Track description
n°25

Data is the key resource of our time, increasingly taking a central position in business and society. By way of their unique and diverse characteristics (e.g., non-fungibility, non-rivalry, rapid deprecation, context-specificity), data have become highly valuable not only for fuelling modern AI applications, but also for innovative business solutions, daily operations and interorganizational value creation. Yet, the prevalence of data also raises questions concerning governance, quality, security, and value, especially when shared across complex data ecosystems between within and beyond organizational boundaries. 

Data is at the core of information systems. At the same time, studies on data as the central research phenomenon have historically been fragmented across various disciplines in AI, data science, management, or law. Over the past decade, the European Union and its member states have recognized the potential of the data economy, urging initiatives around data sharing with the creation of ambitious data spaces and platforms. While studies taking interorganizational and ecosystem perspectives on data are emerging, our intellectual foundations for explaining and examining how data can be effectively and appropriately governed in these scenarios remains under development.

To establish a common ground and further advance this important field of research, this track aims to attract academics and practitioners working with data as the focal phenomenon of their research. The track is part of the international movement towards developing data studies into a distinct area of concern, to question its impact on socioeconomic life. Data studies in IS research adopts a broad view of data’s lifecycle and welcomes studies that examine a range of issues, from its sourcing and application in complex business and societal problems to the ethical, legal and philosophical questions about what counts as data and how it should be governed across ecosystems, infrastructures and value chains.

• Data economics and data accounting
• Data quality definition, assessment, and improvement
• Data for AI and the interplay with AI algorithms
• Data governance and management
• Impact of regulation on data use and data sharing practices
• Data management and data sharing in organizations and ecosystems
• Data collaboratives, data cooperatives and other forms of data intermediaries
• Data privacy, security, and sovereignty
• Data value chains within and across organizations
• Data spaces, data platforms and other data sharing infrastructures
• Distributed data architectures in organizations and ecosystems
• (Case) Studies on data value and data quality in organizations

The track is open to any research paradigm from design science and qualitative/interpretative research to quantitative and behavioural studies.

Data is a pivotal component of digital technologies and how they can be used in business. It connects very well to the ECIS 2026 conference theme “Re-imaging Digital Technology for Business, Management, and Society”:  We observe that more and more digital infrastructures emerge, which, predominantly, enable the (re-)use of data in and beyond organizations (e.g., in data meshes or data marketplaces). Given this, (re-)imagining digital technologies in business, management, and society is impossible without a deep consideration of digital data. As the research community on data-related topics (beyond artificial intelligence) is growing, the track has big potential to attract many submissions and to make a contribution to the success of ECIS 2026. 

Despite the growing attention, data-related research is still very fragmented and is typically carried out by scholars with different disciplinary perspectives, such as AI and data science, management, law or database systems. Our track thereby plays an important role in providing a common ground and further developing data-related research in the IS community, by bringing together researchers working on the different aspects related to data management and sharing in organizations and ecosystems. It also aligns with international movement towards data studies (see  https://www.datastudiesbibliography.org/)  and the initiative to create a SIG DATA. 

This track continues and expands previous tracks at the European Conference of Information Systems that focussed on data-related research, specifically the Track “Data Governance and Data Quality in Ecosystems” at ECIS 2021 and the Tracks “Data Management and Sharing in Ecosystems” at ECIS 2023, ECIS 2024 and ECIS 2025.

We aim to organize a special issue in a journal in the field of data management and information systems. The authors of the best papers of the track will be invited to submit an extended version of their work.