Track: Organizational Systems and Technology
Minitrack: Personal and Organizational Relationships in a Global ----------------Networked World: Emergent Ethical Challenges

Papers in this mini-track examine ethical issues emerging from the design and adoption of information systems in a globally networked world. These issues include the challenges of work-life balance, virtual world behavior, privacy, intellectual property, accuracy, accountability, and the cultural dimension of each of these issues. Papers present both conceptual and empirical research on the challenges embedded in our work as professionals and academics in the system sciences. As we make personal and professional decisions for the design and adoption of information technologies, we make implicit (and sometimes explicit) choices to enable or inhibit particular behaviors. Such decisions can have ethical dimensions and consequences that may not always be evident, and this mini-track is intended to stimulate a thoughtful discourse on these ethical challenges.

Topics and research areas include, but are not limited to:
* How do the new capabilities of web 2.0 change the approaches to ethical discourse?
* Norms of behavior in virtual worlds: how does a diversity of norms affect individual identity and behavior in non-virtual worlds (is there a difference?)
* How does a sense of personal identity change as the distinction between "public" and "private" becomes blurred (or porous) with technology-enabled social networking?
* How do the ethical norms of "digital natives" differ from prior generations?
* Organizational policy and knowledge management: should organizations adapt or embrace the behavioral norms of digital natives as they enter the knowledge work force? (If so, how?)
* If the need exists to increase the awareness of ethical issues for students in management and information studies, as some studies would suggest, how can we do this?
* Wellness and human flourishing: how can we balance work and personal life in a hyper-connected world?
* In health care, how can we manage the conflicting needs for public information with the personal expectations of privacy
* Can/should government policy on intellectual property be responsive to the public values as expressed through emerging capabilities of e-government feedback mechanisms?
* How we can assess the effectiveness of public policy intended to assure social justice and equity of information access?
* What are the implications of current laws-both U.S. and non-U.S.-on property and privacy?
* How can we make visible the ethical dimensions of decision making in design, implementation, and use of information technology, and how can we make transparent the decision-making in these processes?

Co-chairs:
Robert M. Mason (Primary Contact)
The Information School
University of Washington
MGH 370M, Seattle, WA 98195-2840, USA
Phone: +1-206-221-5623
Fax: +1-206-616-3152
Email: rmmason@u.washington.edu

Richard O. Mason
(SMU, emeritus)
1940 County Road 250, Durango, CO 81301, USA
Phone: +1-970-247-0252
Email: rmason@mail.cox.smu.edu

Antonino Vaccaro
Department of Engineering and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University
Baker Hall 131Pittsburgh PA 15213, USA
Phone: +1-412-320-1778
Fax: +1-412-268-3757
Email: vaccaro@andrew.cmu.edu