Aleksi Aaltonen

Data studies in ICIS 2025

This blog post provides a summary of data-related events in ICIS 2025 in Nashville. — December 22, 2025

Discussion on prospective SIG DATA

This blog post provides a summary of an open online meeting on a prospective SIG DATA held on September 29, 2025. — October 6, 2025

Is SIG DATA really needed?

In this blog post I reflect upon if a special interest group focusing on the study of data is needed. — August  19, 2025

"Advancing Scholarship on Data" AOM 2025 PDW

This blog post provides reflections from AOM 2025 PDW “Advancing Scholarship on Data: Theories, Methods, and Insights on Data-Intensive Technologies” on July 26, 2025. — August 2, 2025

Journal publication

Management Science published my article Not Good Enough, but Try Again! The Impact of Improved Rejection Communications on Contributor Retention and Performance in Open Knowledge Collaboration with Sunil Wattal. The article is available here. — July 31, 2025

On the different ways of viewing data in IS

There are many ways to understand and approach the study of data in information systems (not to mention in other fields). I don’t think we should look for the one master perspective to rule them all—different views serve different purposes and are valuable as such. However, sometimes it is useful to relate the different views to each other. From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — June 26, 2025

Data Studies Bibliography turns 1!

The first version the Data Studies Bibliography was launched with 31 papers a year ago on March 4, 2024. What started as a project to make high-quality papers related to the study of data available in one place has grown into a wider initiative supported by many colleagues. From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — March 4, 2025

Supporting data studies in 2025

The successful Data Studies Meetup at ICIS 2024 in Bangkok demonstrated that there is a growing interest in the study of data from different angles in management and information system. In this blog post, we outline some planned actions for 2025. — January 30, 2025

Journal publication

Communications of the Association for Information Systems published my article What is Changing the Game in Data Research? Insights from the “Innovating in Data-based Reality” Professional Development Workshop with Daisy Xu and Marta Stelmaszak. The article is available here. — January 7, 2025

Why and how we choose papers for the Data Studies Bibliography?

The Data Studies Bibliography includes “papers that i) focus on data as an object of research, and ii) are published in high-quality information systems and management journals”, as the FAQ and the companion document state. In this article, we provide additional clarity on why and how we choose papers for the Data Studies Bibliography. — January 6, 2025

Deputy Editor-in-Chief

I was appointed as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Information Technology — December 14, 2024

Open data 2.0: An interview with Youngjin Yoo

I sat down with Youngjin Yoo to talk about his lastest project on Open Data 2.0. From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — October 25, 2024

The value of human-made data in the age of AI

Companies that have high-quality content (data) assets are in a position to gain competitive advantage by building their own, proprietary generative models. From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — September 17, 2024

Journal publication

Information Systems Research published my article Timely Quality Problem Resolution in Peer-production Systems: The Impact of Bots, Policy Citations, and Contributor Experience with Vitali Mindel, Arun Rai, Lars Mathiassen and Wael Jabr. The article is available here. — September 9, 2024

Greek translation of Kallinikos et al. (2013)

A Greek translation of "The Ambivalent Ontology of Digital Artifacts" (Kallinikos, Aaltonen, & Marton, 2013) appeared in G. Mangini (Ed.), ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΨΗΦΙΑΚΟΥ: Μια εισαγωγή (pp. 209–236) published by Crete University Press. — July 30, 2024

When should we care about data infrastructures?

Different perspectives to data are not mutually exclusive but serve different purposes. From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — July 18, 2024

Teaching cases on data

Looking for teaching cases on data design, sourcing, management or governance in organizations? Here are some! From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — July 10, 2024

How to avoid authorship order disputes?

Disputes over the authorship order in soon-to-be-published papers are probably the most pointless fights that can ruin personal relationships and even academic careers. 4 min read in Medium — July 6, 2024

Associate Professor

I was appointed as an Associate Professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology — July 1, 2024

On the importance of powerful simplifications

Business school academics sell ideas on how to manage things better. These often come in the form of what I call a powerful simplification. 5 min read in Medium — June 2, 2024

Information Systems Development and Data Modeling (book review)

Every now and then one comes across an IS book that has succeeded in maintaining its relevance astonishingly well over the years. Information Systems Development and Data Modeling: Conceptual and Philosophical Foundations by Rudy Hirschheim, Heinz K. Klein, and Kalle Lyytinen is one of those books. From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — May 24, 2024

‘Data are’ or ‘data is’?

I have always struggled whether ‘data are’ or ‘data is’, that is, whether data should be treated as a countable plural form or as a mass noun. From the Data Studies Bibliography blog — April 24, 2024

On respect and disagreement in academia

Knowledge grows when we disagree with each other and, in this sense, functioning academia is an institutionalized disagreement. 4 min read in Medium — April 19, 2024

What makes a good hypothesis?

I reflect upon my own misconceptions and lessons learned about the important role of hypotheses in an MIS research paper. 4 min read in Medium — March 13, 2024

Data Studied Bibliography

We released together with Marta Stelmaszak the first version of the Data Studies Bibliography that is a curated, searchable bibliography of high-quality papers that focus on data as an object of research. — March 4, 2024

Data-driven, data-based or data innovation?

A simple typology for thinking clearly about different types of innovation related to data. 2 min read in Medium — February  12, 2024

All data are wrong, but...

The old adage "all models are wrong, but some are useful" applies just as much to data. 3 min read in Medium — January 18, 2024

NYT vs OpenAI and Microsoft

Systematically harvesting millions of copyrighted documents and using them to build a competing product cannot be fair use, or can it? 5 min read in Medium — January 3, 2024

Journal publication

MIS Quarterly published my article Comparing Platform Owners' Early and Late Entry into Complementary Markets with Runyu Shi, Ola Henfridsson and Ram Gopal. The article is available here. — November 30, 2023

Journal publication

Information Systems Research published my article The Performative Production of Trace Data with Marta Stelmaszak. The article is available here. — September 20, 2023

The duality of data

I made a (futile) attempt to define phenomena studied by information systems dicipline. 3 min read in Medium — August 30, 2023

Journal publication

Communications of the Association for Information Systems published my panel report What is Missing from Research on Data in Information Systems? with Cristina Alaimo, Elena Parmiggiani, Marta Stelmaszak, Sirkka Jarvenpaa, Jannis Kallinikos, and Eric Monteiro. Full text is available here. — August 3, 2023

Book chapter

My chapter Strategizing with Data: Data-based Innovations and Complementaries with Cristina Alaimo was published in Research Handbook on Digital Strategy — May 10, 2023

Social media was consuming me

Twitter and LinkedIn are useful tools for supporting your academic career, but avoid being drawn into the algorithmic games of Facebook. 6 min read in Medium — January 26, 2022

How to count the review rounds?

Confused how to communicate the status of your manuscript submitted to a peer-reviewed journal exactly? Here is how! 2 min read in Medium — January 10, 2022

Gender bias in MIS

Silvia Masiero and I reflect upon gender bias in the academic field of information systems. 4 min read in Medium — December 8, 2021

There is no self-plagiarism

Plagiarism is a gross academic misconduct that should be treated with zero tolerance – yet, there is no such thing as self-plagiarism. 2 min read in Medium — October 4, 2021

Journal publication

Journal of Management Information Systems published my article The Making of Data Commodities: Data Analytics as an Embedded Process with Cristina Alaimo and Jannis Kallinikos. Full text is available here. — August 6, 2021

Academia as competition

Competition in academia is great – but we must see it differently. 8 min read in Medium — May 24, 2021

I deleted my Academia.edu account

The social platform for academics will happily turn publishing into a rapid-fire game of quick, shallow publications, likes, meaningless citations and other vanity metrics. 3 min read in Medium — April 3, 2021

Solutions that create problems

Technology breeds more technology by creating problems that need technological solutions. 3 min read in Medium — March 13, 2021

A vocabulary of data science concepts

I wrote a simple summary of fundamental data science concepts for undergraduate students at Temple University. 2 min read in Medium — February 5, 2021