Associate Professor Carmen Leong
PhD, National University of Singapore
Master in Computing (IT Project Management), National University of Singapore
B. Science (Computer) University of Technology Malaysia
Carmen Leong is an Associate Professor at the UNSW School of Information Systems and Technology Management and the Associate Dean of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the UNSW Business School Sydney. She received her PhD degree from The National University of Singapore. She is enthusiastic about discovering how technologies can bring changes to life, of organisation and of individuals. She has conducted more than 45 case studies in Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, South Korea, and Germany, to understand the use of digital technologies 1) in organizing for social purposes such as entrepreneurship, rural poverty, disaster response, mass mobilisation and 2) in the process of transforming an organisation and pre-existing management practices. Prior to entering academia, she worked in the private and public sectors in Singapore and Malaysia.​ Carmen has published in MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and European Journal of Information Systems.
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She is serving on the editorial review board of Information Systems Research and Journal of the Association for Information Systems (from 2025) and is the Associate Editor at the European Journal of Information Systems.ÌýShe was also the recipient of the 2021 AIS Impact Award and the 2023 UNSW Business School's Research Impact Award. Her work has won the runner-up for the AIS Special Interest Group (SIG) of Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM)'s Best Paper Award. She has served on the AIS SIG of Social Inclusion and is currently serving on the AIS Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) standing committee.Ìý
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Grants
Campbelltown City Council, Customer Experience Digital Uplift Project, 2023/24, $30,000 (Cat 2 funding)
Hongxin Pte Ltd/ International Contract, Digitalisation and platformisation capabilities of the company 2021, $10,000 (Cat 3 funding)
NSWs Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) / State Government Contract, Bridging the Chasm: A Study in Building Sustainability Momentum 2020, $29,694 (Cat 2 funding)
UNSW Dean's Research Fellowship 2020-2022, $60,000
Australia-ASEAN Council Grants 2019-20, Fostering Women's Economic Empowerment through Digital Entrepreneurship, $30,000
UNSW Business School Research Grant 2019, Digital Technology for Social Good: Developing the Design Principles of Sensor-based Elderly Monitoring System for Aging-in-Place, $20,586
UNSW Business School Special Research Grant 2018, Investigating the Financial Technology for Digitally enabled Inclusion, $10,000
UNSW-Indonesia Seed funding: Investigating Digital Empowerment and Financial Inclusion in Developing Communities in Indonesia 2016/17, $10,000
UNSW Business School Special Research Grant 2016, Digitally enabled Social Change, $7,500
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Awards and Honors
UNSW Business School's Staff Excellence Award: Research Impact Award 2023
Top 200 Scholars 2019-2021 AIS Research Ranking
Association for Information Systems (AIS) Impact Award 2021
European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS) Outstanding contribution in Reviewing 2021
Best Research Paper 2020 at Information and Organization
Best Paper Runner-Up Award Research-in-Progress: "Coordination of Actor Interactions on Digital Platforms: A case study of Taobao's content exchange platform" by Yawen Zhou, Carmen Leong, Zixiu Guo and Jie Yu
UNSW Business School's Staff Excellence Award: Values in Action (Innovation) Award 2020
Reviewer of the Year 2019, The DATA BASW for Advances in Information Systems 2019
Best Reviewer Award, Asia Academy of Management Conference 2019
Top 200 Scholars 2015-2017 AIS Research Ranking
Research Achievement Award, National University of Singapore 2012
NUS President's Graduate Fellowship, National University of Singapore 2013-2015
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With the Business School support, I founded the Digital Frontier Research Lab in 2024 with the purpose to facilitate partnership between researchers, organisations, government agencies and communities to generate societal impacts and address challenges posed by new and emerging technologies. My research revolves around the role of technology in economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability. My research projects include those of:
- Digital empowerment and inclusive development
- AI and creative work
- Creative economy and technology in emerging economies
- Technological design for communities disadvantaged by the systems
- Platform and digital ecosystem
- Emerging digital phenomenaÌýe.g., FinTech, Korean Wave
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Projects:
Digital uplift project with Campbelltown City Council for the digitally excluded communities
In this project, which stems from my relocation to southwestern Sydney two years ago, I have taken notice of the significant digital exclusion present in the Sydney Outer West and South-West regions, as highlighted by the Australian Digital Inclusion (ADII) Index (2020). To address this issue, I contacted Campbelltown Council and initiated discussions that resulted in a contracted project that commenced in June 2023. Our primary focus is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the extent and nuances of digital exclusion within the LGA, and subsequently enhance the design of the council's online services to ensure inclusivity for all residents. Collaborating with a dedicated team of colleagues and PhD students from our school and international university, we eagerly anticipate the opportunity to contribute to this work, ultimately bolstering the reputation of our translational hub, the UNOVA. This is my modest means of giving back to the community with my expertise. This project has attracted funding of $30,000 from the council and $16,000 from UNSW UNOVA hub and UNSW Centre of Social Impact.Ìý
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Social media empowered civic engagement and social justice
Inspired by the political polarisation in Malaysia, my home country, I have been engaged in research and conversation on social media-empowered civic engagement and social justice. Since 2016, I led a team of international researchers in studying the role of technologies such as social media in facilitating Malaysia's Bersih movement for clean and fair elections. Malaysian politics is widely regarded as contentious. For years, democracy suffered from entrenched advantages enjoyed by the ruling party and the gerrymandered constituencies. My interactions with the grassroots leaders of two nongovernmental, nonpartisan grassroots groups – Global Bersih and Bersih 2.0, which won the 2016 Gwangju Prize for Human Rights for its activism – produced knowledge that was disseminated in different forms to foster rights consciousness in society. I have shown how social media can be effectively used to organise collective actions in a bottom-up manner, in contrast to movements organised by social movement organisations such as NGOs.
My study has advanced knowledge in my field of information systems through three journal publications - two in ABDC A* and one in ABDC A. One of them received Best Research Paper at Information and Organization (ABDC A*) 2021, with its impacts being recognised by the editor who said "This is an excellent research paper. It addresses a very important phenomenon concerning the dramatic rise of social media-driven social movements which have proliferated following recent crises to protest rising economic inequality." The paper also won the runner-up for the AIS Special Interest Group (SIG) of Grounded Theory Methodology’s Best Paper Award. In addition to a UNSW BusinessThink article, I also published an article in The Conversation ("Malaysia's Bersih movement shows social media can mobilise the masses"), which has recorded more than 23,000 reads. The article in the Conversation was endorsed and shared by Global Bersih with their 24,000 Facebook followers, creating awareness and visibility for the issue facing humanity and rights beyond an audience of the academic and UNSW. More recently, I co-wrote a chapter for a book titled "Lobbying the Autocrat: The Dynamics of Policy Advocacy in Non-Democracies", detailing how societies can actively shape and influence authoritarian states to achieve favourable policy outcomes using technologies. The book is published in 2023.
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Memberships and Engagement
- Speaker, "Holding Ground: Where should women take up space?" 2022 UNSW ASEAN Conference
- Panel speaker, "Boundaries of IS Research" at 2021 Australasian Conference on Information Systems
- Speaker, "Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through Information Systems in Africa" at 2021 Annual Seminar of the Southern African Chapter of the Association for Information SystemsÌý
- Co-organizer of the 12th Women in Asia Conference 2019 themed "Rising populism and gender inclusivity"
- Panel speaker, "Leading Digital Transformation" 2019 at the launch of UNSW AGSM's short courses
- Organizing committee and member of AIS Special Interest Group Social Inclusion 2017, 2018
- Plenary speaker, "Making a world of difference with FinTech", Singapore FinTech Festival 2017Ìý
- Plenary speaker, :Digital Technology for Inclusive Development", 2nd International Conference on Indonesian Economy and Development, Jakarta 2017
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In the Media
- SupChina 2020Ìý
- UNSW Newsroom 2019Ìý
- The Conversation 2016Ìý
- UNSW Newsroom 2016Ìý
- UNSW BusinessThink 2018
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My Research Supervision
- Vivian Zhou, Managing interdependencies in digital platforms
- Angtyasti Jiwasiddi, Digital nomadism
- Wilson Hua, Digital Entrepreneurship
- Giuseppe Daniele Ibello
- Doan Phuong Thao HoangÌý