Social Implications of Information Systems: No poverty, Decent work and economic growth

Purpose of research project *

“It is time to develop better theories about the precise nature of the role of ICT in complex social problems and the ecosystems that perpetuate the problems” (Majchrzak et al. 2012, p. 333). The goal of studying social implications of information systems is to address a series of social problems and generate important social benefits for communities across the globe (Peterson and Reid 2003). In addition, conducting studies on social innovation focuses the attention on how community members interact with each other and how they establish relationships with society (Giboney et al. 2017). Therefore, exploring the essence of ICTs is the key to provide a comprehensive understanding for achieving challenging social implications. To illustrate, studies that provide the social value of ICT through conceptualizing the process models of digitally enabled social innovation would present the potential of contributing to the theoretical understanding of emerging phenomena at the community level.

Who has, is or will benefit *

The Shandong and Jiangsu provincial governments of China have successfully adopted our process models of digitally enabled social innovations to enhance rural area digitalization. We aim to extend our study to a broader scope, including regional areas in Australia and Europe.

Description of impact *

This project makes a number of contributions to socitey. For the disadvantaged communities who are still struggling with the lack of resources and lack of ability to embrace the development of ICTs, can use our findings as a step-by-step guide towards the attainment of social innovations as well as social implications. Their social identities will be changed, the power will be shifted to the disadvantaged group and eventually more and more useful resources will become accessible and helpful to the entire society. The success that social innovations could bring to society are unlimited.
The research on community-driven development of social innovation worth the attention from both academics and practitioners, as the social impacts that digital social innovation brings to the entire society are tremendous and tangible. The living standards of the disadvantaged groups are significantly improved, the talent drain of the rural/ less developed areas have been stemmed, the sustainable development plans are formed through the endeavors from the local farmers, the drivers of digital social innovation encourage the disadvantaged group to break through the bottleneck and embrace the challenge in the digital era.
The tangible results have helped to achieve the UN-SDG goal 1) No poverty and 8) Decent work and economic growth

Category of impact	Society impacts
Impact level	Benefit (mid)