Rethinking responsibility in the digital age: a narrative approach

François-Xavier de Vaujany (), Aurélie Leclercq Vandelannoitte (), Jeremy Aroles (), Lucas Introna () and Scott Davidson ()
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François-Xavier de Vaujany: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Aurélie Leclercq Vandelannoitte: IÉSEG School Of Management [Puteaux], LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Jeremy Aroles: University of York [York, UK]
Lucas Introna: Lancaster University
Scott Davidson: West Virginia University [Morgantown]

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Abstract: Researchers, policymakers, and industry are increasingly aware of the urgent risks and threats arising in the digital age. Their awareness of this urgency has led to a rise of interest in responsibility. While this ‘turn to responsibility' has been well-intentioned, an underappreciated problem is that the dominant, centuries-old view of responsibility is not up to this task – it is unable to make sense of the increasingly extended scope of responsibility in the digital age because it is mired in outdated assumptions about causality, agency, and human action. Inspired by Paul Ricoeur's philosophy, we show the benefits of rethinking responsibility as an ongoing process of becoming responsible—that is, becoming responsible by being imputed through the narrative emplotment of extended sociomaterial events. We illustrate the benefits of this conception for the digital age using vignettes from plagiarism detection, social media, and AI. The paper concludes by proposing a Ricoeur-inspired narrative topology of the multidimensional time-space of responsibility emplotment. The paper calls on the MIS community and society more broadly to draw on this topology to reflect on their imputations and take up responsibility, individually and collectively.

Keywords: responsibility; information technologies; imputation; temporality; narrative events; emplotment; Ricoeur (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-04962366v1
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Published in MIS Quarterly, In press

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04962366

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