Coping with the Digital Empowerment Paradox
Speaker: Professor Richard Baskerville, Georgia State University, USA
Date: Thursday 16 May 2024, 10:30am to 12:00pm
Location: LUMS Lecture Theatre 2, LA1 4YX
Organiser: Lancaster University
Event Details
Discover the many paradoxes that accompany the vast digitalisation taking place in society today. There is a digitalisation paradox; there are myriad cybersecurity paradoxes; and there are digital versions of other well-known paradoxes. Professor Richard Baskerville will explain a paradox arising when nations (or organisations) seek to improve society (or operations) by empowering citizens (or clients) and governance (or processes) through digitalisation. This empowerment paradox results from the use of digitalisation to empower a class of digitalisation beneficiaries that simultaneously disempowers a class of digitalisation victims. The effects on these classes of people or organisations may be intended or unintended. Using historical research methodology, the case of the digitalisation of Denmark, one of the most digitalised nations in the World has been examined. Richard will reveal how the national digitalisation experience of Denmark reveals a cycle of victory in achieving massive digitalisation, accompanied by defeat in helping to victimise its citizens and other stakeholders.
About the speaker
Richard Baskerville is Regents' Professor Emeritus in the Department of Computer Information Systems, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, USA. His research specializes in security of information systems, methods of information systems design and development, and the interaction of information systems and organizations. His interest in methods extends to qualitative research methods. Author of Designing Information Systems Security (J. Wiley) and more than 300 articles in scholarly journals, professional magazines, and edited books. He is Editor Emeritus for The European Journal of Information Systems and editorial advisor for the Journal of Information Systems Security. A Chartered Engineer, Baskerville holds degrees from the University of Maryland (B.S. summa cum laude, Management), the London School of Economics, University of London (M.Sc., Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems, and Ph.D., Systems Analysis). Honors and awards include honorary degrees from the University of Pretoria (PhD hc), and Roskilde University (Dr.Sc. hc). He was awarded The LEO Award for Lifetime Exceptional Achievement by the Association for Information Systems in 2016 and the Silver Core by the International Federation for Information Processing in 1998.