Information Systems research has long studied technology from the vantage point of a single organization. Yet since the 1990s, Internet-enabled technologies have created an explosion of interconnected, polycentric arrangements, from inter-organizational systems to platforms, ecosystems, and digital infrastructures. Carsten Sorensen's talk framed three decades of this research and set out an agenda for what comes next.
Sharing some selected key insights:
🔹 From monocentric to polycentric. IS research has historically focused on designing systems, bringing them into use, and their consequences within organizations. Markets, platforms, ecosystems, and infrastructures have only gained momentum over the past 15 years.
🔹 Platforms become infrastructure. As global platforms grow, they connect thousands of smaller firms while controlling key chokepoints, leading to market failures and increasing regulatory attention.
🔹 AI calls for distributed validation. As generative AI blurs truth and fiction, validating shared digital commons becomes a critical challenge. Bottom-up approaches such as "digital coops" are still at an early stage, perhaps comparable to the World Wide Web in 1998.

Thanks again, Carsten Sorensen, for the inspiring discussion and for showing how much fertile ground lies ahead for IS scholars!