Settlement Sector Organizations and Advanced Digital Technologies’ Adoption

Project Lead

Team Members

Marie-Jeanne Blain, Mylene Coderre, Capucine Coustere, Bryanna Losinger-Ross (external link) , Pedro Seguel, Nadya Zezyulina (external link) , sasha skaidra

Sub-Theme: ADTs in Immigration Governance

The sub-theme 'ADTs in Immigration Governance' considers the impact of advanced digital technologies on immigration governance in the past, present, and future, in Canada and in comparative perspective.

Objective

This project will consider how Canada’s settlement sector negotiates the rise of advanced digital technologies (ADTs). As the main implementers of the country’s immigration program, settlement organizations already engage with government mandated technologies and are increasingly innovating in the use of ADTs to provide services to immigrants. They must do so, however, with limited funding, high staff turnovers and with clients with different levels of technological literacy.

Research Questions

How do settlement sector organization in Canada negotiate the rise of ADTs?

Methodology

The design of the survey instrument will be done in consultations with representatives of the settlement sector and the project will seek to maximize knowledge transfer activities to these organizations.

Status

The project is currently ongoing and, building on a new literature review and discussions with settlement partners, is set to explore a gap in research identified by practitioners.

Expected completion date: December 2026

Outcomes

Past events and presentations:

“The digital im/migrant: IS in migration governance, work, and life”, presented by Pablo Seguel, Mireille Paquet, Aadesh Niraula, Mathieu Coderre, Émilie Baril, and Soraia Monteiro, Americas Conference on Information Systems, Montreal, Canada, August 14–16, 2025
“Identifying and analyzing immigrant-oriented organizations in Canada: An LLM approach to boost third sector research”, presented by Pablo Seguel, Shahrzad Farahani, and Amin Majd, Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) 2025 Conference, Waterloo, Canada, May 17–19, 2025
“Identifying and analyzing immigrant-oriented organizations in Canada: Expanding computational approaches for policy and research”, presented by Pablo Seguel, Amin Majd, and Shahrzad Farahani, Bridging Divides Research Dialogue Series, Toronto, Canada, February 6, 2025