Value destruction is intertwined with value co-creation in the technology alliances and ecosystems; this is a key reason that most partnerships fail in the real world. Managers and policymakers will be enabled to identify destructive behavioral signals right from the onset drawing on our findings that opportunism, unjust appropriation of rents, shirking, exploitation of asymmetric power, and undue dependence can initiate the value destruction process. For the partners in an ecosystem, our findings underscore that opportunistic and exploitative behaviors do not pay off in the long run as these result in collateral and unintended losses for all. Dominant partner’s opportunism and exploitation of power asymmetry could give rise to a proverbial “pack of wolves,” a collective of resentful partners, for “challenging/killing the lion”—replacing the hub firm itself. In this vicious cycle, original intent of value co-creation gets lost with multidimensional losses on multiple fronts to the extent that opportunities open up even for the competitors with the help of hub’s former resentful complementors. Equipped with this knowledge, leaders can proactively manage ecosystem relationships keeping them on the path of originally intended value co-creation by remaining alert toward catching the signals of value destruction and reverting it deftly toward value co-creation.

Funding: A. Susarla was funded by an R01 grant from the National Library of Medicine, through [Grant R01LM013443].

This editorial introduces a conceptual framework that reimagines research on Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) as “digital development,” recognizing the inseparable intertwining of digital and development trajectories. This framing is aimed at the broader information systems (IS) research community, which includes ICT4D researchers, based both in the Global South and the Global North. Digital development encompasses three dimensions: digital in development (institutional use), digital for development (conscious design for outcomes), and development in a digital world (digital entanglement in development practice.). We argue that this reimagination is necessary for three reasons. First, digital technologies are becoming increasingly entangled with many development initiatives, implying the need to be studied as a duality, not a dualism. Second, we are witnessing the rising complexity of contemporary and emergent development challenges, which are not just limited to the Global South, but to the world at large. Third, the IS and ICT4D research fields have long worked in relative isolation from each other, but they need to synergistically create new theories and methods to address the rising complexities inherent in the “digital” and “development.” We provide a brief overview of the existing ICT4D field to identify critical areas for reconceptualization and expansion. This is then illustrated by examples from four empirical domains, namely humanitarian governance, global health, financial inclusion, and digital nomadism, which are representative of contemporary and emerging digital development challenges. This leads to the development of theoretical, policy and practice, and methodological implications, which provide a basis to formulate a research agenda for digital development.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is not merely changing how information systems (IS) research gets done—it is reshaping what research can be. We stand at a pivotal moment where machines can help generate hypotheses, synthesize vast literatures, and identify patterns that would take human researchers months to uncover. Yet, this unprecedented capability presents equally unprecedented risks to scholarly integrity. Because the field is uniquely positioned to understand sociotechnical transformations, IS research faces an extraordinary opportunity to pioneer “inventing with machines” while preserving the human insight and oversight that gives scholarship, as currently defined, its meaning. This transformation demands more than tool adoption. It requires a reimagination of scholarly infrastructure, norms, and practice. However, this transformation of research tooling creates a dangerous paradox: Powerful AI tools are now accessible to researchers who lack the technical literacy to understand and use them responsibly, threatening everything from citation accuracy to theoretical validity. Yet within this paradox lies the potential for revolutionary advances in how we craft our future as scholars. Informed by the sociotechnical perspective, we argue that the path forward requires coordinated community action that goes far beyond individual skill development. The IS community must lead the development of specialized AI tools that consider our theoretical traditions, create educational frameworks that preserve scholarly values while embracing computational capabilities, and pioneer review processes that harness AI’s analytical power without ceding human control, at least, in the short run. Success will determine not only the future of IS scholarship but our field’s capacity to guide other disciplines through this fundamental transformation of academic practice. The era of human-AI collaboration in research has already begun. How we govern and guide it will define the next generation of scholarly discovery.