Information Systems and e-Business Management最新文献

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) apps help their users use and combine multiple mobility services, such as car-sharing and public transport. Many mobility providers are considering how to position themselves in this changing environment and whether to enter the service ecosystem of one or more MaaS app providers. To explain the development and emergence of service ecosystems, we develop a midrange theory by complementing the service-dominant logic perspective with Activity Theory. We test our theoretical model by analyzing empirical evidence collected in interviews with experts from German public transport organizations, some of which are entering or have entered the service ecosystem of the Moovel Group GmbH, which provides the Reach Now app. Our results indicate that it is the current development phase of service ecosystems that influences whether a mobility provider joins the service ecosystem of a MaaS app provider, a MaaS app provider enters the mobility provider’s service ecosystem, or both service ecosystems remain unconnected. Furthermore, our study results indicate that shared objects play a decisive role in connecting activity systems and thereby influence the development and emergence of service ecosystems.

The rapid evolution of information technology (IT) platforms has enabled the collection of vast volumes of data for decision support. These technologies have facilitated an increase in information sharing and collaboration, promising to accelerate problem-solving and foster innovation. However, despite the advancements in this sophisticated and evolving technological landscape, scholars have raised concerns that the collective attention of organizations may be compromised primarily due to the overwhelming volume of information that employees are exposed to daily. Given the limited nature of human attention, this excessive information can impair decision-making and restrict an organization’s capacity to achieve performance enhancements. To understand the IT impact on collective attention, we conducted a case study in a multinational organization in the engineering and electronics sector. Our participants described how an IT platform designed to encourage information sharing and collaboration affected collective mindfulness of opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Despite an innovation culture and careful implementation, the IT platform induced a level of information sharing and collaboration that overwhelmed collective attention, leading to employees failing to achieve the anticipated performance improvements. Our findings caution organizations about how emerging technologies may induce attention overload, undermine collective attention, and detract from collective mindfulness of business opportunities. Our research findings confront the prevalent assumption that an abundance of high-quality information invariably leads to enhanced organizational performance. The article concludes by proposing a research agenda aimed at defining guidelines for the adoption of collaborative IT platforms that prevent overloading collective attention.

A freemium strategy represents a popular business model for cloud-empowered services, in which a vendor gives away basic services for free and seeks to monetize premium services. The economic viability of freemium models depends on the vendor’s ability to convert free service users into paying customers. Different from prior studies that mainly examine users’ intention to pay, this study examines both users’ intentions to pay and their actual purchase behaviors by extending the IS success model to propose a software as a service (SaaS) success model. Our proposed model emphasizes two freemium-specific, user-oriented factors: (1) the fit between perceived value of provided services and user needs of premium services as a contingent factor, and (2) price consciousness resulted from free-mentality of SaaS as a moderating factor to understand how individual evaluations of provided services might lead to purchases of premium services. We empirically examine the proposed SaaS success model with data from 638 active SaaS users. The results indicate that SaaS users’ intentions to pay and actual purchase behaviors are shaped by their perceived value of and satisfaction with the provided services, moderated by price consciousness. Furthermore, the fit between perceived value and user needs has an important, contingent role in influencing users’ intentions to pay and purchase behaviors.

Leading management consulting firms serve as key influencers in disseminating fashionable management ideas and aiding organizations through their change initiatives. Organizations often seek guidance from these firms to implement the management idea of digital transformation (DT), enticed by the potential benefits this idea promises. This study examines the reports of six leading management consulting firms to assess how they shape the disseminating discourse on DT. Applying the performance-structure-technology framework, we unveil several blind spots in the DT consulting discourse. Our document analyses reveal that leading management consulting firms, in their discourse on DT, neglect comprehensive strategic alignments in the form of people, competitive context, and technological methods and structures. This study contributes to the literature on change management, management ideas, and the broader information systems literature on DT by providing insights into the faddishness and semblance of leading consulting firms’ discourse on DT, while also shedding light on the nuances of DT consulting and its potential for improvement.

Changing business environments challenge and motivate organizations to transform. To remain competitive, organizations need to embrace these dynamics and make radical changes to how work is performed. Business process management (BPM) as a holistic management discipline offers mature methods and end-to-end management activities. However, it is subject to the tension between stability and change. While change through the improvement of existing business processes is well understood, the implementation and scaling of novel business processes have been neglected in BPM research. Hence, this paper proposes business process ramp-up management (BPRUM) as a new cross-cutting capability area for contemporary and future BPM and explores relevant sub-capabilities. Our work synthesizes insights from an exploratory interview study with 21 subject matter experts to advance the understanding of BPM as a corporate capability regarding the implementation and scaling of novel processes. As a result, this study illustrates how BPRUM adds to modern BPM and presents 40 action-oriented sub-capabilities that provide hands-on knowledge and practical guidance for effective BPRUM. Thereby, it serves as a foundation for further theorizing on process ramp-up and for structuring discussions among BPM practitioners.

Companies that frequently use robotic process automation often encounter difficulties in maintaining their RPA portfolio. To address these problems and reduce time spent investigating erratic behavior of RPA bots, developers can benefit from exploring methods from process sciences and applying them to RPA. After a selection process, we examine how variability and deviations impact robotic process automation. Indicators of statistical dispersion are chosen to assess variability and analyze RPA bot behavior. We evaluate the performance of RPA bots on 12 processes, using statistical dispersion as a measure. The results provide evidence that variability is an undesirable form of erratic behavior in RPA, as it strongly correlates with the success rate of the bots. Importantly, the results also show that outliers do not affect the success rate of RPA bots. This research suggests that variable analysis can help describe the behavior of RPA bots and assist developers in addressing erratic behavior. Additionally, by detecting variability, we can more effectively handle exceptions in RPA.

Prescriptive Analytics Systems (PAS) represent the most mature iteration of business analytics, significantly enhancing organizational decision-making. Recently, research has gained traction, with various technological innovations, including machine learning and artificial intelligence, significantly influencing the design of PAS. Although recent studies highlight these developments, the rising trend focuses on broader implications, such as the synergies and delegation between systems and users in organizational decision-making environments. Against this backdrop, we utilized a systematic literature review of 262 articles to build on this evolving perspective. Guided by general systems theory and socio-technical thinking, the concept of an information systems artifact directed this review. Our first objective was to clarify the essential subsystems, identifying 23 constituent components of PAS. Subsequently, we delved into the meta-level design of PAS, emphasizing the synergy and delegation between the human decision-maker and prescriptive analytics in supporting organizational decisions. From this exploration, four distinct system archetypes emerged: advisory, executive, adaptive, and self-governing PAS. Lastly, we engaged with affordance theory, illuminating the action potential of PAS. Our study advances the perspective on PAS, specifically from a broader socio-technical and information systems viewpoint, highlighting six distinct research directions, acting as a launchpad for future research in the domain.

RPA’s potential for efficiency improvement highly recommends the analysis of its applicability to the organizations’ processes. This paper analyses the value of RPA as its impact on the main activity groups in the value chain: Procurement, Internal Operations and Marketing and Sales. The analysis of RPA’s contribution for each of the activity groups addresses a research question through an exploratory approach: “How does RPA create value for organizations and which RPA features are critical for such value creation?”. The data was collected through interviews, analyzed using content analysis, and shows that RPA has impacts on both downstream and internal dimensions. Regarding upstream dimension further research is required to ascertain RPA’s potential.

Business process management (BPM) aims to help organizations manage their business processes. Startups differ from established firms as they go through different phases of prospecting, developing, and exploiting the new venture. Startups begin to focus on the organization of their processes after they reach the exploiting (scale-up) phase. Digital startups are unique as information technology (IT) becomes the business model itself. These unique characteristics raise a question: how do digital startups at the scale-up phase manage their business processes? To answer the question, two case studies on digital startups in logistics providers are conducted. The case studies are designed to be inductive in nature. Grounded Theory Method (GTM) is used for data collection and analysis. Data is collected via interviews and supporting documents. The BPM capability provides the basis to create guiding questions for the interviews. The interview results are analyzed with a grounded theory approach of open, theoretical, and selective coding. To derive a new theory, cross-case analyses are conducted. Findings from two digital startups allow us to identify important categories that play a role in how digital startups manage their activities: industry and stakeholders, digital offerings, organic structure, process management, performance measurement, employee training and culture. We further theorize that the competitive nature of startups makes them customer-centric and focus on agility. Digital startups continuously improve their product and conduct adaptive process experimentation involving a cycle of process identification, IT-based process implementation and process adaptation. The supporting capabilities that enable the process management of digital startups are agile people and culture and organic structure.