Digital data are not just data online

They are generative, performative, and relational objects that organize people, structure values, and shape the possibilities for how we work, decide, and think in digital organizations. This is what I study.

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Explore my research 🔎

Here are two recent articles where I develop key arguments about how digital data organize people, embed values, and shape possibilities for thought.

Recognition in Personal Data: Data Warping, Recognition Concessions, and Social Justice

This MIS Quarterly (open source) article shows how digital data are never just neutral records, but value-laden artifacts that can affirm or deny recognition to individuals, and shaping how people are organized.

Read the paper

 

The Performative Production of Trace Data in Knowledge Work

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This ISR article shows that digital trace data are not passive records of work, but actively produced as people anticipate how the data will be used, changing their practices directly or indirectly to perform the data.

Read the paper

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Marta Stelmaszak Rosa

I am an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst. My research examines digital data and how they shape how organizations work, think, and decide. I publish in leading journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and co-lead Data Studies Bibliography, a global community advancing scholarship on data as a core object of inquiry.

Let’s connect

I’d love to exchange ideas about digital data, organizations, and thinking in a data-saturated world. I often share reflections and ongoing questions on LinkedIn and occasional glimpses of my day-to-day work on Instagram. I look forward to continuing the conversation with you there.

Recent publications