Timeline

• November 1, 2026: Full paper submission deadline

Lauri Wessel, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Melanie Reuter-Oppermann, Maastricht University

Roxana Ologeanu-Taddei, University of Montpellier

Hannes Rothe, University of Duisburg-Essen

Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, The University of Texas at Austin

Digital health is associated with the use and development of digital technologies to improve health. Use, development, and design of the according technologies have in recent years led to a considerable shift. Specifically, practices affecting an individual's health have been shifted from inside hospitals into wider digital health ecosystems where providers, patients, their loved ones, and laypersons interact to jointly shape how care is provided. IS research has greatly advanced in terms of better understanding the technological foundations of this shift such as artificial intelligence (AI) applications, sensor-based technologies, and smartphone apps. However, at least two major trajectories of research arise from this shift and its underlying technologies.

First, creating value in digital health ecosystems demands to take into account diverse kinds of value to be potentially created through these technologies. Financial value is an important kind of value to be created in digital health ecosystems; however, it is by far not the sole kind of value that matters in these settings. It is important to understand which kinds of value technology helps to create as well as how, why, and when it does so. Second, creating value is not per se synonymous with distributing it so that an important line of inquiry is about how to distribute value among ecosystem participants and over time.

We are asking for papers speaking to these topics and see two broad ways in which submissions to our special issue could do so. The first is cumulative and much in line with how research in IS and adjacent fields such as computer science, management, and medicine is conventionally done. It resides in furthering our understandings and toolkits for creating value in digital health ecosystems. However, the more data are available the higher is arguably the potential for misuse, especially when genomic and bio data are in question. This is why research about creating value from data logically calls for research about how to distribute value among ecosystems participants.

The second way to address the abovementioned research trajectories is consistent with promoting contrarian studies. We see much promise of contrarian studies investigating the creation and distribution of value in digital health ecosystems. Research about digital health is replete with assumptions touching on the outcomes that large volumes of data are likely to generate. This stands in stark contrast to the fact that on the ground floor where most clinicians work the data are hardly ever available in the format, quality or volume needed to even remotely live up to these expectations. It is, therefore, paramount to offer fundamentally new ways of thinking about creating and distributing value in digital health ecosystems.

Potential topics

• The role of data management and data sharing in digital health ecosystems
• Designing for measuring kinds of value arising from new digital technologies like XR, 5G, web 3.0, and machine or hybrid learning in digital health ecosystems
• The role of digital health ecosystems during pandemics or natural disasters; specifically with an eye toward how data help to distribute value among ecosystem participants
• (Data-driven) change of professional roles, identities, and institutions in digital health ecosystems
• The difference between creating value for intervention vs. for prevention
• Design of inclusive and responsible digital technologies for healthcare and well-being
• Digital tools and use of digital health data to connect different participants of health service networks, to support decision making and to improve organizational processes
• Negative consequences of digital technologies implementation in healthcare, such as health givers burnout and patients' anxiety
• The role of digital tools like virtual coaching for autonomy of health care providers and patients

Timeline

• March 1, 2026: Submission of extended abstracts/declaration of interest to submit papers to the special issue
• November 30, 2026: Full paper submission deadline
• March 31, 2027: First round decisions due
• September 30, 2027: Revisions due
• December 15, 2027: Second round decisions due
• February 28, 2028: Third round revisions due (if necessary)
• May 31, 2028: Final decisions due

Associate editors

• Aleksi Aaltonen, Stevens Institute of Technology
• Saeed Akhlaghpour, University of Queensland
• Aycan Aslan, IT University Copenhagen
• Anna Essén, Stockholm School of Economics
• Heiko Gewald, HS Neu-Ulm
• Martin Gersch, Freie Universität Berlin
• Camille Grangé, HEC Montréal
• Maike Greve, Copenhagen Business School
• Farkhondeh Hassan Doust, University of Auckland
• Alexander Kempton, University of Oslo
• Charlotte Koehler, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
• Johann Kranz, LMU
• Jan-Marco Leimeister, University of St. Gallen
• Wolfgang Maaß, Saarland University
• Bogdan Negoita, HEC Montréal
• Lemai Nguyen, Deakin University
• Guy Paré, HEC Montréal
• Scott Thiebes, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
• Manuel Trenz, University of Göttingen
• Cristina Trocin, Católica Porto Business School
• Marjolein van Offenbeek, University of Groningen
• Polyxeni Vassilakopoulou, University of Agder
• Till Winkler, Fernuniversität Hagen

Paula Rossi, University of Vaasa

Jim Broch Skarli, University of Inland Norway

Maria Petrescu, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Edwina Zhu, University of Edinburgh Business School

This PMM theme issue will examine how public services can contribute to value creation for citizens within public service ecosystems (PSEs), considering implications for public administration and management theory and/or practice.

To better understand how social, ecological and economic value for citizens could be fostered in the context of public services, researchers have for the past decade addressed how the systemic, relational and context-dependent nature of value creation is situated within PSEs. In short, value creation explores how public services can be understood as resources that enable citizens to create/co-create value in their lives, and the PSE framework, first, draws attention to the hindering and enabling dynamics and conditions of value creation, embedded in and between individual, organizational and institutional levels of PSEs. To illustrate this more clearly, in the context of public services, value creation for citizens takes place through politically governed organizations. These organizations operate at the intersection of individual needs and collective interests. As a result, administrative and political contexts inevitably influence how value is created, what is possible, and how these processes unfold. Public administration and management research and practice informed by the analytical framework of PSEs are therefore well placed to take seriously the systemic characteristics and inherent tensions that shape public service environments.

Second, the PSE framework can help public sector managers, practitioners and researchers overcome the dyadic, service-user and organization-centric focus of value creation. This calls for attention, for example, to the roles and the variety of actors such as service users, family members, politicians, managers, practitioners and professionals in local, regional and national (public, private and non-governmental organizations) contexts. When viewed through the PSE framework, importantly, human-centric value creation/destruction processes become more appreciative also of the importance of non-living elements such as built environment, facilities, technologies, equipment and means of transport.

Third, utilizing the PSE framework to understand value creation for citizens calls for a more nuanced understanding of value. The conceptualization and understanding of value needs to incorporate both value for the service user and societal/collective value for citizens/communities, as well as considering both individual and collective beneficiaries in a more nuanced and appreciative way.

We therefore seek contributions that interrogate both value creation and PSEs further and which consider their implications for public administration and management theory and/or practice. Submissions can be theoretical or empirical. For research articles, a variety of research perspectives and methods are welcomed. Research articles should contribute to theory, as well as practice and/or policy. In addition, 1000-word debate articles and 3500-word new development articles are also welcome to enrich the pragmatic debates.

Potential topics

• Examining the implications of the roles and individual characteristics of service users in value co-creation, for example from the perspective of vulnerable service users and family carers
• Addressing the implementation and utilization of technologies from a PSE and value creation perspective
• Widening the empirical focus from private-benefit services to include more public-benefit services such as utility services, transportation, housing, prison management or urban development, emphasizing 'value for citizens' as an outcome
• Exploring the implications of understanding place-based public services from a PSE and value creation perspective
• Addressing the hindering or enabling dynamics and conditions of value creation in and between the individual, organizational and institutional levels of PSEs in particular contexts, for example by utilizing 'conflict' as an analytical tool
• Interrogating and developing Public Service Logic (PSL) as a framework for investigating and evaluating value creation within PSEs

Timeline

• December 1, 2026: Manuscript deadline for research articles and new development pieces
• March 1, 2027: Manuscript deadline for debate pieces