Emerging technologies promise operational improvements, but their scaling often generates complex trade-offs that become more acute across organisational boundaries and levels. The special issue addresses operational tensions—persistent conflicts between competing demands such as centralisation versus decentralisation, efficiency versus flexibility, and autonomy versus control—that emerge when technologies reconfigure processes, resource allocation and governance. These tensions extend beyond individual implementations to affect supply networks, infrastructure systems and institutional contexts, with implications for resilience, governance and sustainability.
The call invites research examining how organisations navigate these tensions at three levels: within organisations, across supply networks and platforms, and at system-wide scales involving regulation, cybersecurity and resource constraints. Particular interest lies in contexts facing disruption or resource scarcity, such as healthcare and humanitarian operations, where technology adoption may enhance visibility and coordination yet intensify tensions around resource allocation and inter-organisational accountability.