Designing for digital transformation: Lessons for information systems research from the study of ICT and societal challenges

The 14 papers published in this special issue of MIS Quarterly discuss the roles of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in a wide range of major societal challenges, including employment, climate, health, and human migration. The importance of the societal challenges addressed in these 14 papers makes this special issue significant and interesting in its own right. IS researchers studying traditional Western business contexts can increase their theoretical contributions by appropriating specific theoretical insights in these papers and by emulating them in three ways, such as adopting appropriate definitions of the ICT artifact, focusing on technology affordances and constraints, and explicitly searching for unintended and negative consequences of ICT use.