Call for Papers

The 31st Bled eConference Theme: Digital Transformation – Meeting the Challenges

The Bled eConference invites you to submit a research paper to the 31st annual international conference. This year’s theme is Digital Transformation: Meeting the Challenges

The Bled eConference has been shaping electronic interactions since 1988. It attracts speakers and delegates from business, government, information technology providers and universities. It is the major venue for researchers working in all aspects of the digital transformation. With fresh ideas and complementary themes, we establish a creative environment for participants and an attractive meeting point for discussing new R&D and project ideas, for example in the spirit of Horizon 2020. The conference has a wide appeal, offering:

  • a fully-refereed Research Track and research in progress track, devoted to researchers in all aspects of digital transformation;
  • Graduate Students Research Consortium, offering students to present their ongoing master’s and PhD study results;
  • ePrototype Students Bazaar, offering students opportunities to present innovative e- or m-Business or Internet of Things ideas, models, prototypes and apps;
  • a Business and Government Panel Track which attracts eminent business and government leaders from Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific;
  • Business, Government and Academic Workshops and Meetings offering unparalleled opportunities to discuss, share and learn with colleagues from around the world;
  • EU projects dissemination meetings; enabling project partners to connect with other similar projects and to disseminate results to a wider community.

The Bled’s highlights:

We invite submissions in all areas of research, teaching, and business related to the Digitial Economy and Society with special emphasises on digital transformation.

Submitted papers should make a significant contribution to theory, knowledge, and practice in the areas of information management, information systems, information technology and information resources management. Papers based on both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, in all traditional as well as new areas of Management Information Systems, Business Informatics, Computer Science, or Technology Management are accepted.

We encourage submissions related to the conference theme, and also from the parts that build the Digital Economy and Society, including:

Digital transformation I eInnnovations I Future of work I Internet of Things I Big data I eAnalytics I Open data I Digital Services I Blockchain I Business and organizational models I eCollaboration I Social Media I eCommerce I eBusiness I Interorganizational Systems I eMarketplaces & Communities I Mobile Value Services I Cloud Computing I eHealth I Digital wellness and wellbeing I eSociety I eParticipation I eLearning 2.0 & eEducation I eSMEs I eLiving Labs I eCollaboration I eRegions I eDependency I eTrust I ePrivacy I any other aspect of “e”.

Next to a generic track on the Digital transformation, we offer the following special interest tracks for Bled 2018:

Social media (Hans-Dieter Zimmermann, FHS St. Gallen, Switzerland and Helen Cripps, Edith Cowan University, Australia ):

The proliferation of digital media and connected devices means the Social Media special interest track continues to be relevant for the upcoming edition of the Bled eConference.  Therefore, we look forward to receiving papers that examine how online activities in the realm of Social Media impacts the lives of individuals, businesses and government, how Social Media create new opportunities as well as new challenges. Also, topics around apps, gamification, AR and VR in relation to digital media would be considered.

In addition, with the enactment of new legislation such as the GDPR in the EU creates a focus around the issues of information privacy, eBullying, reputation attacks and fraudulent customer reviews.

eHealth (Track Co-Chairs: Nilmini Wickramasinghe, Epworth HealthCare and Deakin University, Australia and Juergen Seitz, Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University, Germany):

In 2018 we want to emphasize the role that e- and m- technologies can play in finding the balance between societal costs on the one hand and the empowerment and wellbeing of citizens/patients on the other. Can we find ways to organize healthcare closer to patients’ need which is also of a high quality, less intrusive and at lower costs? How is digitization changing healthcare processes? Can Domotics, the Internet of Things, and the quantified self-help in this effort? And how do we safeguard that the data are not abused?

Digital Wellness (Track Chair: Christer Carlsson, Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research, Finland):

Digital Wellness is focused on the design and use of digital services to build and sustain wellness routines for large groups of users. By “wellness” is understood – to be in sufficiently good shape of mind and body to be successful with all everyday requirements – which will be achieved through systematic changes of daily routines if the changes are sustained for longer periods (many years). Digital wellness services are built to be effective interventions in daily routines; they collect data from the users’ everyday activities through smartphones and wearables; the data is refined to information and knowledge with analytics and computational intelligence; health data is not needed and will not be used. The EU emphasizes the needs, challenges and opportunities brought by the ageing society. In the Digital Wellness Track we pay special attention to the “young elderly”, the age group 60-75, as interventions with digital wellness services will have significant long-term possibilities to get healthy “seniors” (the age group 75+). We welcome papers on digital services for wellness, independent living, Internet of Things as part of wellness routines, new business models to reach “young elderly” and the design of supporting ecosystems.

Blockchain (Track Co-Chair:  Roger Bons, Professor, FOM Hochschule, Germany and Johan Versendaal, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and Open University of the Netherlands, Netherlands):

New ways to organize economic activities are emerging, facilitated by Blockchain as an enabling technology. The attention for the Blockchain (or sometimes “distributed ledger”) technology has been rising steadily. Emerging from the Cypherpunk movement and the Bitcoin technology, it is taking businesses and industries time to recognize that the underlying technology might be the next big thing to disrupt their current business model. The disruptive potential is created by the positioning of the technology as something that lives between organisations and not within them, promising a boost in efficiency and effectiveness in inter-organizational coordination and rising questions about who is in control, if anyone, for networked businesses coordinated through a Blockchain.

In this Call for Paper, we are looking to further qualify this potential and to move beyond the current  claims that the Blockchain should eliminate traditional intermediaries, such as (electronic) markets, banks or even governments, and that disruption is its primary purpose. However, the technology can also play a more evolutionary role in the development of new coordination mechanisms. For instance, the distributed and autonomous execution model enables the emergence of “Distributed Autonomous Organisations or DAOs” (Diedrich, 2016), which is “more than using the Blockchain to manage a company: the code is the entire company”. The transparency of the system and the assurance that all participants will play by the rules since that is the only way the DAO operates makes this an interesting candidate for a new generation of electronic markets. Under what conditions such a DAO will be initiated by a completely new disruptive entity, or whether it is a new role for an existing player, is one of the topics for this Call for Papers.

Blockchain might also facilitate and contribute to other new coordination mechanisms, such as the sharing economy, the circular economy as well as smart grids that help businesses and private households to become independent in their energy provisioning. Several Blockchain initiatives are indeed on their way, most notably Ethereum, Hyperledger, the R3 Project, Aeternity to name just a few, in various stages of maturity.

The challenge for scientists now is to distinguish between the hype and the core value of this phenomenon, to reason about the business potential including the potential to disrupt trusted business models, but also to address some of the deeper technical foundations such as scalability, accountability and security. We are looking to broaden the understanding in order to help organisations and societies in reaping the benefits.

Possible topics of submissions include, but are not limited to:

  • The effect of Blockchain on networked business models
  • Characteristics of business models that will be most disrupted by Blockchain
  • The evolution of “trust” and “trusted third parties” in a Blockchain enabled world
  • Assets and capabilities Blockchain enabled organizations should have
  • The integration of Blockchain technology in existing inter- and intra-organizational IT architectures
  • The resolution of governance conflicts that arise when the technology is utilized in highly regulated environments such as banking or healthcare, especially in case of DAOs
  • Solutions for technical issues, such as scalability and security
  • The ramifications of having anonymous or pseudonymous actors in transactions, especially in a cross-jurisdiction setting
  • The design of trustworthy smart contracts

We encourage contributions with a broad range of methodological approaches, including conceptual, qualitative and quantitative research.

Big Data/Data Science (Track Co-Chair: Guido Ongena, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Netherlands and Sanda Martinčić Ipšić, University of Rijeka, Croatia):

Propelled by computational power, the availability of (big and unstructured) data, major advancements in machine intelligence and unprecedented speeds at which analytics need to be generated and delivered, a wealth of new questions and opportunities arises in creating value to governmental bodies and businesses. As organizations transform into data and analytics centric enterprises, more research is needed not only on the technical aspects of analytics such as data science algorithms, computing infrastructure, but also on various other organizational issues in the business analytics context (e.g. managerial, strategic, leadership, data governance and inter-organizational issues). For this track, we invite technical, theoretical, design science, pedagogical and behavioural research as well as novel implementations of data analytics & visualization for varied data (or sources) such as sensors or Internet of Things (IoT) data, text, multimedia, business operations, clickstreams and user-generated content. We welcome papers examining a wide-range of contexts including healthcare, security, energy, marketing, supply-chain, technology, service, hospitality, education, transportation, fraud prevention and the environment.

Possible topics of submissions include, but are not limited to:

  • Big Data and Business Transformation
  • Data Driven Business Modelling
  • Data Driven Process Mining and Innovation
  • Data Strategy and Data Privacy
  • Social and Ethical Issues in Big Data
  • Innovative Artefacts for Business Analytics
  • Competences in the Era of Big Data

Education in the Digital Economy (Track Co-Chair: Mirjana Kljajić Borštnar, University of Maribor, Slovenia and Matt Glowatz, University College Dublin, Ireland):

Education is changing as IT allows for many new possibilities. New students enter educational institutions with highly developed digital skills. Part-time learning, continuous learning, and immediate-on-the-spot knowledge acquisition change the educational playing field. Electronic learning platforms bring together practice, teachers, scholars and students in one environment. How does this change education, what are good practices, how can research and education come together in leveraging e- and mLearning? We encourage research contributions on this particular domain.

Decision Support Systems and Business Intelligence (Track Chair: Davorin Kofjač, University of Maribor, Slovenia):

The growing amount of data and continuously developing computational capabilities enable the development of complex models, simulation, optimization and data driven decision support. All these factors can significantly contribute to learning how to manage initiatives, identify opportunities, devise strategy to respond to changes in markets and competition in the digital economy. Hence, this special session focuses especially on simulation based decision support, which aims at supporting the decision-maker in understanding the causal-relationships in complex organizational and social systems. We welcome papers on theory and applications in supporting operations decisions, including advanced research on decision models, supported by machine learning, modeling, simulation and optimization, and tools for the digital economy.

Business Models (Track Co-Chair: Mirjana Kljajić Borštnar, University of Maribor, Slovenia, Christian Kittl, evolaris next level Research Centre, Austria and Andreja Pucihar, University of Maribor, Slovenia)

CALL FOR RESEARCH IN PROGRESS

A part of the conference program  will be dedicated to interactive presentations on visionary ideas, showcases and research-in-progress. Through short presentations (possibly enhanced with posters) delegates will be able to show their (preliminary) research and receive feedback in an interactive way. Authors will present their contributions as a part of the conference program. We invite submissions as short papers with possibly associated posters on topics related to the conference’s main theme and special interest themes. Accepted submissions will be enclosed in the proceedings as short papers.

Please see also other options for participation at the conference:

Publications

All accepted papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings (CD with ISBN and CIP number and online).

In 2018 we have secured the partnership of the following journals:

that may facilitate the publication of enhanced versions of further selected papers. Several “Special Issues” have resulted from Bled eConferences, giving the authors of selected papers ample opportunity to get rated publications as a direct and immediate result from being at Bled.

Instructions for Authors for Full Research Papers and Research-in-Progress Papers are available under the Submission section.

Due to many requests we have extended the deadline for paper submissions. The new, final date for paper submissions is March 16, 2018.

Please follow the link for submission: http://arhiv.fov.um.si/ebled2018/submission/

More information: bledconference@fov.uni-mb.si

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THE BLED eCONFERENCE: A LONG TRADITION

Since its very beginning it has been a conference that focuses on relevance with rigor as the underpinning foundation for contributions. This has always made the conference an excellent podium for testing out new ideas and research in progress, for senior and junior researchers alike. Not mentioning the number of partnerships between researchers that have originated at Bled and leading to fruitful cooperation.

Bled also has a long tradition of coaching young researchers and students. The Graduate Symposium has been on the program since the early 1990s with the ambition to help young PhD candidates to sharpen their research proposals and to help them find international colleagues working on similar themes.

Finally, another important reason for coming to Bled is the excellent location and facilities at and near the venue. Many professional and personal friendships originate from Bled, during one of the many social events or the morning run around the lake. We are eager to meet you in 2018 to participate in the truly unique experience that makes the Bled eConference.