The 50 most-cited articles in Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 2017

This study examines the role that business intelligence (BI) and communication technologies play in how firms may achieve organizational sensing agility, decision making agility, and acting agility in different organizational and environmental contexts. Based on the information-processing view of organizations and dynamic capability theory, we suggest a configurational analytic framework that departs from the standard linear paradigm to examine how IT’s effect on agility is embedded in a configuration of organizational and environmental elements. In line with this approach, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze field survey data from diverse industries. Our findings suggest equifinal pathways to organizational agility and the specific boundary conditions of our middle-range theory that determine what role BI and communication technologies play in organizations’ achieving organizational agility. We discuss implications for theory and practice and discuss future research avenues.

Success in the digital era at established companies depends on transforming how work is done to create digital workplaces and improve employee experience. This entails addressing two dimensions - responsive leadership and employee connectedness - with three design levers for each dimension. Based on the transformational journeys of three established companies, we show how digital workplaces drive success and how IT leaders play a critical role in the transformation. We provide recommendations for CIOs about to embark on workplace transformation journeys.Click here for podcast summary (mp3) Click here for free 2-page executive summary (pdf)Click here for free presentation slides (pdf)

The idea of interacting with computers through natural language dates back to the 1960s, but recent technological advances have led to a renewed interest in conversational agents such as chatbots or digital assistants. In the customer service context, conversational agents promise to create a fast, convenient, and cost-effective channel for communicating with customers. Although numerous agents have been implemented in the past, most of them could not meet the expectations and disappeared. In this paper, we present our design science research project on how to design cooperative and social conversational agents to increase service quality in customer service. We discuss several issues that hinder the success of current conversational agents in customer service. Drawing on the cooperative principle of conversation and social response theory, we propose preliminary meta-requirements and design principles for cooperative and social conversational agents. Next, we will develop a prototype based on these design principles.

A leading cause of security breaches is a basic human vulnerability: our susceptibility to deception. Hackers exploit this vulnerability by sending phishing emails that induce users to click on malicious links that then download malware or trick the victim into revealing personal confidential information to the hacker. Past research has focused on human susceptibility to generic phishing emails or individually targeted spear-phishing emails. This study addresses how contextualization of phishing emails for targeted groups impacts their susceptibility to phishing. We manipulated the framing and content of email messages and tested the effects on users’ susceptibility to phishing. We constructed phishing emails to elicit either the fear of losing something valuable (e.g., course registrations, tuition assistance) or the anticipation of gaining something desirable (e.g., iPad, gift card, social networks). We designed the emails’ context to manipulate human psychological weaknesses such as greed, social needs, and so on. We sent fictitious (benign) emails to 7,225 undergraduate students…

This study examines the role that business intelligence (BI) and communication technologies play in how firms may achieve organizational sensing agility, decision making agility, and acting agility in different organizational and environmental contexts. Based on the information-processing view of organizations and dynamic capability theory, we suggest a configurational analytic framework that departs from the standard linear paradigm to examine how IT’s effect on agility is embedded in a configuration of organizational and environmental elements. In line with this approach, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze field survey data from diverse industries. Our findings suggest equifinal pathways to organizational agility and the specific boundary conditions of our middle-range theory that determine what role BI and communication technologies play in organizations’ achieving organizational agility. We discuss implications for theory and practice and discuss future research avenues.

Sharing economy platforms combine organizational and market mechanisms in innovative ways to gain competitive advantages over incumbents. These mechanisms are combined on two key dimensions: tight or loose control over participants, and high or low rivalry between participants. We call the resulting four sharing economy models "Franchiser," "Principal," "Chaperone" and "Gardener." Each model focuses on a different value proposition and strategic intent, but they all exploit the growing fluidity of organizational boundaries. Understanding the sharing economy in these terms enables businesses to identify, and respond to, the threats and opportunities provided by sharing economy platforms. The lessons learned from our research will help businesses to engage with the sharing economy.

Individuals make increasingly more decisions on screens, such as those on websites or mobile apps. However, the nature of screens and the vast amount of information available online make individuals particularly prone to deficient decisions. Digital nudging is an approach based on insights from behavioral economics that applies user interface (UI) design elements to affect the choices of users in digital environments. UI design elements include graphic design, specific content, wording or small features. To date, little is known about the psychological mechanisms that underlie digital nudging. To address this research gap, we conducted a systematic literature review and provide a comprehensive overview of relevant psychological effects and exemplary nudges in the physical and digital sphere. These insights serve as a valuable basis for researchers and practitioners that aim to study or design information systems and interventions that assist user decision making on screens.

Health consumers such as patients and caregivers often join virtual health communities (VHCs) to seek and provide health-related information and emotional support. To do so, they converse with other individuals in platforms such as public discussion boards and blogs. During these online conversations, people may communicate their personal health information (PHI) to others. A potential driver for this form of revealing PHI is the immediate positive outcomes that it can provide for contributors and the community. PHI disclosure, however, can entail privacy risks and concerns for community members, which may ultimately hamper their participation in those communities. Moreover, one’s emotional attachment to a VHC (namely, affective commitment) may influence one’s PHI sharing behaviors in that community. Thus, to understand how various factors impact communicating PHI in public VHC discussions, we drew on the privacy calculus model and the notion of affective commitment, developed a theoretical model, and empirically tested the model. To do so, we administered a survey to individuals…

In this study, we draw on the structurational model of technology in an institutional setting to investigate how top management affects the development of a firm’s business intelligence (BI) capability. We propose a multiple mediator model in which organizational factors, such as user participation and analytical decision making orientation, act as mediating mechanisms that transmit the positive effects of top management championship to advance a firm’s BI capability. BI capability has two distinct aspects: information capability and BI system capability. Drawing on data collected from 486 firms from six different countries, we found support for the mediating effects of top management championship through user participation and analytical decision making orientation. These findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of how firms can develop BI capability. This study is one of the first to comprehensively investigate the antecedents of BI capability.

In the last couple of years, organizations have demonstrated an increased willingness to exchange information and knowledge regarding vulnerabilities, threats, incidents and mitigation strategies in order to collectively protect against today’s sophisticated cyberattacks. As a reaction to this trend, software vendors started to create offerings that facilitate this exchange and appear under the umbrella term “Threat Intelligence Sharing Platforms”. To which extent these platforms provide the needed means for exchange and information sharing remains unclear as they lack a common definition, innovation in this area is mostly driven by vendors and empirical research is rare. To close this gap, we examine the state-of-the-art software vendor landscape of these platforms, identify gaps and present arising research perspectives. Therefore, we conducted a systematic study of 22 threat intelligence sharing platforms and compared them. We derived eight key findings and discuss how existing gaps should be addressed by future research.

This paper analyzes employee competencies for employees with higher education in Industry 4.0. An Industry 4.0 competency model based on a behavioral oriented approach concerning three variants, namely Information Systems, Information Technology and Engineering is developed by extending the SHL Universal Competency Framework through a structured literature review and focus groups with academic staff. The presented study contributes to research by providing a starting-point for further research regarding employee competencies for Industry 4.0. It contributes to practice as the provided competency model can be applied to Industry 4.0 job descriptions.

FinTechs are companies that combine technological and financial attributes in their business models. In recent years, the rise of FinTechs has attracted much attention since they challenge incumbent financial service companies including the traditional banking model. In this paper, we aim to contribute to a better understanding of this phenomenon. Therefore, we develop a taxonomy of FinTech business models following a theoretically grounded and empirically validated approach for identifying and defining underlying business model elements. After developing our taxonomy, we use a clustering-based approach to identify business model archetypes on which to showcase our results, re-examine the assumptions made during taxonomy development, and validate the presented findings. Based on the gained insights, we discuss implications for research, practice and policy makers, as well as directions for future research.

Big data has managed in a very short time to dominate the interest of researchers and managers, vastly changing the way information is generated and used in decision making. Nevertheless, there has been disproportionate focus on the technical aspects of this emerging technology, and limited attention on other relevant organizational elements. Past research in IT business value has demonstrated that investments alone do not generate business value; rather, firms need to develop idiosyncratic and difficult to imitate capabilities. Drawing on the resource based view and dynamic capabilities view of the firm, this study examines the resources that are necessary to develop a big data analytics capability, identifies the organizational capabilities they enable, and determines factors that moderate or condition the value of a big data analytics capability. Employing a multiple case study approach on six international firms, we develop a deeper understanding of the importance of big data analytics resources and the mechanisms through which they leveraged towards the strengthening of…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are one of the new technologies with new complicated features, that are emerging in a fast pace. Although these technologies seem to be extensively adopted, people do not intend to use them in some cases. Technology adoption has been studied for many years, and there are many general models in the literature describing it. However, having more customized models for emerging technologies upon their features seems necessary. In this study, we developed a conceptual model involving a new system quality construct, i.e., interaction quality, which we believe can better describe adoption of AI-based technologies. In order to check our model, we used a voice assistant system (VAS) technology as an example of this technology, and tested a theory-based model using a data set achieved from a field survey. Our results confirm that interaction quality significantly affects individual’s trust and leads to adoption of this technology.

The diffusion of new digital technologies renders digital transformation relevant for nearly every industry. Therefore, the maturity of firms in mastering this fundamental organizational change is increasingly discussed in practice-oriented literature. These studies, however, suffer from some short-comings. Most importantly, digital maturity is typically described along a linear scale, thus assuming that all firms do and need to proceed through the same path. We challenge this assumption and derive a more differentiated classification scheme based on a comprehensive literature review as well as an exploratory analysis of a survey on digital transformation amongst 327 managers. Based on these findings we propose two scales for describing a firm’s digital maturity: first, the impact that digital transformation has on a specific firm; second, the readiness of the firm to master the upcoming changes. We demonstrate the usefulness of this two scale measure by empirically deriving five digital maturity clusters as well as further empirical evidence. Our framework illuminates the…

An unexplored gap in IT adoption research concerns the positive role of shared benefits even when personal information is exposed. To explore the evaluation paradigm of shared benefits versus the forfeiture of personal information, we analyze how utility consumers use smart metering technology (SMT). In this context, utility companies can monitor electricity usage and directly control consumers’ appliances to disable them during peak load conditions. Such information could reveal consumers’ habits and lifestyles and, thus, stimulating concerns about their privacy and the loss of control over their appliances. Responding to calls for theory contextualization, we assess the efficacy of applying extant adoption theories in this emergent context while adding the perspective of the psychological ownership of information. We use the factorial survey method to assess consumers’ intentions to adopt SMT in the presence of specific conditions that could reduce the degree of their privacy or their control over their appliances and electricity usage data. Our findings suggest that, although the…

Because of its potentially disruptive influence on business models (BMs), blockchain technology has sparked a lively debate among researchers. Our Delphi study sets out to explore the impact of blockchain in payments, which represents a major cornerstone of banking and the cradle of this technology. The results, grouped around four areas of thoughts, indicate that blockchain allows the offering of new services and renders some of the current ones obsolete. This consequently impacts the financial structure of firms in the payments industry and further generates great potential for new BMs while making some existing ones obsolete. Eventually, new players, which are better able to leverage the po-tential of blockchain, will give a strong impulse to this development. Our findings contribute to the literature by providing new insights about the impact of innova-tive technologies on BMs and have further practical implications by presenting a better understanding of future BMs in payments.

Social networking services (SNS) are platforms to form and manage personal connections and create a foundation for human relationships. Intending to identify why, how, and for what outcome users use SNS, this study contributes to the body of knowledge on SNS by analyzing how motivation, participation, and performance are related to each other in the SNS context. Drawing on a theoretical perspective of the motivation-participation-performance framework, we identify four significant why motivations (i.e., vertical social, horizontal social, hedonic, and utilitarian motivations), two main ways (how) of participation (i.e., sharing and collaboration), and two ultimate benefits (for what outcome) of SNS use (i.e., personal and job performance). The analyzed results of empirical data collected from SNS users indicate that the identified motivations significantly influence participation in sharing and collaboration activities on SNS and that SNS participation significantly affects personal and professional/job-related performance. This study contributes to theory by providing a…

Every 10 years there has been a significant evolution in computer-based support for decision making. The next cycle, or generation, is due in the early 2020s and is starting to emerge. While this new cognitive generation has several important characteristics, the most significant will be the widespread use of artificial intelligence. This article describes the cognitive generation and provides recommendations for how companies should prepare for it.Click here for podcast summary (mp3) Click here for free 2-page executive summary (pdf)Click here for free presentation slides (pdf)

Digitalization does fundamentally impact firms’ strategy develop-ment. With the fusion of IT and business strategy, Digital Business Strategy (DBS) creates the foundation for digital business models [1]. In this paper, we develop a DBS framework, based on a structured review of 21 industry reports. From this analysis, we yield 8 generic dimensions with a total of 40 critical suc-cess factors (CSFs) for DBS. The CSFs represent a rich set of actions specific to DBS and to the design of business models in the digital business environment. The discussion shows that academic research is lagging behind in contributing to DBS. Future research is suggested to further formalize the concept of DBS and to create a better understanding about how firms can successfully establish DBS.

Financial technology (FinTech) is the new business model and technology which aims to compete with traditional financial services and blockchain is one of most famous technology use of FinTech. Blockchain is a type of distributed, electronic database (ledger) which can hold any information (e.g. records, events, transactions) and can set rules on how this information is updated. The most well-known application of blockchain is bitcoin, which is a kind of cryptocurrencies. But it can also be used in many other financial and commercial applications. A prominent example is smart contracts, for instance as offered in Ethereum. A contract can execute a transfer when certain events happen, such as payment of a security deposit, while the correct execution is enforced by the consensus protocol. The purpose of this paper is to explore the research and application landscape of blockchain technology acceptance by following a more comprehensive approach to address blockchain technology adoption. This research is to propose a unified model integrating Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) model and…

Adaptive gamification is an emerging and fast-growing research stream, that enhances traditional gamification approaches with user-centered, personalized and adaptive incentive mechanisms, tailored to a specific characteristic of different users and contexts. While game-like elements have been successfully applied to increase end-user engagement, satisfaction and task performance in different domains, the effectiveness has often been mixed, highly context specific and varied among individuals. In order to understand how adaptive gamification approaches can be developed that overcome such problems, we have conducted a systematic literature review that identifies main issues and challenges in current literature on adaptive gamification. The analysis corpus is composed of 43 identified studies and includes supporting theoretical contributions from related research areas. The performed analysis provides several contributions. First, a conceptual matrix of adaptive gamification design is proposed that identifies major dimensions of current approaches and classifies these accordingly.…

Firms eager to succeed in the sharing economy are encouraged to imitate the strategies and business models of successful businesses like Airbnb and Uber. Yet they often ignore the lessons from sharing economy firms that failed with similar business models. Our analysis of several failed firms has identified common causes of failure, and the associated risks, when competing in the sharing economy. An illustrative case study shows that a hybrid business model can significantly reduce the inherent risks and can lead to sustainable growth in the sharing economy.Click here for free presentation slides (pptx)

The blockchain has reached the tip of a global hype across a variety of industries. The potential of this technology, inter alia building the fundament of Bitcoin, is assumed to be immense and disruptive – particularly for the financial industry. FinTech start-ups as well as established players however are just about to explore the true potential of blockchain technology as the fundament of (financial) markets. Before this backdrop, Information Systems research is making valuable contributions to the field by integrating the technical view on blockchain with interdisciplinary research approaches. Our contribution to the growing body of Information Systems literature in the context of the blockchain is twofold: First, we conduct a comprehensive literature review of the most relevant and recent IS research on blockchain. Second, based on the findings of our review, we build on existing research and propose a Blockchain Market Engineering Framework, which can support researchers as well as practitioners in analyzing and designing the elements of blockchain-based markets on an…

AI, robotics, and machine learning are impacting the field of sales and marketing in an unprecedented way.A perfect storm is brewing!On one hand, online retail stores like Amazon are crushing the bricks and mortar stores.Sales and marketing professionals in bricks and mortar stores are facing a grim future.On the other hand, AI, robotics, and machine learning are replacing sales and marketing professionals in online stores.In fact, salespersons and marketers are predicted to be among the first to be replaced by robots.In a face-to-face environment, human may still prefer to interact with another human.In a virtual environment or a non-face-to-face context, human would care less about who or what is on the other end of the line or responding to his/her online queries.This research will be a longitudinal case study to analyze the evolving nature of sales and marketing field.

Maturity models have become important aids to support process improvement. However, researchers have frequently criticized the many business process maturity models (BPMMs) for differing in quality, which creates a demand for comparing and evaluating these models. This paper describes a well-founded, ranked, and weighted set of critical criteria for BPMMs that are most important to prospective users. The paper also demonstrates how this set can serve as a standard or guideline for designing BPMMs. In evaluating the used sample of BPMMs against the set of criteria, we reveal gaps and shortcomings of current BPMMs, make suggestions for raising the quality of BPMMs, and highlight future research avenues.

Much has been published about developing a cybersecurity curriculum for institutes of higher learning (IHL). Now that a growing number of IHLs globally offer such programs, a need exists on how to guide, maintain, and improve the relevancy of existing curricula. Just as cybersecurity professionals must hone their skills continually to keep up with a constantly shifting threat landscape, cybersecurity programs need to evolve to ensure they continue to produce knowledgeable graduates. In this regard, professional certifications in the cybersecurity industry offer an opportunity for IHLs to maintain a current curriculum. Governing bodies that manage professional certifications are highly motivated to ensure their certifications maintain their currency in the competitive marketplace. Moreover, employers who hire security professionals look for certifications in assessing a candidate’s overall credentials. This paper attempts to fill a void in the literature by exploring the use of professional certifications as helpful input to shaping and maintaining a cybersecurity curriculum. To this…

To master the challenges of a digital transformation and to systematically address IT’s multifaceted transformative impacts on an organization’s inner and outer environments, top management is increasingly formulating and implementing a digital transformation strategy (DTS). To date, there have been few details of DTS formation concerning its underlying processes and activities. In this study, an interpretive case study approach is employed and DTS formation is investigated from a process/activity perspective. By using an activity-based process model that builds on IS strategizing, an in-depth case study at a large financial services provider was conducted. The results show that this DTS was predominantly shaped by a diversity of emergent strategizing activities through a bottom-up process and prior to the introduction of a holistic approach by top management. Top management then sought to formalize emergent strategy contents by formulating and implementing a DTS that comprised a shared target picture, distinct digital transformation governance, and measures to increase the share of…

Virtual Reality (VR) has started to diffuse into the market. Research can accompany this process by providing insights into adoption of the technology. However, although first studies have been conducted early, there are few empirical findings shedding light on issues of acceptance and use of VR. This is because the used models often suffer from omissions or only partially cover important variables for distinct characteristics of the technology, especially immersion, presence, and interactivity. Additionally, the applied variables are occasionally incorrectly specified. To lay a better foundation for investigating adoption and diffusion of VR, we explore relevant influence factors based on insights from previous works and a qualitative study with 20 participants. Besides issues of misspecification, our findings show that many contextual factors have been neglected. Moreover, we identify content quality, initial excitement, isolation, and distraction as new potentially relevant factors.

Enterprises have begun to derive value from big data, but many challenges remain. This article reports how Lufthansa successfully discovered big data value and addressed the technical complexities, and used big data as the basis for renovating its traditional business model to one that embraces customers as value co-creators. From Lufthansa's experience, we identify the challenges and critical success factors for innovating with big data and navigating through uncharted waters. The key is to shift the focus from technology to business values.Click here for podcast summary (mp3) Click here for free 2-page executive summary (pdf)Click here for free presentation slides (pdf)

With a number of refugees around the world reaching disastrous proportions, there is a growing pressure to understand which measures are effective in promoting social inclusion of refugees in their new homes. Considering an exemplary IT-savviness of the current refugee wave, there is a growing hope in the power of Social Media and other Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in supporting integration processes. Contributing to this discourse, in this study we build on the qualitative analysis of fifteen interviews with Syrian refugees in Germany. Based on the capability approach, our findings reveal dependencies between properties of ICTs and their use, ICT-enabled capabilities relevant for refugees, and the corresponding contribution of ICTs to the processes of social inclusion. On the theoretical level, our findings extend current understanding of the ICT effects on the processes of social inclusion in the refugee context. From the practical standpoint, our findings provide actionable recommendations for policy-makers in their efforts to achieve integration.

Design Science Research (DSR) is a popular new research approach and paradigm, for which a number of research methodologies have been developed. One of the challenges facing researchers wanting to apply this new approach is the choice of research methodology. In this paper we give an account of six DSR methodologies and we compare them using a Design Science Research Methodology Comparison Framework that we adapted from an existing Information Systems Development Methodology Comparison Framework. Based on the outcomes of the comparison, we develop a set of technological rules that forms a contingency-based framework to support Design Science Researchers in choosing an appropriate and well-suited DSR methodology, depending on the contingencies of the situation at hand.

A globally ageing population is more frequently required to utilize information systems as caregiving agencies and government policies adapt newer technologies to sustain efficiency. This unique user group commonly has difficulty with the solutions presented to them, and recent studies have focused on establishing the causes of these difficulties and possible solutions to them. However, these approaches are spread over a variety of technology domains (e.g. Mobile, Web, Desktop) and there seems to be little alignment between them, despite some obvious overlaps. In this paper, we conducted a systematic literature review to provide a structured overview of the current state of the literature regarding user interface development for elderly users over a variety of domains. Possibilities for future research and significant findings are also discussed.

Word co-occurrences in text carry lexical information that can be harvested by data-mining tools such as latent semantic analysis (LSA). In this research perspective paper, we demonstrate the potency of using such embedded information by demonstrating that the technology acceptance model (TAM) can be reconstructed significantly by analyzing unrelated newspaper articles. We suggest that part of the reason for the phenomenal statistical validity of TAM across contexts may be related to the lexical closeness among the keywords in its measurement items. We do so not to critique TAM but to praise the quality of its methodology. Next, putting that LSA reconstruction of TAM into perspective, we show that empirical data can provide a significantly better fitting model than LSA data can. Combined, the results raise the possibility that a significant portion of variance in survey based research results from word cooccurrences in the language itself regardless of the theory or context of the study. Addressing this possibility, we suggest a method to statistically control for lexical closeness.

DevOps, originated in the context of agile software development, seems an appropriate approach to enable the continuous delivery and deployment of working software in small releases. Organizations are taking significant interest in adopting DevOps ways of working. The interest is there, however the challenge is how to effectively adopt DevOps in practice? Before disembarking on the journey of DevOps, there is a need to clearly understand the DevOps concepts, practice, tools, benefits and underlying challenges. Thus, in order to address the research question in hand, this paper adopts a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach to identify, review and synthesize the relevant studies published in public domain between: 2010-2016. SLR approach was applied to initially identify a set of 450 papers. Finally, 30 of 450 relevant papers were selected and reviewed to identify the eight key DevOps concepts, twenty practices, and a twelve categories tools. The research also identified seventeen benefits of using DevOps approach for application development and encountered four known…

Using the natural resource-based view (NRBV) and signaling theory, we conducted an event study using the Fama-French four-factor (FFM4) model to determine how shareholders react to company announcements about adopting information technology (IT) to address environmental issues. We found that green IT announcements generate positive abnormal returns and increase share trading volume. Initiatives that use IT to support decision making (ITDSS) cause positive stock market reactions. Firms with good environmental performance records enjoy positive market returns from ITDSS and direct IT assets and infrastructure (ITASSETS) announcements. In contrast, shareholders react negatively to announcements regarding sustainable products and services (SPDTSVC). Combining the NRBV with signaling theory provides deeper theoretical insights than either theory alone. The findings could serve as the basis for further research and theory development on the different types of green IT and impacts on market value. The results help explain how firm characteristics and different types of green IT…

The sociotechnical paradigm legitimates our discipline and serves as core identity of IS. In this study, we want to focus on IS-induced human behavior by introducing a process model for nudging in IS. In behavioral economics, the concept of nudging has been proposed, which makes use of human cognitive processes and can direct people to an intended behavior. In computer science, the concept of persuasion has evolved with similar goals. Both concepts, nudging and persuasion, can contribute to IS research and may help to explain and steer user behavior in information systems. We aim for an integration of both concepts into one digital nudging process model, making it usable and accessible. We analyzed literature on nudging and persuasion and derived different steps, requirements, and nudging elements. The developed process model aims at enabling researchers and practitioners to design nudges in e.g. software systems but may also contribute to other areas like IT governance. Though the evaluation part of our study has not yet been completed, we present the current state of the process…

Technological innovation combined with entrepreneurial mindset can transform industry structures and incumbent businesses. We focus on the financial services industry, where the phenomenon of FinTech is shaking the established, traditional players and according to many experts is able to totally transform this business sector. A proven method that allows incumbent companies to sense efficiently their business environment and utilize other stakeholders in order to become agile to such changes is the utilization of open innovation. The open innovation mechanism helps incumbent firms to work with a group of talents or entrepreneurial teams or startups to develop applications and new digital busi-ness activities in order to achieve digital transformation. Through an open innovation case study, this paper tries to provide evidence of the benefits and chal-lenges raised by the digital transformation in the well-established sector of financial services. Partici-pating actively as organizers and facilitators of the open innovation initiative helped us obtain expo-sure to incumbent companies…

Organizations’ increasing reliance on externally produced information, such as online user-generated content (UGC) and crowdsourcing, challenges common assumptions about conceptual modeling in information systems (IS) development. We demonstrate UGC’s societal importance, analyze its distinguishing characteristics, identify specific conceptual modeling challenges in this setting, evaluate traditional and recently proposed approaches to modeling UGC, propose a set of conceptual modeling guidelines for developing IS that harness structured UGC, and demonstrate how to implement and evaluate the proposed guidelines using a case of development of a real crowdsourcing (citizen science) IS. We conclude by considering implications for conceptual modeling research and practice.

In this paper, we study the online health information use behavior of people with physical disabilities. Drawing on rational choice theory and IS success model, we develop a contextualized research model to explain how individuals’ level of physical disability moderates the effects of object- and outcome-based beliefs. We empirically tested the model with survey data from 243 online users with physical disabilities. The results show that perceived benefit enhances, whereas perceived risk reduces, online health information use. Information quality and system quality increase perceived benefit and mitigate perceived risk. In addition, we found that accuracy, completeness, currency, and transparency of online health information predict information quality, whereas accessibility, navigability, and readability of online health information predict system quality. More importantly, we found that physical disability weakens the effect of information quality on perceived risk, strengthens the effect of system quality on perceived risk, and strengthens the effect of perceived benefits on…

Blockchain technologies paired with smart contracts exhibit the potential to transform the global insurance industry. The recent evolution of smart contracts and their fast adoption allow to rethink processes and to challenge traditional structures. Therefore, a special focus is on the analysis of the underlying technology and recent improvements. Further, we provide an overview of how the insurance sector may be affected by blockchain technology. We emphasize current challenges and limitations through analyzing two promising use cases in this area. We find that realizing the full potential of the blockchain technology requires overcoming several challenges including scalability, the incorporation of external information, flexibility, and permissioning schemes.

The business model (BM) concept has gained increasing attention and popularity in both practice and research. In this context, the term “digital BM” emerged as a real buzzword, even though there still seems to be little consensus on what this term actually means and how it can be conceptualized. For example, most existing conceptualizations do not take into account the specific features of digital BMs or present domain-specific taxonomies of such BMs. To address this shortcoming, our study reviews prior literature and follows established guidelines to develop a taxonomy of digital BMs as they relate to both born-online and born-offline companies. To illustrate the usefulness of our taxonomy, we present four mini-cases and classify their digital BMs along the taxonomy dimensions. Our study contributes to the literature by furthering our understanding of the digital BM concept as well as by strengthening the conceptual basis for future research in the area.

Partial least squares (PLS) path modeling has been widely and dominantly used in the field of Information Systems (IS) during decades. The usage and prescriptions for performing PLS path modeling has been recently examined, debated, and improved, which have generated substantial changes, contributions, and developments (e.g., composite models, confirmatory composite analysis, bootstrap-based test of overall model fit evaluation) on a separate manner that requires a holistic piece of work to guide IS scholars. This paper introduces PLS path modeling to be skilled to perform and report a high quality PLS analysis by following the latest suggested standards. We provide a constructive and illustrative example on a model on business value of social media in companies using data simulated for 300 observations to explain the latest contributions in PLS path modeling. The key contribution of this manuscript is the description, position, explanation, development, and illustration at the user-level, of the when, why, and how to perform a high-quality PLS estimation by following the latest…

Websites commonly use animation to capture the attentional resources of online consumers. While prior research has focused on the effects of animation on animated banner ads, limited research has examined the effects of animation on other items on the same webpage. Drawing from psychological theories that the amount of an individual’s attentional resources may vary under different conditions, this study focuses on the effects of animation on how individuals allocate attentional resources to both the animated item and the remaining non-animated items. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment to follow online consumers’ visual attention while they performed two types of online shopping tasks: browsing and searching tasks. The results showed that a product item that used animation led to increased visual attention to all items on a webpage, which suggests that the amount of attentional resources increases when a webpage includes animation. Meanwhile, animation influenced how individuals allocate their attentional resources such that it increased visual attention on the animated item at…

Uncertainty in crises often leads to knowledge gaps, which can be bridged through people’s communication, resulting in sensemaking. Because research dealing with the identification of roles to examine how they guide sensemaking is almost non-existent, this paper seeks to clarify this problem. In the context of crisis communication related to the Brussels bombings in 2016, first social network analyses are conducted to identify influential users and their role. Second, content and sensemaking analyses are performed to determine what kind of content diffuses through them to contribute to sensemaking. The results indicate that frequently retweeted users (information starters) as well as those with the most followers (amplifiers) guide the gap bridging through tweeting and retweeting new information. Furthermore, users who have the potential to bridge different communities (transmitters) shared many opinions, leading to sensemaking differently. These first research insights provide practitioners in role-based, target-oriented communication with coding schemes for further crisis…

By the end of 2017 more than 33 million voice-based devices will be in circulation, many of which will include conversational assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. These devices require a significant amount of personal information from users to learn their preferences and provide them with personalized responses. This creates an interesting and important tension: the more information users disclose, the greater the value they receive from these devices; however, due to concerns for the privacy of personal information, users tend to disclose less information. In this study, we examine the role of reciprocal self-disclosure and trust within the novel and emerging context of conversational assistants. Specifically, we investigate the effect of conversational assistants’ self-disclosure on the relationship between users’ privacy concerns and their self-disclosure. Further, we explore the mechanism through which self-disclosure by conversational assistants influences this relationship, namely, the role of cognitive trust and emotional trust.

Over the last decade, quantitative text mining approaches to content analysis have gained increasing traction within information systems research, and related fields, such as business administration. Recently, topic models, which are supposed to provide their user with an overview of themes being dis-cussed in documents, have gained popularity. However, while convenient tools for the creation of this model class exist, the evaluation of topic models poses significant challenges to their users. In this research, we investigate how questions of model validity and trustworthiness of presented analyses are addressed across disciplines. We accomplish this by providing a structured review of methodological approaches across the Financial Times 50 journal ranking. We identify 59 methodological research papers, 24 implementations of topic models, as well as 33 research papers using topic models in In-formation Systems (IS) research, and 29 papers using such models in other managerial disciplines. Results indicate a need for model implementations usable by a wider audience, as well as the…

This study investigates how fake news shared on social media platforms can be automatically identified. Drawing on the Elaboration Likelihood Model and previous studies on information quality, we develop and test an explorative research model on Facebook news posts during the U.S. presidential election 2016. The study examines how cognitive, visual, affective and behavioral cues of the news posts as well as of the addressed user community can be used by machine learning classifiers to identify fake news fully automatically. The best performing configurations achieve a stratified 10-fold cross validated predictive accuracy of more than 80%, and a recall rate (share of correctly identified fake news) of nearly 90% on a balanced data sample solely based on data directly available on Facebook. Platform operators and users can draw on the results to identify fake news on social media platforms - either automatically or heuristically.

Conversational agents interact with users via the most natural interface: human language. A prerequisite for their successful diffusion across use cases is user trust. Following extant research, it is reasonable to assume that increasing the human-likeness of conversational agents represents an effective trust-inducing design strategy. The present article challenges this assumption by considering an opposing theoretical perspective on the human-agent trust-relationship. Based on an extensive review of the two conflicting theoretical positions and related empirical findings, we posit that the agent substitution type (human-like vs. computer-like) represents a situational determinant on the trust-inducing effect of anthropomorphic design. We hypothesize that this is caused by user expectations and beliefs. A multi-method approach is proposed to validate our research model and to understand the cognitive processes triggered by anthropomorphic cues in varying situations. By explaining the identified theoretical contradiction and providing design suggestions, we derive meaningful…