LAUSR

The notion that there is a moral obligation for researchers to make the world a better place is not new, yet one seldom encounters substantive research that practically espouses such a view. Noting the lack of such research, Walsham (2012) made an impassioned call to arms in a short article titled ‘Are We Making the World a Better Place with Information Systems?’. Providing further evidence of the critical need for responsible research, scholars have formed a new virtual organisation named ‘Responsible Research in Business and Management’ (RRBM). RRBM has the avowed focus of ‘inspiring, encouraging, and supporting credible and useful research in the business and management disciplines’ (http://rrbm.network). In 2019, the ISJ issued a call for papers for a special issue to encourage our colleagues to contribute to making the world a better place. Following Majchrzak et al. (2016), we suggested that contributing authors should not limit their research designs and thus contributions to the scholarly community but should also consider the practical and policy implications for a wide range of practitioners (not only managers) as well as the broader social world. Finally, they could also consider the non-human world of the environment, given our focus on making the world a better place through IS research. Thirty-nine papers were submitted to the special issue and six have, after extensive revision, been accepted. They are introduced below.