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Unintended Side Effects and Pathways towards Sustainable Digital Environments in Latin America

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2020) | Viewed by 7459

Special Issue Editors

1. Department of Economics and Globalization, Knowledge and Information Management, Danube University, A-3500 Krems an der Donau, Austria
2. Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), D-14467 Potsdam, Germany
3. Natural and Social Science Interface, ETH Zurich, Rämistrasse 101, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland
Interests: coupled human–environment systems; sustainable digital environments; sustainable resources management; industrial ecology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department for E-Governance, University for Continuing Education Krems, 3500 Krems an der Donau, Austria
Interests: smart cities; digital governance; information systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
1. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina
2. Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Av. Alem 1253, B8000 Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, Argentina3. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS), Bahía Blanca, Argentina
Interests: structuring of the information technology function in government; digital transformation of government–citizen relationships and the impact of such transformation on nations' and cities' capacity to pursue sustainable development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue invites contributions from a Latin American perspective on sustainable digital environments. Digital technologies are transforming all domains of economic, socio-political, (bio-)technological, environmental, and other systems, and have provided ground-breaking beneficial innovations. To date, much research has focused on the development and implementation of digital technologies, yet little attention has been given to reflecting on and anticipating the unintended side effects or the unseen(s) of such technologies, although they have the potential to endanger systems and structures that are considered valuable and contribute to the resilience of socio-technological systems.

This Special Issue, Unintended Side Effects and Pathways towards Sustainable Digital Environments in Latin America, will address a broad range of topics that should help readers to understand both the generic and specific aspects of the critical developments related to sustainable digital environments. Thus, the Issue may include papers on challenging economic and industry-related questions (e.g., the digital work platform against decent work standards, digital competitiveness), democratic issues (e.g., the whole of social media, the level of citizens’ digital literacy), or occupational health questions (e.g., the impact of (biased) data on higher health insurance). However, in addition, contributions related to technological aspects such as digital infrastructure, new governance models for sustainable development, social impacts of algorithmic-based recommendations, the dark side of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and rebounds of smart cities are welcomed. Context-specific topics are also welcome, for instance with focus on cybercrime, the whole of digital technologies in mitigating corruption, or banking and cryptocurrency.

In particular, we invite contributions that reflect on the unintended side effects of digital technologies and papers that contribute to the structuring of critical aspects or types of rebound effects related to digital environments, as well as from epistemological or ethical perspectives. Finally, we invite papers that sketch processes related to the type of transdisciplinary or other processes of science and practice collaboration needed to establish sustainable digital environments.

In order to build sustainable digital environments as a component of sustainability science, those who are interested in the field but are unsure as to whether their work may align with the goals of this Special Issue are invited to correspond with the Guest Editors of this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Roland W. Scholz
Dr. Gabriela Viale Pereira
Prof. Dr. Elsa Estevez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • digital transformation
  • rebound effects of digital technologies
  • sustainable digital environments
  • inclusive and safe digital environments
  • digital platforms

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

47 pages, 1712 KiB  
Article
South American Expert Roundtable: Increasing Adaptive Governance Capacity for Coping with Unintended Side Effects of Digital Transformation
by Gabriela Viale Pereira, Elsa Estevez, Diego Cardona, Carlos Chesñevar, Pablo Collazzo-Yelpo, Maria Alexandra Cunha, Eduardo Henrique Diniz, Alex Antonio Ferraresi, Frida Marina Fischer, Flúvio Cardinelle Oliveira Garcia, Luiz Antonio Joia, Edimara M. Luciano, João Porto de Albuquerque, Carlos O. Quandt, Rodrigo Sánchez Rios, Aurora Sánchez, Eduardo Damião da Silva, João Silvestre Silva-Junior and Roland W. Scholz
Sustainability 2020, 12(2), 718; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12020718 - 19 Jan 2020
Cited by 25 | Viewed by 7033
Abstract
This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed [...] Read more.
This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens and provided suggestions for: (i) the mechanisms underlying major unseens; (ii) understanding possible ways in which rebound effects of digital transformation may become the subject of overarching research in three main categories of impact: development factors, society, and individuals; and (iii) a set of potential action domains for transdisciplinary follow-up processes, including a case study in Brazil. A content analysis of the propositions and related mechanisms provided insights in the genesis of unseens by identifying 15 interrelated causal mechanisms related to critical issues/concerns. Additionally, a cluster analysis (CLA) was applied to structure the challenges and critical developments in South America. The discussion elaborated the genesis, dynamics, and impacts of (groups of) unseens such as the digital divide (that affects most countries that are not included in the development of digital business, management, production, etc. tools) or the challenge of restructuring small- and medium-sized enterprises (whose service is digitally substituted by digital devices). We identify specific issues and effects (for most South American countries) such as lack of governmental structure, challenging geographical structures (e.g., inclusion in high-performance transmission power), or the digital readiness of (wide parts) of society. One scientific contribution of the paper is related to the presented methodology that provides insights into the phenomena, the causal chains underlying “wanted/positive” and “unwanted/negative” effects, and the processes and mechanisms of societal changes caused by digitalization. Full article
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