Artificial Intelligence in Information Systems Research: A Socio-technical Perspective

While finding its roots in technical disciplines, research on artificial intelligence (AI) has drawn a considerable attention in various disciplines due to AI’s broad areas of application. Similarly, information systems (IS) scholars have begun to examine AI-related phenomena given the enormous number of studies published in the last couple of years. Generally, the intellectual core of the IS discipline is to scrutinize novel technologies in their organizational and social contexts from a socio-technical standpoint. Therefore, in this study, we seek to analyze whether and to which extent current AI studies in the IS literature contribute to advancing our socio-technical understanding of AI-related phenomena. To this, we developed a comprehensive analysis framework employing a socio-technical lens and conducted a systematic literature review to analyze AI-related articles in the IS discipline’s flagship journals. Demonstrating existing studies’ lack of attention to some of the socio-technical components and their interplay, we outline directions for future research.