Paper Number
ICIS2025-1415
Paper Type
Complete
Abstract
“Sustaining bodies at work” has become an organizational imperative for legal, ethical, and business reasons. Organizations increasingly hand out wearables that track heart rate, sleep, and activity, yet a central challenge is how such data can meaningfully support well-being. This paper examines how one organization took a systemic approach to sustaining bodies at work through data. Drawing on a 40-month ethnography of TennisFed, we trace its data-driven approach to injury prevention. Our process analysis identifies four phases - creating, chasing, sewing, and serving data shadows - that show how biometric data are produced, interpreted, and integrated into organizational practices. We contribute to IS research on digital representations, datafication, and people analytics by proposing: the concept of data shadow to examine digital representations of the body at work; minimum viable data as a principle for sustainable data practices; and an ecological approach to workplace well-being that prioritizes systemic over individual optimization.
Recommended Citation
Downie, Lorna Anne; Hafermalz, Ella; and Pachidi, Stella, "Hooked on Shadows: How Organizations Sustain Bodies at Work Through Data" (2025). ICIS 2025 Proceedings. 5.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2025/general_topic/general_topic/5
Hooked on Shadows: How Organizations Sustain Bodies at Work Through Data
“Sustaining bodies at work” has become an organizational imperative for legal, ethical, and business reasons. Organizations increasingly hand out wearables that track heart rate, sleep, and activity, yet a central challenge is how such data can meaningfully support well-being. This paper examines how one organization took a systemic approach to sustaining bodies at work through data. Drawing on a 40-month ethnography of TennisFed, we trace its data-driven approach to injury prevention. Our process analysis identifies four phases - creating, chasing, sewing, and serving data shadows - that show how biometric data are produced, interpreted, and integrated into organizational practices. We contribute to IS research on digital representations, datafication, and people analytics by proposing: the concept of data shadow to examine digital representations of the body at work; minimum viable data as a principle for sustainable data practices; and an ecological approach to workplace well-being that prioritizes systemic over individual optimization.
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02-GeneralTopics