ICSOB2022 – Software for Digital Transformation

The International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB) attracts both researchers and practitioners who are concerned with software-intensive business in different ways, and brings them together to share their findings and experiences from the field of software-intensive business.

Theme of the year: Software for Digital Transformation

Digital transformation has become a key priority for businesses to evolve to continuously changing market demands. Digital transformations typically require deep organizational, structural, cultural, and technological change in order to survive. This can fundamentally redefine key organizational activities and values in response to new opportunities through the exploration and exploitation of software business and innovation. Yet, the ongoing acceleration of digital technologies in today’s software-enabled business environment poses not only opportunities but also major challenges for organizations to continuously invest in and embed digital transformations merely to survive and compete.

The theme of ICSOB2022 is Software for Digital Transformation. Research about software for digital transformations addresses a wide range of concerns ranging from software products, software teams, software deployment, software startups, agility, strategy and business models, among many others. As a contemporary topic, digital transformation presents an intersection between the software engineering, information systems, and business communities.

Call for Paper Submissions

We welcome both research and industry papers to the conference. The papers should be original and not submitted to or accepted by any other conference or journal. We are looking for (i) full research papers (maximum 15 pages), (ii) short position papers (maximum 6 pages), and (iii) practice papers (maximum 6 pages) describing novel approaches to software business for software products and services within a digital transformation context. Papers should provide insights on and/or industry case studies on digital transformation and software business, software products, practices, and principles.

The topics that ICSOB welcomes, but not limited to, are listed below:

Digital Transformation – initiating deep structural changes; managing digital transformation processes; large-scale transformation; sustaining software productivity and performance throughout a transformation process; development and implementation strategies; corporate and entrepreneurial culture; development of digital competencies.

Responsible Software – responsible software for digital transformation; responsible enterprise; enterprise modeling; information and communication technology; sustainability; socio-environmental auditing; sustainability of software products; sustainable software development; responsible management in software development and operation; undesirable/unintended use of software business; societal issues of current and emerging software business developments.

Software Platforms, Ecosystems and App Stores – open digital platforms; open innovation; app store architectures; application programming interface (API) architectures; digital and data platforms; software ecosystems health; ecosystem orchestration and governance; app economy; actors and network analysis; incentives and ecosystem-based business models

Software Business Development – developing and introducing new digital transformation business models; business modeling for software products and services; effective business model change and improvement; economics of software companies; mergers and acquisitions; internationalization, outsourcing and other strategies for realizing new business models.

Legal Issues – legal software-related implications for digital transformation, licensing, intellectual property and patents aspects and other legal aspects associated with software business, cybersecurity, privacy, and security.

Software Startups – lean startup for digital transformation; environment success factors; entrepreneurial process in software development; novel software startup processes; disruptive innovation and adoption; establishing new competence; risk management; managing startup growth.

Citizen Development – low-code/no-code (LCNC) platforms and initiatives for digital transformation; empowering non-technical users; role of citizen developers; new business models; governance; business processes; hyper-agile development; LCNC analytics; barriers, challenges, and enablers for citizen development.

Engineering and Management – software product management for digital transformation; project portfolio management; life-cycle perspective; continuous delivery; agile development; technical debt; platform governance; digital platforms; value co-creation.

Human Factors – education and training; human value morale, ethics and beliefs; human-centered design; ethical software engineering; artificial intelligence (AI) risks and ethics; transparency; user interaction with algorithms; algorithm aversion; algorithm appreciation.

Emerging Industry Trends – emergence of new software business technologies (e.g., AI, big-data analytics, blockchain, cloud computing) and infrastructures (e.g., digital platforms and ecosystems); novel value-creation processes and work practices (e.g., IT consumerization, resource sharing); games and gamification; software business education; disruptive trends in software business; the future of software business.

Journal Special Section: A selection of best papers will be invited to submit extended versions for tentative publication in a Special Section of a high-quality software engineering journal (details to follow).

EasyChair Paper Submission
We invite you to submit your papers to one of these tracks via the EasyChair submission system: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icsob2022

Important Dates
Deadline for submissions: 5th August 2022
Notification of acceptance: 31 August 2022
Camera-ready submission: 13 September 2022
Main conference date: 09-10 November 2022

Papers should be submitted in PDF format. The results described must be unpublished and must not be under review elsewhere.

Submission Formats
Submissions must conform to Springer’s LNBIP format and should not exceed 15 pages, including all text, figures, references, and appendices.

Submissions not conforming to the LNBIP format, exceeding 15 pages (for full papers) or 6 pages (for short papers), or 4 pages (for poster papers) or being obviously out of the scope of the conference might be rejected.

Information about the Springer LNBIP format can be found: http://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines. Three to five keywords characterizing the paper should be indicated at the end of the abstract. The type of paper (technical/empirical evaluation/experience/exploratory paper) should be indicated in the submission. Submission is done through EasyChair.

Each paper will be reviewed by three reviewers. Accepted papers will be presented at ICSOB ’22 and published in the conference proceedings, which is published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP)


Call for Other Types of Submissions

PhD Retreat:
PhD candidates are invited to attend a one-day PhD retreat in the Italian Alps. Apart from developing your research, this event is highly valued for the opportunity to expand your network by meeting fellow international PhD candidates. You will engage in research and social activities (... and have fun!). PhD candidates must register for the conference to attend. The PhD Retreat will take place on November 8th, 2022.

Posters:
Posters are a great way to present early-stage or ongoing research. A reserved space at the conference venue will be dedicated to the exhibition of posters. Several poster sessions will be organised during the conference to allow presenters to interact with conference participants and get feedback on their work from both researchers and industry participants.

Industry Presentations:
Participants will also have free access to the South Tyrol Free Software Conference (SFScon). SFScon promotes the use of Free Software in IT infrastructures as a tool to achieve greater innovation and competitiveness (more details available here: https://www.sfscon.it/). A selection of papers will be invited to present their work (where appropriate) to the SFSCon industry track presentations.

Please note, applications for the PhD Retreat and submissions to the Posters and Industry Track will be after the research papers submission. Please read more from our website.

Organizers:

General Chairs:
Pekka Abrahamsson, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Xiaofeng Wang, Free University of Bozan-Bolzano, Italy

Program Chairs:
Noel Carroll, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Anh Nguyen-Duc, University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway

Poster Chairs:
Henry Edison, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Dimitri Petrik, University of Stuttgart, Germany

PhD Retreat Chairs:
Abdullah Aldaeej, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia
Luciana Zaina, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil (UFSCar)

Proceedings Chair:
Viktoria Stray, SINTEF, Norway

Publicity Chair:
Sonja Hyrynsalmi, LUT University, Finland

Companion Proceedings Chair:
Jorge Melegati, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Industry Chairs:
Eduardo Guerra, Free University of Bozan-Bolzano, Italy
Luca Miotto, NOI Techpark Bolzano, Italy

Student Volunteer Chairs:
Usman Rafiq, Free University of Bozan-Bolzano, Italy

Local Organizing Chair:
Dron Khanna, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Website Chair:
Marko Nakov, Free University of Bozan-Bolzano, Italy