Computing and Social Welfare

Abstract

Social Welfare Computing is an emerging discipline that seeks to direct technology to cause minimum societal disruption, and in particular seeks to minimize the harm caused directly by technology itself. This is markedly different from the better-understood uses of technology to create value or to address existing social needs. Innovative technologies that are widely adopted created significant value for their users; otherwise, they would not be widely adopted. Often the companies that create them obtain new sources of wealth and power, which inevitably lead to new forms of abuse of power and new forms of societal disruption. Societal disruption in turn requires social adaptation, including new regulations to influence the behavior of firms and to define and to protect the rights of individuals in the changed society. The governance of online business models is complex because regulators must meet the conflicting objectives of different segments of society, and because regulators must avoid imposing restrictions that stifle innovation. Social Welfare Computing seeks to guide social adaptation, combining insights from disciplines as varied as anthropology, business strategy, economics, strategic planning, and law.

Cybersecurity challenges across sustainable development goals: A comprehensive review

“…Digital Platform -Governments use digital platforms to distribute social assistance and safety net benefits [10]. Aid agencies, governments, and donors are investing in the digitization of beneficiary identification and registration systems to facilitate the delivery of shock-responsive social protection and move towards government provision of assistance as discussed in [11].…”

Introduction to the Minitrack on IS for Social Good and Ills: Implications for Research, Practice, and Policy

“…We will briefly address a problem that has previously been studied, that of IP rights protection in the presence of easy copying with significant Creative Merit (Clemons et al, 2022d). Much has been written about the need to increase protections in the presence of new technology-enabled capabilities; see, for example, prior work on the need for tighter regulatory restrictions to protect consumers from online political manipulation from new media and new forms of fake news distribution (Clemons et al, 2019), from new forms of monopoly power enabled by new online business models (Clemons et al, 2022e;Rowe et al, 2022), and new forms of marketing manipulation enabled by the increased information endowment of online platforms and online sellers (Clemons et al, 2022c;Trzaskowski, 2021). This is not the first time that technological progress has enabled regulatory relaxation.…”

“…New business models often create new sources of power, which in turn lead to new abuses of power. When those business models are sufficiently novel these abuses are not limited by existing regulations, and additional restrictions are essential to protect consumers from abuse of monopoly power (Clemons et al, 2022e), manipulation of public opinion (Clemons et al, 2019), or unfair marketing practices (Clemons et al, 2022c). For example, the earliest work in the information systems community on platform envelopment is due to Eisenmann, Parker, and Van Alstyne (Eisenmann et al, 2011;Parker et al, 2016).…”

“…Their work focused on new business models and new business opportunities. In contrast, the Wharton group focused on the potential abuses of power associated with these new business models and the regulatory problems this would create (Clemons, 2018;Clemons et al, 2022a;Clemons et al, 2022e). The group has argued consistently that changes in technological capability have produced such dramatic changes in business models and in power that regulatory policy needs more than gradual evolutionary change; this requires discontinuous change.…”

Digital sustainable business models: Using digital technology to integrate ecological sustainability into the core of business models

“…An analysis of related BM characteristics warrants an ethical, regulatory, and global perspective on what is fair that exceeds the scope of this research. We recognise an emerging interest in this perspective in the IS literature (e.g., Clemons et al, 2022), but a more sophisticated discussion about social sustainability to achieve eco-equity across time and space is needed.…”