This axis focuses on the deployment, control, accountability, and ethical risks of AI systems in organizational and public settings.

Core questions

• How do AI systems reshape decision-making, productivity, and organizational performance?

• What forms of accountability, oversight, and risk management are required in the use of AI and generative AI?

• How do fairness, safety, transparency, and legal-ethical norms operate in practice?

Representative papers

• Park, G., Kang, S., Yi, S. & Kim, J. (2026). Diverse Impacts of AI Investments on Productivity Gains: Effects of Industry and Innovation Characteristics. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, (Q1: 1%, Business; Regional & Urban Planning. ABS 3). 

• Kim, D., Kang, S. & Hong, A. (2026). Bridging the Maturity-Expectation Gap: Generative AI in Strategic Decision-Making for Public R&D Interim Review. Technovation(Q1: 3%,  Engineering, Industrial; Operation Research & Management Science; Management. ABS 3). 

• Kim, W., Hong, A. & Kang, S. (2025). Detecting Deepfakes Through Meta-Frame Analysis of User Responses: Toward Detection-as-Discourse and the Restoration of Digital Trust. Korean Review of Corporation Management, 16(5). KCI.

• Kang, S., Kim, M., & Kim, K. (2022). Raising Skepticism for the Feasibility of Algorithmic Tacit Collusion.  ICIS 2022 Proceedings, 1. ISBN: 9781958200049.

• Kang, S. & Kim, D. (2025). Ethical Considerations and Challenges of Generative AI: A Systematic Analysis of Discrepancies between Academic Literature and Media within the Legal Framework of South Korea.  Information Society & Media. 26(1). KCI. 

This axis focuses on the evolution of digital industries, firm capabilities, innovation trajectories, industrial ecosystems, and policy interventions shaping technological development.

Core questions

• How do digital industries evolve through capability-building, competition, and institutional change?

• How do innovation patterns emerge across firms, startups, networks, and industrial ecosystems?

• What role do industrial policy, regulation, and public intervention play in enabling or constraining digital transformation?

Representative papers

• Kang, S., Choi, H. & Yoo, H. (2024). Korea Software Service Firm Competency Analysis. Information Systems Research, KCI. (The Korea Society of Management Information System). 

• Kang, S., Park, G. & Altmann, J. (2023). Empirical Analysis of the Effect of an Evidence-based Policy for a Wicked Problem – Lessons Learned from the South Korean Industry Policy History for the Structural Reform of Subcontracting Practice in the Software Industry.  Journal of the Knowledge Economy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-023-01562-9 SSCI. (Q1: 12.6%. Economics. ABS 1). 

• Kim, J. Y., & Kang, S. (2021). Windows of Opportunity, Capability, and Catch-Up: The Chinese Game Industry. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 51(1), 132-156. SSCI. (Q1: 6%. Area Studies). 

• Kang, S., Jin, S., & Pack, P. H. (2021). Innovation Patterns of Machine Learning and a Birth of Niche: Focusing on Startup Cases in the Republic of Korea. The Journal of Society for E-Business Studies, 26(3), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.7838/JSEBS.2021.26.3.001. KCI. 

• Kang, S., Altmann, J. & Hong, A. (2025). Strategic Insights into Temporal Knowledge Management in Software Industry Networks. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, SSCI. (Q2: 32.3%, Management; Engineering; Industrial; Business. ABS 2). 

• Kang, S. & Hong, A. (2025). Navigating ESG Challenges in ICT: Risks and Rewards Across the Pandemic Landscape. International Review of Economics and Finance, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iref.2025.103994 SSCI. (Q1: 10.9%. Economics and Econometrics; Finance. ABS 2). 

• Choe, J., Chen, V., Kang, S. & Kang, J. (2025). Exploring Motivations for Workations: A Mixed-Methods Approach. Tourism Management. SSCI. (Q1: 1%. Tourism; Strategy and Management. ABS 4).

• Kang, S., Park, G. & Hong, A. (2026). Losing the Integrator: The Structural Paradox of Excluding Large Firms from Digital Government Software Contracts. Asian Journal of Technology Innovation. SSCI. (Q2: 41.9%. Economics; Business).

This axis focuses on public perception, social trust, institutional acceptance, conflict, and quantitatively grounded analysis of socio-technical risks in digital and infrastructural systems.

Core questions

• How are public trust and risk perceptions formed around digital, infrastructural, and technological systems?

• How can social conflict, institutional legitimacy, and public acceptance be measured computationally?

• What forms of governance are needed when technology, policy, and public perception intersect?

Representative papers

• Kang, S., Seo, Y., & Lee, C. (2022). A Study of the Development of Sectoral Digital Transformation Conflict Indicator. Information Society & Media. 23(1). KCI. 

• Kim, D., Sun, H. & Kang, S. (2025). Public Perception of South Korea’s Power Infrastructure from a Socio-Technical Transition Perspective: A Media Big Data Analysis Before and After the Milyang Incident (2000–2024).  The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Power Electronics, KCI. 

• Kang, S., Altmann, J. & Shim, D. (2025). Consumer Insights from South Korea’s Publicly Accredited e-Payment Electronic Certification System by Evaluating Security Preferences and Willingness to Pay.  International Journal of Networked and Distributed Computing, Scopus.

• Kim, W., Hong, A. & Kang, S. (2025). Detecting Deepfakes Through Meta-Frame Analysis of User Responses: Toward Detection-as-Discourse and the Restoration of Digital Trust. Korean Review of Corporation Management, 16(5). KCI.