Yogesh K. Dwivedi, Laurie Hughes, Abdullah M.

Baabdullah, Samuel Ribeiro-Navarrete,

Mihalis Giannakis, Mutaz M. Al-Debei, Denis Dennehy, Bhimaraya Metri, Dimitrios
Buhalis, Christy M.K. Cheung, Kieran Conboy, Ronan Doyle, Rameshwar Dubey, Vincent
Dutot, Reto Felix, D.P. Goyal, Anders Gustafsson, Chris Hinsch, Ikram Jebabli,
Marijn Janssen, Young-Gab Kim, Jooyoung Kim, Stefan Koos, David Kreps, Nir Kshetri,
Vikram Kumar, Keng-Boon Ooi, Savvas Papagiannidis, Ilias O. Pappas, Ariana
Polyviou, Sang-Min Park, Neeraj Pandey, Maciel M. Queiroz, Ramakrishnan Raman,
Philipp A. Rauschnabel, Anuragini Shirish, Marianna Sigala, Konstantina Spanaki,
Garry Wei-Han Tan, Manoj Kumar Tiwari, Giampaolo Viglia, Samuel Fosso Wamba,
Metaverse beyond the hype: Multidisciplinary perspectives on emerging challenges,
opportunities, and agenda for research, practice and policy,
International Journal of Information Management,
Volume 66,
2022,
102542,
ISSN 0268-4012,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102542.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401222000767)
Abstract: The metaverse has the potential to extend the physical world using
augmented and virtual reality technologies allowing users to seamlessly interact
within real and simulated environments using avatars and holograms. Virtual
environments and immersive games (such as, Second Life, Fortnite, Roblox and
VRChat) have been described as antecedents of the metaverse and offer some insight
to the potential socio-economic impact of a fully functional persistent cross
platform metaverse. Separating the hype and “meta…” rebranding from current reality
is difficult, as “big tech” paints a picture of the transformative nature of the
metaverse and how it will positively impact people in their work, leisure, and
social interaction. The potential impact on the way we conduct business, interact
with brands and others, and develop shared experiences is likely to be
transformational as the distinct lines between physical and digital are likely to
be somewhat blurred from current perceptions. However, although the technology and
infrastructure does not yet exist to allow the development of new immersive virtual
worlds at scale - one that our avatars could transcend across platforms,
researchers are increasingly examining the transformative impact of the metaverse.
Impacted sectors include marketing, education, healthcare as well as societal
effects relating to social interaction factors from widespread adoption, and issues
relating to trust, privacy, bias, disinformation, application of law as well as
psychological aspects linked to addiction and impact on vulnerable people. This
study examines these topics in detail by combining the informed narrative and
multi-perspective approach from experts with varied disciplinary backgrounds on
many aspects of the metaverse and its transformational impact. The paper concludes
by proposing a future research agenda that is valuable for researchers,
professionals and policy makers alike.
Keywords: Avatars; Augmented reality; Extended reality; Metaverse; Second life;
Virtual reality; Virtual world