JCV 2018 - Journal of Creating Value

Special Issue on Role of Technology and AI on Value Creation/Destruction
Editor: Gautam Mahajan
The spread of smartphones, tablets, and smart objects recently led to a huge increase in the number of connectable devices; reaching 17.6 billion in 2016 with a forecast of 20 billion in 2020 (Statista, 2017). The growing connected smart appliances are framed in the phenomenon of the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) (Ashton, 2009; Atzori et al., 2010; Schweer and Sahl, 2017) enabling things to be connected anytime, anyplace, with anything ideally using any path/network and any service (Vermesan and Friess, 2013). Machine-to-machine interactions (M2M) represents only one of the examples providing new applications and services. The Internet of Everything (IoE) has been recently emerging as a new approach focusing off the pure technology and devices while emphasising the users and their technology-enabled connections: connecting the unconnected through bringing together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable (Cisco, 2014). In addition, artificial intelligence, machine learning and cognitive computing promise to revolutionise actors’ practice by overcoming time/space and knowledge constraints.
The digital technologies promise to create unprecedented opportunities for business and society due to the value the higher connectedness creates as ‘everything’ comes online (i.e. people-machine interactions – P2M) (Cisco, 2014; Spohrer, 2016). They are a strong enabler of changing value creation practices that emerge through the connections of knowledgeable actors. They impact on value co-creation processes, also allowing the evolution of social arrangements and institutional structures.
Although growing literature on digital technologies addresses many technical issues (Vermesan and Fries, 2014), business scholars have only just begun to participate in the analyses (Ng and Wakenshaw, 2017). New service provision, enabled by the confluence of big data, mobile solutions, cloud computing, cognitive computing, and the IoT/IoE, attracts significant attention because they offer promising ways for actors to innovate (Demirkan et al., 2015; Ng and Wakenshaw, 2017; Spohrer, 2017). However, no studies have considered the impact of new digital and cognitive technologies on value co-creation processes. Service scholars thus must find ways to explicate how digitisation functions as a new layer of connected intelligence that augments the actions of individuals and organizations, transforms data, and incorporates digitally empowered systems into our lives (Demirkan et al., 2015). Some authors suggest that new devices do not impose themselves on the new adopter thanks to their inherent innovativeness (Nicolini, 2010). In this context, new service provision is more than the development of new outcomes (Maglio and Spohrer, 2013; Maglio et al., 2015; Mele et al., 2017); there is the need to recognise the social waves of new technologies in terms of the new social practices and new value opportunities that they enable (Greengard, 2015; Nicolini, 2010; Vermesan and Fries, 2014).
New technologies are revealing new value opportunities for practitioners, unleashed by the likes of eBay, AirBnb and long tail markets of all sorts. Practitioners tend to focus on the monetary representation of value, while fundamental types of value include power to perform, ethics, aesthetics, and encompass all human desires, In addition, technology even impacts money itself, via cryptocurrencies, blockchain ledgers, and electronic exchanges.
Further research should investigate actors’ practices which are sustained by an ongoing series of relationships in actions– that is, connections in actions involving both human and non-human elements, which are interwoven in a texture of interconnected practices (Mele and Russo Spena, 2017). Studies should understand the social and technological connections that occur among a group of actors – individuals, collectives, and organisations – that integrate several resources (e.g., tools, knowledge, images, material objects) to co-create mutual benefits, as well as the contexts in which value co-creation occurs (Lusch and Vargo, 2011; Akaka et al., 2013). On the other side also the dark side of technology should be investigated and how value co-destructions can occur (Plé & Chumpitaz Cáceres, 2010; Vafeas et al., 2016).
The Journal of Creating Value will run a special issue for November 2018, based on articles by technology professionals and academics on the Role of Technology and AI on Value Creation/Destruction. Practioner and academic articles are invited.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Technology and value creation in health care services
- Technology and value creation in education
- The dark side of technology for value creation
- Technological disruption and value destruction
- The role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for value creation
- The role of social media in creating/destroying value
- Value Creation/destruction in Society through technology
Deadline: 30 June 2018
Submission details
Prior to submission, the contributors are strongly recommended to go through the Manuscript Submission guidelines and then log in to the following link: https://peer-review.sagepub.com/jcv and submit their articles online by 30 June 2018