Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: Transforming education, work and life

Highlights

• This paper presents an assessment of the key challenges of COVID-19 through an IS and IM lens.

• The pandemic has forced governments and decision makers to reassess the use of IS and technology.

• AI could engender better, more informed decision making during crisis management scenarios.

• Privacy and security are key underlying concerns for many citizens during the pandemic.

• In developing countries, the digital divide is most apparent due to social and cultural barriers.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organisations to undergo significant transformation, rethinking key elements of their business processes and use of technology to maintain operations whilst adhering to a changing landscape of guidelines and new procedures. This study offers a collective insight to many of the key issues and underlying complexities affecting organisations and society from COVID-19, through an information systems and technological perspective. The views of 12 invited subject experts are collated and analysed where each articulate their individual perspectives relating to: online learning, digital strategy, artificial intelligence, information management, social interaction, cyber security, big data, blockchain, privacy, mobile technology and strategy through the lens of the current crisis and impact on these specific areas. The expert perspectives offer timely insight to the range of topics, identifying key issues and recommendations for theory and practice.

Introduction

The July 2020 World Health Organisation (WHO) situational report - 175, highlights the stark reality of a new total of 12.7 million cases and 566,654 deaths globally from COVID-19 (WHO, 2020a). Currently the USA, Brazil and India are experiencing the highest number of reported daily cases, whilst the rest of the world emerges from lockdown and attempts to slowly transition society to what can be described as - close to normal daily life. The grim reality of the virus trajectory and speed of transmission is that many tens of thousands of people may still be infected, and a significant number of people may still die from the virus.

The pandemic has devastated many aspects of daily life where governments across the world have needed to subject their citizens to prolonged periods of lockdown, necessitating the cessation of almost all forms of human in person contact outside the immediate family. This has had an unprecedented impact on people’s personal lives within a mental health context (Singh et al., 2020; Tubadji, Boy, & Webber, 2020), but also within organisations as they attempt to maintain operations during the pandemic. The cultural and economic impact of the virus has created the reality of the new normal within the COVID era, has necessitated a radical transformation to the way that people interact and operate within the workplace that could potentially influence many facets of our daily life for the foreseeable future (Griffin & Denholm, 2020). Whilst many companies have been forced to close down or severely reduce operations, those organisations that have continued to operate have needed to work within a changing landscape of new processes and practices influenced by social distancing requirements and altered work patterns (Leidner, 2020; Richter, 2020). Many organisations have been forced to adopt new ways of remote working using new digital systems for communication and to completely rethink their business models to adapt to the realities of the COVID-19 environment (Carroll & Conboy, 2020).

The increased availability and use of technology during the pandemic has also enabled authorities to develop critical COVID tracking infrastructure, where smartphone apps and IS technologies have been developed to control the spread of the virus. Studies have highlighted that managed and effective contact tracing and case isolation can control new outbreaks of COVID-19 within a period of three months (Hellewell et al., 2020). Authorities within the UK, Australia, France, China, and India have launched their own versions of contract track and tracing applications each reliant on smartphone apps and associated infection containment processes. The use of smart tracing apps within South Korea has frequently been cited as a test case for extensive use of technology and mass testing for controlling the number of cases nationwide (Deutsche Welle, 2020). However, the widespread use of these technologies throughout the population presents several security and privacy implications that are as yet unresolved, constraining wider diffusion in some countries and effectively limiting infection tracing effectiveness (Fahey & Hino, 2020; Rowe, 2020).

The widespread adoption of digital technologies not just in the workplace, but also within society in general, has enabled people to maintain communications as the infection rate has continued to spread across around the world. The terms: “Zoom” and “Teams” have been incorporated into everyday lexicon as these platforms have seen widespread personal and organisational use to effect meetings, education, and training, as well as maintaining links with family and friends. This transformation has been enabled by the rapid diffusion of Information Systems (IS) technology and cloud-based infrastructure that has allowed people to maintain interaction, whilst adhering to the new norms of social distance and self-isolation (Kodama, 2020).

The long term economic and cultural impact of the rapid migration to digital stemming from the pandemic is unknown. Researchers have offered extensive analysis on many aspects of the transformation implications on COVID-19 from a cultural and societal viewpoint, as well as a technological perspective. Many IS-related themes have emerged within the COVID-19 literature where studies have analysed the implications from perspectives relating to: privacy, digital inequalities, communication, automation, societal disruption, use of social media and digital education implications (Carroll & Conboy, 2020; Chen et al., 2020; Venkatesh, 2020). Studies are already assessing the potential of COVID-19 to permanently normalise the use of digital technologies for education, maintaining friendships, healthcare diagnosis, business operations, religion and interaction with government, effectively shaping human endeavour for the foreseeable future (Barnes, 2020; Fernandes, 2020; Griffin & Denholm, 2020). This potential change in the IS landscape has attracted widespread comment and perspectives amongst academics where studies have posited the effects of the pandemic from specific viewpoints, highlighting the many and varied transformational implications. However, the literature has yet to offer a consolidated view on the IS-related factors surrounding COVID-19 where the diverse range of perspectives and impacts can be assessed and analysed.

This study brings together the collective insights from several leading experts to discuss the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on IS-related research and practice. The range of insights offered within this study cover a range of pertinent issues, reflecting the diverse perspectives from each of the invited experts. The research offers a timely and relevant contribution to the extant literature presenting key insight and analysis to this key topic for researchers and practitioners alike.

The remaining sections of this article are organised as follows. Section 2 presents the experts’ perspectives related to core themes surrounding IS and COVID-19. Section 3 presents an analysis of the key aspects from the perspectives and overview of the expert contributions in the context of the wider literature. Section 4 concludes the paper discussing implications for both research and practice.