New technology deployment and corporate responsibilities in the metaverse

The term “metaverse” came to the fore in 2021 when Facebook rebranded its corporate identity to Meta and signalled its intention to invest at least USD 10 billion in developing the concepts and related products that year. However, there is still little consensus in defining what constitutes the metaverse, although there is a widespread, though not universal, agreement that it will bring a wide range of benefits across society. More specifically, the advent and continuing evolution of the metaverse has strategic and operational implications for, and impacts on, industry and business at large. Adopting an inductive, interpretivist approach, this exploratory research article presents case examples of the guidance on the responsible development of the metaverse provided by two IT business services companies. This article identifies the major risks and responsibilities associated with the metaverse and assesses how companies might address these responsibilities. Very little research has been published in this area, and this article attempts to make a small contribution to filling this gap in the literature. This article finds that these responsibilities are largely in line with those currently associated with corporate digital responsibility, and concludes that the strategic impact and extent of regulatory change will depend on the nature of the metaverse that materialises in the forthcoming decade