanhalli (National University of Singapore)
Stan Karanasios (The University of Queensland)
Julia Kotlarsky (The University of Auckland Business School)
Yangting Li (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Patrick Mikalef (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Humza Naseer (Deakin University)
Ilan Oshri (The University of Auckland Business School)
Jan Recker (University of Hamburg)
Kai Reimer (The University of Sydney)
Alex Richardson (Australian National University)
Tapani Rinta-Kahila (Hanken School of Economics and The University of Queensland)
Michael Rosemann (Queensland University of Technology)
Ruonan Sun (Monash University)
Mary Tate (Victoria University of Wellington)
Olgerta Tona (University of Gothenburg)
Ofir Turel (The University of Melbourne)
Lauren Waardenburg (ESSEC Business School)
Shaoxin (Alina) Wang (The University of Sydney)
For further queries, email: infsys-foundations@business.uq.edu.au