Voice to the Voiceless

From using information technology to combat the horrors of human trafficking to creating a framework for understanding why some groups are targeted on social media, Stacie Petter studies how people use and manage IT in organizational settings or in broader society.

If the particulars of the research sound beyond the bounds of typical business school scholarship, Petter agrees. But they are not beyond the scope of Wake Forest University, whose motto is Pro Humanitate (“for humanity”).

“I think because Pro Humanitate is so much of what we talk about here and what the university embodies, no one questions the research I’m doing or why it belongs in the business school. I’m focusing on the impact of technology, and we have a shared language across the school of business, across the entire University: Let’s do things for the greater good and leave the world better than we found it,” says Petter, who is the Citibank/Calloway Fellow and Professor of Management Information Systems at the Wake Forest School of Business.

Petter’s research, including early work in more traditional IT subjects, has been published in the European Journal of Information Systems, MIS Quarterly and the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Much of her current research is funded by National Science Foundation grants.

Petter was drawn to her research into how IT could be used to fight human trafficking through a series of encounters beginning several years ago. Before joining the Wake Forest faculty in 2022, she met a librarian who was trying to map and understand human trafficking on a global scale. Later, she learned of a trafficking victim at a local high school. She started getting involved in local organizations that combat the problem and help victims. There were other connections, as well.

“So, I started working on human trafficking from a service perspective, as a concerned community member. It took some time to figure out that there was a way to approach it from a research perspective,” she says.

Her scholarship has focused on how law enforcement can use IT to stop human trafficking — and also the impediments officers encounter in continuing to use the technology beyond initial training sessions. “It goes back to the quintessential issue of what we study in our field of information systems: how and why people use technology, but also what creates resistance to using technology — even when they see the value — and how we overcome that,” she says. “Technology can be a piece of the solution. But there’s a lot of other institutional issues that create these barriers for why people aren’t using technology effectively.” Another line of Petter’s inquiry looks at indicators or patterns in online commercial sex advertisements that could potentially identify human trafficking victims.

Yet another realm focuses on how technology is used to channel and share information, such as a report of possible human trafficking. “Often the problem is not that we necessarily need better technology,” Petter says. “It’s usually more about needing better processes about how technology is being used.”

Petter has always enjoyed technology, playing video games as a kid and appreciating when her parents bought her the latest computer. She worked in the IT department at Berry College while earning her undergraduate degree, and after a few post-graduate corporate jobs, earned an MBA with a concentration in Computer Information Systems and a Ph.D. in Business Administration with a concentration in Computer Information Systems.

She still occasionally plays video games, but now also studies them to research how gaming is tied to workplace skills and how gamification can be used to encourage people to perform certain tasks or meet goals. “But how do we do that in a process that is fair and not manipulative?” she asks.

“If I look at my current research,” Petter says, “it’s about trying to find ways to make an impact, to try to give a voice to the voiceless. I want to try to find better ways to empower people with technology and find ways to minimize the harm.

Stacie Petter

Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, Peter C. Brockway Chair of Strategic Management; Professor

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