Call for Papers: 22nd Americas Conference on Information Systems August 11 - 13, 2016, San Diego, CA, USA Dear Colleagues, We welcome submissions for the mini track entitled “International Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Access”, for AMCIS 2016 Track: Global, International, and Cross-Cultural Issues in IS (SIGCCRIS) Mini Track: International Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Access Description: Networks and systems within the contemporary information society are in many ways constrained by access to ICT, including availability, awareness, ability or literacy, and infrastructural support for ICT use and ICT-mediated processes. All dimensions of ICT access are highly unequal globally. Current efforts to improve infrastructure and availability—including broadband speeds, reliability of connectivity, stability and maintenance of systems, and interoperability—often span geographic boundaries and include both the public and private sectors. Furthermore, efforts to impact awareness and literacy are highly culturally context dependent. Outcomes associated with ICT access initiatives vary significantly, both between countries and within them, and differences in outcomes are often associated with contextual differences in policy interpretation and adoption strategies. This mini-track will focus on all stages of collaborative and independent access initiatives—including policy, planning, implementation, and evaluation—supporting the improvement and sustainability of ICT access and infrastructure across local, national, and regional borders. Call for Papers: Why is ICT access so unequal globally? Why do plans for ICT improvement lead to different outcomes in different contexts? Global variation in ICT access, particularly availability and infrastructure, is extreme, which has serious implications for global communications, relationships, business, and other processes. Efforts to address both imbalances and insufficiencies lead to highly divergent outcomes, despite efforts to replicate successful projects. It is important to understand the status of access from a comparative international perspective, so as to understand the roles of social, political, and cultural factors in shaping outcomes. How successful are international efforts to improve ICT access? Given the increasing interdependence of ICT access internationally, as multinational corporations and global travel and migration, leads people and systems to depend on different infrastructural systems to support their connectivity needs, there has been increased attention toward collaboration, interoperability, and common regulation of ICT access worldwide. Research needs to address international ICT access improvement, so as to better support the reliability and sustainability of global systems and to better design future initiatives. What is the role of culture in shaping the policy process surrounding ICT access improvement? Given the variation in infrastructure, even in instances of collaborative efforts, contextual variation, including the influences of culture, seemingly plays an important role in how initiatives relating to ICT are implemented. Further exploration of how aspects of context shape all stages of initiatives, including planning, implementation, and evaluation, is significant to understanding differences in outcomes. This mini-track invites submissions that address collaborations relating to ICT access, as well as comparative analyses on ICT infrastructure status and initiatives and case studies. Submissions addressing infrastructure and governance of infrastructure at city, state, regional, geographical, national, and international levels are welcome. Potential Topics: Integrated cross-border infrastructure Standardization of ICT access and ICT access regulation Initiative failures associated with internationalization or comparative cultural differences Case studies addressing culture Cross-country, cross-state, or cross-regional ICT infrastructure analysis Impact of supra-national governance on ICT access Interoperability across contexts Comparative evaluation of ICT access initiative outcomes Inequality in access or reliability across contexts, as impacts multinational business SUBMISSION SITE http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amcis2016 Submissions may be of two types: • Completed research papers (< 5000 words, excluding references, tables, and figures) • Research-in-progress papers (< 3500 words, excluding references, tables, and figures) All conference submissions will be double-blind, peer reviewed, and must be submitted using the online submission system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/amcis2016 For complete instructions for authors and information about the conference, visit the AMCIS 2016 website at http://amcis2016.aisnet.org<http://amcis2016.aisnet.org/> IMPORTANT DATES January 4, 2016: Manuscript submissions for AMCIS 2016 begin March 2, 2016: AMCIS manuscript submissions closes for authors at 10:00am PST CHAIR CONTACT INFORMATION Madelyn Sanfilippo, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University mhomuth@indiana.edu<mailto:mhomuth@indiana.edu> Pnina Fichman, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University fichman@indiana.edu<mailto:fichman@indiana.edu> ------------------------ Pnina Fichman Chair, Department of Information and Library Science Director, Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~fichman/