Corresponding Manager: Francesco Appio (f.appio@psbedu.paris)
Track Manager(s): Francesco Appio, Nessrine Omrani, Santiago Ruiz Navas, Luca Gastaldi
Description
Much of today’s scholarship assumes more digital is better. This track invites work that takes a different view: treating slowing down, opting out, or simplifying as strategic choices. We ask when doing less—or doing it differently—can outperform large-scale digitization in terms of resilience, safety, cost, ethics, the environment, employee well-being, and customer trust. We welcome studies on when organizations should pause, reverse, or redesign initiatives; how they decide; and what capabilities make those decisions credible. We expect scholars to bring theory, evidence, and practical tools that show how restraint, rollback, or analog complements can create value—and where digitization has produced unintended harm.
Some suggested sub-themes:
Non-adoption and constructive under-digitalization
De-automation and rollback of algorithmic management
De-implementation as innovation
Digital self-exclusion
Low-tech/analogue complements as competitive moats
Eco-sufficiency and “small AI” strategies
Legal/ethical limits: right to refusal, data minimization, duty of care
Negative results and autopsies of harmful digitization
“Enough” KPIs (value, risk, carbon, morale)
Human-in-the-loop org design: roles, training, escalation
Technostress controls (quiet hours, focus blocks)
Reskilling for de-automation and craft retention
Innovation accounting for anti-transformation projects
Science fiction prototyping that yields non-digital design patterns
Keywords
non-adoption; de-automation; re-analogization; digital sobriety; refusing to digitize
Key References
Kellogg KC, Valentine M, Christin A (2020). Algorithms at work: The new contested terrain of control. Academy of Management Annals 14(1), 366–410.
Baumer EPS, Burrell J, Ames MG, Brubaker JR, Dourish P (2015). On the importance and implications of studying technology non-use. Interactions 22(2), 52–56.
Niven DJ, Mrklas KJ, Holodinsky JK et al. (2015). Towards understanding the de-adoption of low-value clinical practices: a scoping review. BMC Medicine 13(255), 1-21.
Selwyn N (2003). Apart from technology: understanding people’s non-use of information and communication technologies in everyday life. Technology in Society 25(1), 99-116.
Lapointe L, Rivard S (2005). A Multilevel Model of Resistance to Information Technology Implementation. MIS Quarterly 29 (3).