The design science research (DSR) community has traditionally focused on socio-technical design to
improve the human condition, simultaneously considering tasks, technologies, people, and social
structures at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. As the field matured, the “design first and
people will adapt” approach gave way to methods and frameworks that embrace the evolving needs of
users as well as contextual changes over time. Broadly speaking, DSR scholars have taken three
approaches. Some work closely with stakeholders and practitioners using action design research (ADR) to
gain a deeper understanding into their needs, wishes, and challenges. Others focus on developing novel
and innovative artifacts to assist specific target users in pursuing their aims. Still others find ways to make
the knowledge created through their DSR projects reusable across contexts and time, so that designers
can build on this knowledge and focus attention on developing methods and artifacts of increasing
usefulness. What these three approaches have in common is their cognizance of the sociotechnical nature
of design.

The recent global developments remind us of the potentials of digital technologies to redesign our lives
for the better. In 2020, the DSR community hosted their first ever virtual-only DESRIST and moved various
activities online that many would have expected to only work face-to-face. While this was a positive
experience, it also brings to our attention the potentially harmful unintended consequences of digital
technologies, if not used mindfully. Surveillance, digital divide, and algorithmic biases are among those
effects that have been debated in the media and elsewhere. Essentially though, these technologies are
first and foremost design artifacts, that is, humans design their instantiations and intentions. What can
we, the DSR community, do to help shape digital transformation and innovation to better serve people,
organizations, and society?

We need to take a step back and revisit the roots of sociotechnical design to make them relevant in the
context of the current social and technological advances, including diminishing boundaries of
organizations, platformization, and the productive use of artificial intelligence. We need to embrace the
next wave of sociotechnical design. Our intention for DESRIST 2021 is that it will help the DSR community
find its role in this new era by clarifying and strengthening the meaning and scope of DSR. How can we
highlight the sociotechnical character of DSR? How do we measure our research impacts, and what have
we achieved so far? What are the criteria by which we can show and justify the quality of DSR projects,
outcomes, and publications? How can we gain deeper insights into the practice of DSR? How can we, as a
field, extend the boundaries of DSR by demonstrating state-of-the-art DSR with and for emerging
technologies and organizational practices? Answering these questions will help us make our field ready
for the next wave of socio-technical design.

The 16th DESRIST conference welcomes submissions in the following areas, but is open to other thoughtprovoking DSR pieces. We invite empirical, conceptual, and methodological contributions.

• Sociotechnical design
  • Highlighting the sociotechnical characters of DSR
  • Integrating a better understanding of people, organizations, and society into DSR
• DSR Impacts
  • DSR and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs)
  • Assessing and measuring the impacts of DSR
  • Ethical considerations for DSR
• The new boundaries of DSR
  • Design & platformization
  • Design & smart, connected devices
  • Design & emergence of control and function
  • Algorithmic design
• Criteria for Socio-Technical Design
  • Criteria for DSR processes and outcomes
  • DSR standardization versus creativity
  • Representing and formulating the contribution of DSR
• Design, Designers, and DSR
  • Stakeholders as co-designers
  • Design cognition, behaviors, and processes
  • Design knowledge in DSR
  • Emerging methods and frameworks in DSR

We look forward to receiving your full papers, short papers, prototype papers, and panel proposals. We also invite doctoral researchers who are interested to attend the doctoral consortium to submit a summary of their research. Our doctoral consortium brings together early-stage and experienced design science researchers and provides a platform for constructive exchange. You will appreciate the transformational mentorship experience as well as the exciting networking opportunities.

All paper submissions will go through a double-blind review process conducted by an international review
panel. Your paper will be assessed anonymously by two reviewers and managed by the program
committee. Your prototype submissions will be handled by the prototype chairs. Your panel proposals will
be reviewed by the conference committee and managed by the panel chairs. The accepted papers will be
included in DESRIST Proceedings, published by the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

Ahmed Abbasi, University of Notre Dame, USA
Ahmed Elragal, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Amy van Looy, Ghent University, Belgium
Armin Stein, University of Muenster, Germany
Barbara Weber, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Brian Donnellan, Maynooth University, Ireland
Christian Janiesch, University of Würzburg, Germany
Christine Legner, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Daniel Beverungen, Paderborn University, Germany
David Agogo, Florida International University, USA
Debra VanderMeer, Florida International University, USA
Dirk Hovorka, The University of Sydnes Business School, Australia
Dominik Gutt, Rotterdam School of Management, Netherland
Eduan Kotzé, University of the Free State, University of South Africa, South Africa
Jan vom Brocke, University of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein
Jeffrey V. Nickerson, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA
Jeffrey Parsons, Memorial University, Canada
Jonas Sjöström, Uppsala University, Sweden
Judy van Biljon, University of South Africa, South Africa
Juhani Iivari, University of Oulu, Finland
Kaushik Dutta, University of South Florida, USA
Ken Peffers, University of Nevada, USA
Konstantin Hopf, University of Bamberg, Germany
Matthew Mullarkey, USF Muma College of Business, USA
Matthias Söllner, University of Kassel, Germany
Marthie Schoeman, University of South Africa, South Africa
Martin Matzner, University of Erlangen – Nuremberg, Germany
Monica Tremblay, William & Mary University, USA
Monika Malinova, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Munir Mandviwalla, Temple University, USA
Nicholas Berente, University of Notre Dame, USA
Oscar Diaz, University of Basque Country, Spain
Peter Axel Nielsen, Aalborg University
Rangaraja Sundrajan, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India
Riitta Hekkala, Aalto University, Finland
Robert Winter, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Roman Lukyanenko, HEC Montréal, Canada
Samir Chatterjee, Claremont Graduate University, USA
Sandeep Purao, Bentley University, USA
Stefan Morana, University of Saarland, Germany
Tuure Tuunanen, University of Jyväskyla, Finland
Veda Storey, Georgia State University, USA