The 50 most-cited articles in Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 2020

This essay derives a schema for specifying design principles for information technology-based artifacts in sociotechnical systems. Design principles are used to specify design knowledge in an accessible form, but there is wide variation and lack of precision across views regarding their formulation. This variation is a sign of important issues that should be addressed, including a lack of attention to human actors and levels of complexity as well as differing views on causality, on the nature of the mechanisms used to achieve goals, and on the need for justificatory knowledge. The new schema includes the well-recognized elements of design principles, including goals in a specific context and the mechanisms to achieve the goal. In addition, the schema allows: (1) consideration of the varying roles of the human actors involved and the utility of design principles, (2) attending to the complexity of IT-based artifacts through decomposition, (3) distinction of the types of causation (i.e., deterministic versus probabilistic), (4) a variety of mechanisms in achieving aims, and (5) the…

Cognitive computing systems (CCS) are a new class of computing systems that implement more human-like cognitive abilities. CCS are not a typical technological advancement but an unprecedented advance toward human-like systems fueled by artificial intelligence. Such systems can adapt to situations, perceive their environments, and interact with humans and other technologies. Due to these properties, CCS are already disrupting established industries, such as retail, insurance, and healthcare. As we make the case in this paper, the increasingly human-like capabilities of CCS challenge five fundamental assumptions that we as IS researchers have held about how users interact with IT artifacts. These assumptions pertain to (1) the direction of the user-artifact relationship, (2) the artifact’s awareness of its environment, (3) functional transparency, (4) reliability, and (5) the user’s awareness of artifact use. We argue that the disruption of these five assumptions limits the applicability of our extant body of knowledge to CCS. Consequently, CCS present a unique opportunity for novel…

What are the potential futures of knowledge work, given its transformation into almost exclusively digital work during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis? Our ongoing research program on digital nomadism informs a Hegelian dialectical analysis and an envisioning of the future(s) of knowledge work. We contrast the Factory paradigm of work (thesis), exemplified by the “ideal type” of the 9-to-5 corporate worker, with the Hypermobility paradigm of work (antithesis), exemplified by the ideal type of the digital nomad. Reflecting on this contrast, we envision the possible digital futures of knowledge work as a continuous spectrum, ranging from a future based on the Digital Taylorism paradigm of work to a future based on the Worker Autonomy paradigm of work. These futures are discussed in terms of different approaches to organizing work, working with technology, delineating work/life boundaries, and provisioning the social safety net. IS researchers are uniquely positioned to perform research and inform decision-making in all these areas, and thus make a difference in determining whether the…

In the realm of smart services, smart personal assistants (SPAs) have become a popular medium for value co-creation between service providers and users. The market success of SPAs is largely based on their innovative material properties, such as natural language user interfaces, machine-learning-powered request handling and service provision, and anthropomorphism. In different combinations, these properties offer users entirely new ways to intuitively and interactively achieve their goals and, thus, co-create value with service providers. But how does the nature of the SPA shape value co-creation processes? In this paper, we look through a functional affordances lens to theorize about the effects of different types of SPAs (i.e., with different combinations of material properties) on users' value co-creation processes. Specifically, we collected SPAs from research and practice by reviewing scientific literature and web resources, developed a taxonomy of SPAs' material properties, and performed a cluster analysis to group SPAs of a similar nature. We then derived 2 general and 11…

The issue of employee noncompliance with information security policies is universal. Noncompliance increases the possibility of invasive information security threats, which can result in compromised organizational assets. Although research has empirically revealed a relationship between structural empowerment and employee intention to comply with information security policies, the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship has received limited attention. This study conceptualizes the role of psychological empowerment as a mediator between structural empowerment and the intention to comply with information security policy. It suggests that empowerment work structures, which include information security education, training, and awareness (SETA), access to information security strategic goals, and participation in information security decision-making all increase employees’ feelings of being psychologically empowered, which consequently leads to positive intentions to comply with information security policy.

New forms of digital trace data are becoming ubiquitous. Traditional methods of qualitative research that aim at developing theory, however, are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of such data. To remedy this situation, qualitative researchers can engage not only with digital traces, but also with computational tools that are increasingly able to model digital trace data in ways that support the process of developing theory. To facilitate such research, this paper crafts a research design framework based on the philosophical tradition of pragmatism, which provides intellectual tools for dealing with multifaceted digital trace data, and offers an abductive analysis approach suitable for leveraging both human and machine pattern recognition. This framework provides opportunities for researchers to engage with digital traces and computational tools in a way that is sensitive to qualitative researchers’ concerns about theory development. The paper concludes by showing how this framework puts human imaginative capacities at the center of the push for qualitative researchers to engage…

Over the past several decades, digital technologies have evolved from supporting business processes and decision-making to becoming an integral part of business strategies. Although the IS discipline has extensive experience with digitalization and designing sociotechnical artifacts, the underlying design knowledge is seldom systematically accumulated across different settings and projects, and thus cannot be transferred and reused in new contexts. Motivated by this gap in the research, we turn to the data management field, where reference models have become important sources of descriptive and prescriptive domain knowledge. To study knowledge accumulation in reference models, we analyze the revelatory and extreme case of a longitudinal DSR process involving more than 30 European companies and 15 researchers from three universities over 12 years. The insights into reference model development allow us to theorize about knowledge accumulation mechanisms from both a process perspective and an artifact perspective: First, we observe that knowledge accu­mulation occurs in stages in…

We propose a set of methodological principles and strategies for the use of trace data, i.e., data capturing performances carried out on or via information systems, often at a fine level of detail. Trace data comes with a number of methodological and theoretical challenges associated with the inseparable nature of the social and material. Drawing on Haraway and Barad’s distinctions among refraction, reflection, and diffraction, we compare three approaches to trace data analysis. We argue that a diffractive methodology allows us to explore how trace data are not given but created through the construction of a research apparatus to study trace data. By focusing on the diffractive ways in which traces ripple through an apparatus, it is possible to explore some of the taken-for-granted, invisible dynamics of sociomateriality. Equally important, this approach allows us to describe what distinctions emerge and when, within entwined phenomena in the research process. Empirically, we illustrate the guiding methodological principles and strategies by analyzing trace data from Gravity Spy, a…

Context is usually conceptualized as “external” to a theory or model and treated as something to be controlled or eliminated in empirical research. We depart from this tradition and conceptualize context as permeating processual phenomena. This move is possible because digital trace data are now increasingly available, providing rich and fine-grained data about processes mediated or enabled by digital technologies. This paper introduces a novel method for including fine-grained contextual information from digital trace data within the description of process (e.g., who, what, when, where, why). Adding contextual information can result in a very large number of fine-grained categories of events, which are usually considered undesirable. However, we argue that a large number of categories can make process data more informative for theorizing and that including contextual detail enriches the understanding of processes as they unfold. We demonstrate this by analyzing audit trail data of electronic medical records using ThreadNet, an open source software application developed for the…

The Business Model Canvas project cleared the path for the development of a new tool type that we refer to as visual inquiry tools. Such tools build on design thinking techniques to allow management practitioners to jointly inquire into specific strategic management problems. As the interest in and the emergence of visual inquiry tools gain momentum, it is important to formalize the design knowledge that future designers can build on to develop such tools. Thus, we propose a design theory for visual inquiry tools based on the design knowledge accumulated within and across three projects: the Business Model Canvas, the Value Proposition Canvas, and the Team Alignment Map. We outline the design principles (among others) that should be followed for developing visual inquiry tools for other strategic management problems. Our study addresses the lack of guidance in the development of visual inquiry tools and the lack of methodological guidance in design science research on how to theorize and formalize knowledge across multiple projects. We provide a methodological process for analyzing…

Literature reviews play a key role in academic research by describing, understanding, explaining, and testing the constructs and theories within a particular topic area. In recent years, various commentaries, debates, and editorials in the information systems (IS) field’s top journals have highlighted the importance of a trustworthy literature review process, including detailed discussions on systematicity and transparency. Although the reproducibility of a literature review has also been noted as important, it remains less recognized because of several terminology-related issues. This ambiguity could result in misunderstandings regarding the degree of trust that should be placed in a literature review’s process. In this research essay, we seek to clarify what makes a literature review reproducible, how it is distinct from related concepts, and when achieving it is desirable and feasible. We propose a series of clarifications and remedies to assist scholars within and outside the IS field in the preparation of stand-alone reviews.

IT users often make information security-related decisions in complex and multidimensional environments, which could lead to phenomena like behavioral anomalies. For instance, under uncertain circumstances, users may discount their own limited information about a security technology and make their adoption decisions based on what the majority of users’ decisions are in this regard. In this context, imitation can become a legitimate and rational strategy for making security-related decisions. Current behavioral security theories generally assume that users possess sufficient information about security technologies before making security-related decisions. This theory assumption limits our understanding of how security decisions are made in various real-world circumstances. Our research is focused on security behaviors under uncertain circumstances. We investigate how providing popularity information can trigger herd behavior and can subsequently influence security behaviors. We also provide insights into security-related decisions that are influenced by herd mentality and investigate…

Compulsive smartphone use has attracted extensive social attention because of serious and even fatal outcomes associated with it. However, there has been little theory-driven research systematically investigating the mechanism of compulsive behavior in smartphone use. Although a significant line of literature exists in the area of personal-computer based technology addiction, the mechanism underpinning compulsive smartphone use differs significantly because the unique and specific characteristics of smartphones have given rise to a fundamentally different usage context with new usage behavioral patterns. In order to comprehensively theorize this issue, we first defined compulsive behavior in smartphone use, focusing on mobile social networking services (SNSs) in particular, and then extended the stimulus-response-reinforcement framework to investigate the theoretical network of compulsive use of mobile SNSs. We used online survey data from 368 active mobile SNS users in China to empirically test and validate the proposed model and hypotheses. Our results indicate that both positive…

Since the last few years, the topic of Digital Twins receives considerable attention in research and with practitioners. A Digital Twin describes the connection between physical and virtual objects. However, a unified definition for Digital Twins is still missing. While existing literature reviews mainly focus on the application of Digital Twins, this review is analyzing the explanations, definitions, and elements of the Digital Twins described in the literature. Based on an examination of 233 papers, this paper proposes a multi-dimensional taxonomy of a Digital Twin and sorts the most common definitions. The taxonomy developed in this contribution allows classifying the various definitions and concepts of Digital Twins that emerged in literature over the years. That may help the reader to gain profound insights into the domain of Digital Twins.

Because use is the critical link between information technology (IT) investments and organizational performance, IS researchers have focused attention on the post-adoption phase—after organizational IT are installed and used by employees in their work. To that end, recent theoretical work introduced IT identity—representing the strength of individuals’ self-identification with an IT—as a means to explain richer, post-adoption, IT use behaviors. Utilizing multiple methods and surveys, and focused on use of two different technologies, this study develops theory-based measures to establish IT identity’s utility for expanding the understanding of post-adoption use. Results show IT identity predicts different IT use behaviors and richer forms of use. Further, IT identity maintains its predictive validity when embedded in a model with other predictors. Given the importance of such value-creating behaviors in today’s multi-functional-platform based IT environments, our findings suggest future research consider IT identity an instrumental part of models seeking to explain IT use in…

Organizations need to adjust their strategies due to a constantly changing digital environment and a competitive pressure of innovation. Previous literature showed that a lot of firms did not achieve digital maturity yet. With the help of a multiple-industry case study analysis of eight successful companies this paper identified the six dynamic capabilities (1) capabilities absorptive capacity, (2) agility and flexibility, (3) cross-functional collaboration, (4) innovation capability, (5) market orientation, and (6) relational capability as relevant dynamic capabilities during digital transformation. Additionally, (1) continuous learning and development, (2) ethics and data governance, and (3) a new digital leadership, as part of a digital culture, are relevant antecedents to achieve digital maturity. The findings of this paper contribute to information systems literature by providing a base for future empirical studies on the antecedents which lead to a successful guidance through digital transformation.

A Replication of Beyond the Turk: Alternative Platforms for Crowdsourcing Behavioral Research – Sometimes Preferable to Student Groups

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to take over the world in the next decade. Our current innovations and inventions are gearing up to clear the path for this to happen. While folks are excited and curious about this shift, it remains unclear how organizations and their employees feel about it. The goal of this research is to understand the factors that influence the adoption of AI techniques and technologies in organizations from an employee's perspective. To achieve this goal, the authors make use of grounded theory and semi-structured interviews. Discovering the positive or negative emergent factors that affect the adoption of AI in an organization can help the executives of the organization make design-specific policies for its implementation. Conducting this research from an employee's perspective is crucial since the employees are the ones that use AI techniques and technologies to meet their job responsibilities.

Robo-advisors promise to offer professional financial advice to private households at low cost. However, the automation of financial advisory processes to fully-digitalized services often goes hand in hand with a loss of human contact and lack of trust. Especially in an investment context, customers demand a human involved to ensure the trustworthiness of digitalized financial services. In this paper, we report the findings of a lab experiment (N=183) investigating how different levels of anthropomorphic design of a robo-advisor chatbot might compensate for the lack of human involvement and positively affect users’ trusting beliefs and likeliness to follow its recommendations. We found that the anthropomorphic design influences users’ perceived social presence of the chatbot. While trusting beliefs in the chatbot enhance users’ likeliness to follow the recommendation by the chatbot, we do not find evidence for a direct effect of social presence on likeliness to follow its recommendation. However, social presence has a positive indirect effect on likeliness to follow the…

Design science research strives to be practical and relevant. Yet few researchers have examined the extent to which practitioners can meaningfully utilize theoretical knowledge produced by design science research in solving concrete real-world problems. Are design theories developed by scientists readily amenable to application by practitioners? Does the application of a theory by practitioners always lead to the outcomes predicted (by the scientists)? We examine a particularly difficult challenge—ensuring that the development and deployment of an IT artifact by practitioners based on a design theory result in appropriate changes in the environment predicted by the design theory. As we show in our paper, a gulf exists between theoretical propositions and concrete issues faced in practice—a challenge we refer to as design theory indeterminacy. Design theory indeterminacy might result in considerable ambiguity when implementing a design theory in practice and reduce the potential relevance of information systems knowledge. In this paper, we articulate the problem of design theory…

Machine learning (ML) techniques are rapidly evolving, both in academia and practice. However, enterprises show different maturity levels in successfully implementing ML techniques. Thus, we review the state of adoption of ML in enterprises. We find that ML technologies are being increasingly adopted in enterprises, but that small and medium-size enterprises (SME) are struggling with the introduction in comparison to larger enterprises. In order to identify enablers and success factors we conduct a qualitative empirical study with 18 companies in different industries. The results show that especially SME fail to apply ML technologies due to insufficient ML knowhow. However, partners and appropriate tools can compensate this lack of resources. We discuss approaches to bridge the gap for SME.

Prior information security studies have largely focused on understanding employee security behavior from a policy compliance perspective. We contend that there is a pressing need to develop a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances that lead to employee commitment of deliberate and malicious acts against organizational digital assets. Drawing on routine activity theory (RAT), we seek to establish a comprehensive model of employee-committed malicious computer abuse (MCA) by investigating the motivations of the offenders, the suitability of the desired targets, and the effect of security guardianship in organizational settings. Specifically, we delineate the effects of the individual characteristics of self-control, hacking self-efficacy, and moral beliefs, as well as the organizational aspects of deterrence based on the routine activity framework of crime. We tested this research model using research participants holding a wide range of corporate positions and possessing varying degrees of computer skills. Our findings offer fresh insights on insider security threats,…

There is both a need and an opportunity to develop analytics-driven approaches to address many significant challenges facing society. Toward this end, this article presents an “ESG-ICE” framework that builds on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) perspectives by considering their interactions with desirable outcomes such as individual well-being, community welfare, and economic resilience (ICE). We then provide exemplars of research problems in energy, mobility, and health that can be positioned and understood through this lens so that they can be solved through analytics. Recognizing that addressing societal challenges through analytics presents unique methodological challenges, we highlight specific opportunities that emerge for the design of (1) new cyberphysical infrastructures, (2) smart markets and decision support systems, (3) hybrid predictive, prescriptive, and causal approaches, and (4) mechanisms that facilitate data sharing.

This study profiles the digital literacy of the freshmen at a higher education institute in Fiji. An online survey was designed to gather data from 1595 students, which reduced to 867 after data cleaning. The objective of this research study is to evaluate the digital literacy status of freshmen at a higher education institute and evaluate if there is any correlation between their literacies and their overall digital literacy. The digital literacy competencies of the freshmen were evaluated by using a newly designed Digital Literacy Scale (DLS). For each student, the literacy score for each component of digital literacy identified for this study (media, information, technology, computer, visual, and communication literacy) and the overall digital literacy was calculated using the DLS. The results show that the freshmen were highly digitally literate. The Cronbach alpha test showed that the newly designed DLS was reliable and had a high internal consistency. A correlation analysis – Spearman’s correlation was also carried out which indicated that the overall digital literacy of the…

The emergence of data ecosystems with platform-based infrastructures continuously demonstrate the potential of value creation based on data. In this context, data governance has become an emerging topic in recent IS literature as organizations require a more sophisticated approach over the management of their data assets. However, the implications of organizations interacting within new forms of inter-organizational collaborations have not been sufficiently explored. We first elaborate on the topic of data governance to derive intra- and inter-organizational characteristics of data governance. Using a case study approach, we examine three firms developing data-driven business models that rely on ecosystems in their business-to-business (B2B) operations. We analyze new implications arising to each individual with regard to data governance and indicate that data governance requires a broader research perspective, one that takes the dynamics outside a single organization in ecosystems into consideration.

Small and medium-sized businesses as well as individuals are increasingly using online crowdfunding platforms to raise funds in the fintech world. Creators of crowdfunding projects depend heavily on social networks like Facebook to publicize their projects. Social media activities such as “liking” on Facebook bring massive traffic to crowdfunding projects and attract contributions. Using data collected from Facebook and Kickstarter, our empirical tests demonstrate that social media activities significantly and positively impact the likely success of crowdfunding. Our duration model analysis reveals that the impact of social media activities on crowdfunding outcomes follows a J-curve in the temporal space. We explain the J-curve by identifying two important effects of social media activities throughout the crowdfunding process: a quality-signaling effect in the opening period and a herding effect in the closing period. Especially in the “last mile,” there is a strong herding effect that helps crowdfunding projects reach their respective fundraising goals. Our results offer useful…

Critical realism (CR) has been proposed as an alternative to positivist and interpretivist research in information systems. In recent years, there have been several articles that describe methodological guidelines for conducting CR-based empirical studies. These guidelines have been used by numerous researchers as the methodological underpinnings for empirical research articles in IS, particularly for case studies. As a result, CR-based research has evolved as these researchers address many of the challenges and issues associated with this approach. In this article, we present a review and synthesis of methodological and recent empirical CR literature. We identify the methodological advances and important gaps in the empirical research and present a set of state-of-the-art recommendations for conducting and evaluating critical realist research studies in IS.

Free telemedicine camps (telecamps) are emergent joint initiatives of healthcare organizations, national and local governments, and not-for-profit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with the goal of alleviating the health divide for underprivileged individuals in rural areas of less developed countries. Our study seeks to understand the effectiveness of physician-patient communication at telecamps with several salient characteristics: rural underprivileged patients, physicians in remote cities, and frugal telemedicine technology—specifically, videoconferencing—deployed in Hospitals on Wheels and appropriated by operators. We adopt a multiple-actor perspective, propose a decomposed affordance-effectivity framework, and combine variance and process perspectives to examine the phenomenon of interest. We collaborated with Apollo Hospitals, a leading hospital system in India, and collected multisource data from two major telecamps in rural South India. Based on an analysis of survey data from 216 telecamp participants through a variance perspective, we found support for the fit of…

Service innovation is critical to firms’ competitive advantage and, thus, firms desire to make their services increasingly innovative. However, the relationship between the innovativeness and performance of a new service is unclear. Conflicting findings and the related literature suggest that service innovativeness is multidimensional and its impact on performance could be nonlinear. However, limited research has studied these aspects, both theoretically and empirically. Furthermore, prior research has mainly considered customers as inputs to value creation, which may not capture their precise role. Drawing on service-dominant logic, we propose two dimensions of service innovativeness, namely novelty and intensity, which differentially influence the performance of a new service. We further posit that customers are part of the value cocreation process, thereby directly and indirectly affecting new service performance. The model was tested using a panel dataset of 234 mobile apps over 14 months. Results indicate important asymmetries in the impacts of novelty and intensity on mobile…

As of now, the academic community puts increasing attention on the ecosystem concept. Subsequently, a plethora of ecosystem conceptualizations emerges blurring the concept and making accurate utilization increasingly difficult. To address that issue, the study reports on an in-depth structured literature review following established, rigorous guidelines, with the goal in mind to structure and analyze the differing ecosystem conceptualizations and to produce a harmonized understanding of them. Based on the identified literature, we inductively derive mandatory and differentiating characteristics that are suitable to explain ecosystem configurations. Next, we use established clustering procedures to identify groups of ecosystems from the literature. From that, we propose five idealized types of ecosystems. The goal of the study is to provide the research community and practitioners with a conceptually sound understanding of different ecosystem types and, thus, giving them a tool to develop their own ecosystem approaches on them.

In this article, we explore the notion of “researcher perspective,” by which we mean the viewpoint from which the researcher observes phenomena in any specific research context. Inevitably, the adoption of a particular viewpoint means that the researcher privileges the interests of one or more stakeholders while downplaying the interests of other stakeholders. Preliminary empirical analysis of a corpus of 659 articles published in three separate years in the AIS Basket of Eight journals, undertaken in preparation for the present paper, revealed that around 90% of articles (1) adopted a single-perspective approach, (2) were committed solely to the interests of the entity central to the research design, and (3) considered only economic aspects of the phenomena investigated in the research. Taken together, we argue that these three characteristics are unhealthy for the discipline and are likely to lead to the neglect of important research opportunities. We suggest that the principle of triangulation be applied not only to data sources and research methods, but also to researcher…

Data are a new resource to generate novel value for customers and to extend existing traditional services with a digital component. The manufacturing industry, usually, is characterized by analog service offerings built around product sales and therefore misses new market opportunities. One reason for that is the lack of assistance in innovating new data-driven services. Thus, to address that issue, this research paper generates a taxonomy of data-driven services in manufacturing industries. We use the established theoretical framework Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) to conceptualize the role and nature of data in new service offerings. The taxonomy is grounded both theoretically through its link to the existing knowledge base and empirically through the analysis of 100 data-driven services drawn from Crunchbase. It serves as a scientific instrument to profoundly and explicitly describe data-driven services in manufacturing and gives companies significant insight to incorporate value creation through goal-oriented data utilization and service design.

The paper distinguishes two different types of innovative behaviors involving information technology (IT): innovative IT use (IU) and innovating with IT (IwIT). While the former focuses on changing the technology and the work process to better support one’s existing work goals, the latter focuses on using IT to develop new work-related goals and outcomes. Drawing on Parker’s theory of proactive behavior, this paper compares the motivational antecedents and consequences of these two innovative behaviors enabled by IT. Our model hypothesizes that three generic types of motivation differentially affect IwIT versus IU. The paper also explores the moderating role of slack resources on the effect of motivation on the two innovative behaviors. Data from a survey of 427 IT users from North American companies show that social motivation affects IwIT (but not IU); intrinsic motivation is positively related to IU (but not IwIT); and internalized extrinsic motivation affects both IU and IwIT. Further, the results indicate that the moderating role of slack resources on different motivational…

Juliet's soliloquy, in which she despondently ponders "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; … What's in a name?That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" (Shakespeare, 1984, p. 869), would have us believe that words are independent of the entity they represent and that by changing the word, the entity described by the word remains unchanged.Juliet laments that a mere word-in this case a namestands in the way of her happiness.Is not the word itself meaningless?Would that this were true.

he present study uses the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model to predict group members’ intentions (“we-intention”) to participate in using a social networking site (SNS) for collective action. Participants reported their beliefs about social influence processes, including their beliefs about subjective norms, group norms, and social identity; they also reported their beliefs about using an SNS for a charitable collective action, which was perceived as corporate social responsibility (CSR). The study applied an integrated research framework in the context of the Facebook group “KolorujeMY,” a group with an interest in supporting social causes in Poland. Our structural equation modeling results indicate that social identity has a positive and direct effect on we-intention to use SNS for collective action and that perceived CSR also had a positive and significant impact on we-intention. Similarly, we found that desire has a positive and significant effect on we-intention to use SNS for collective action. Our results also indicate that desire partially mediates the relationship between…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is said to incorporate enormous potential for reducing the operational costs of car manufacturers and their suppliers all over the globe. Nevertheless, recent studies suggest that many of them are still struggling with adopting it at large scale. Therefore, in this article we develop a research model explaining the decision-making of organisations from the automotive industry regarding the question whether to adopt AI for car (part) manufacturing purposes or not. To do so, we contextualise the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework by taking a multiple case study approach including 39 expert interviews in 25 different firms all over the globe. Based on that, we propose a research model that theorises 16 different context-specific factors that influence that decision. Four of them are already well-known from the TOE framework but are renamed for a better contextual accuracy, whereas twelve can be regarded as new in this contextualised setting. The proposed model addresses research gaps in both the organisational adoption research literature…

With the support of smart technology, IT-enabled services have become “smart” and have progressively disrupted existing markets. Ride-hailing services (RHSs) are widely regarded as representative of these IT-enabled services. However, few studies on IT-enabled services investigate how the technological attributes of smart technology influence service performance in a continuously changing environment. We developed our research model according to Wixom and Todd’s model, the literature on change management, and the literature on information system postadoption behavior. We conducted a large-scale field study by surveying 380 drivers from major metropolises in mainland China and a post hoc qualitative interpretation to validate our model. We found that smart technological attributes of RHS systems (i.e., monitoring, control, advisory support, and responsive support) positively influence functionality and content quality, which in turn influence service quality. In addition, service quality positively influences drivers’ postadoption attitudes and behaviors, including openness to RHS…

IT value research has witnessed growing interest in the use of joint IT resources and capabilities following recent shifts in market competition from the firm to the network level. Despite research efforts in this domain, there remain substantial inconsistencies in the IT value cocreation literature regarding the effect of interorganizational IT on business value and the role of methodological and contextual factors. Drawing on the resource-based view and the relational view of the firm, we conducted a meta-analysis to synthesize and integrate the body of knowledge of IT-based value cocreation. Our analysis of 80 studies, encompassing 21,843 observations, highlights the value-generating effect of four interorganizational IT capabilities: IT-based relation-specific assets, IT-based knowledge sharing, IT-based complementary capabilities, and IT-based governance. Insights from our preliminary meta-analysis reveal that contradictory findings are driven by the conceptualization of IT variables as interorganizational IT resources. A further moderator meta-analysis explains divergent…

Continuing digitalization and its impact on business models lead to various streams of literature that emerge parallelly and provide different types of digital business models (DBM's). Furthermore, it results in synonymously used terminology and concepts what leads to a lack of clarity. There is, therefore, a need to find a consensus of the Information Systems literature in order to provide a unifying understanding of DBM's and its adjacent concepts. Thus, our method of choice is a rigorous Systematic Literature Review. The in-depth analysis of 104 articles leads to a working definition of DBM's and three significant findings. First, we identified research streams of DBM the, so defined, generic subtypes, namely Data-Driven and Digital Platform Business Models and an additional hybrid type, the Data Platform Business Model. Second, we identified a conceptual hierarchy between the concepts, and third, as both subtypes are not exclusive, we propose a typology of DBM's whi ch is useful to map DBM's. © Proceedings of the 24th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems: Information…

The recent outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) brought with its public concerns and fears about a global epidemic. With the increase in the popularity, usage, and reach of social media, this research examined the early public outlook on COVID-19 using SM-Platform, Twitter.com. The current study employed a mixed-method approach in collecting and analyzing public tweets by combining quantitative sentiment analysis with a qualitative thematic analysis. Our results revealed positive sentiment prior to the spread of the disease. The sentiment then turned negative as the disease spread, accompanied by a large amount of fear as rumors. In a thematic analysis we also uncovered nine key topics on the disease including, but not limited to, prevention, symptoms and spread of disease. Our study will provide an understanding of social media and public health outbreak surveillance. The findings of the research revealed the usefulness of twitter mining to illuminate public health education.

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is significant in almost every industry. As many important decisions are now being automated by various AI applications, fairness is fast becoming a vital concern in AI. Moreover, the related literature and industry press suggest that AI systems are often biased towards gender. Thus, there is a need to better understand the contributing factors behind gender bias in AI, along with the current approaches taken to address it. Therefore in this paper, we aim to contribute to the emerging IS literature on AI by presenting a consolidated picture of the most often discussed contributing factors and approaches taken in relation to gender bias in AI in the multidisciplinary literature. Our findings indicates that the more frequently discussed contributing factors include lack of diversity in both data and developers, programmer bias, and the existing gender bias in society, now amplified through AI. Additionally, our findings indicate the most discussed approaches for addressing gender bias in AI include the implementation of diversity in society…

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have gained strong traction in the renewed global discourse on sustainability, and attribute a key role to digital technologies. Blockchain technology is now transitioning beyond the realm of cryptocurrencies applications, to embrace a wider array of applications, including the sustainability of supply chains and traceability of responsibly sourced goods. Despite the rise in the global agenda, and emerging research in other academic fields, Information Systems (IS) research on blockchain and sustainability is still scarce. Based on a review of empirical studies, we use the perspective of the 17 United Nations SDGs to map research on blockchain and sustainable development, and lay the ground for a research agenda in the IS field. Based on this agenda, we showcase the exploration of some of the proposed research questions in an ongoing research project on the use of blockchain in the lifestyle and design industry in Denmark.

As part of industry 4.0, many organizations feel the need to explore the possibilities artificial intelligence may provide for their businesses. Still, not every organization that implements or makes use of AI benefits in this way let alone extracts value from them. This paper aims to investigate the challenges associated with AI business value creation. Through a comprehensive analysis of the top AI actual use cases across 7 industries and a systematization of the existing literature, we formulated the challenges in deploying and reaping business value from AI at the organization-level. Six challenges of AI at organization-level have emerged from our analysis. They are AI business case, Relative benefits of AI, Top management support, Effective use of data, AI talent, and AI compatibility. Our work aims at contributing to the body of knowledge on AI technology at organization-level, and at guiding practitioners in identifying and overcome various challenges of AI.

Technological advancements have enabled the emergence of increasingly intelligent and autonomous support of private decision-making. Automated financial investing by robo-advisors is exemplary of this development. For the user to benefit from digital investment management, robo-advisors must reflect user preferences. Important robo-advisor characteristics are their level of automation, the degree of control they allow customers, and their transparency. However, suitable configurations along the characteristics have not yet been determined. Specifically, users value high financial performance while desiring control over investments, partly caused by cognitive bias. In case of algorithmic superiority to human decisions in this context, a performance-control dilemma occurs. In this study, we conduct a choice-based conjoint analysis to derive user preferences of robo-advisor configurations and investigate the potential of transparency to alleviate the performance-control dilemma. Results suggest that users prefer hybrid automation and high levels of control and transparency, supporting…

In response to the increasing prevalence of emerging infectious disease (EID) threats, individuals are turning to social media platforms to share relevant information in ever greater numbers. In this study, we examine whether risk perceptions related to user-generated content have dynamic impacts on social networking site (SNS) sharing behavior in different crisis stages. To answer this question, we applied psychometric analysis to evaluate how dread risk and unknown risk can characterize EID threats. Drawing broadly on the literature of risk perceptions, self-perception theory, and crisis stages, we relied on microblogs collected from Sina Weibo, utilizing the vector autoregression model to analyze dynamic relationships. We found that perceptions of dread risk have a dominant and immediate impact on SNS sharing behavior in the buildup, breakout, and termination stages of EID events. Perceptions of unknown risk have a dominant and persistent impact on sharing behavior in the abatement stage. The joint effect of these two types of risk perception reveal an antagonism impact on SNS…

The importance of data as the key resource in start-ups and traditional businesses rises steadily. Thus, traditional organizations need to adapt accordingly and develop adequate strategies to incorporate data into their value creation process. Creating value from data often requires collaboration between various actors with different requirements and individual objectives, in short, in an ecosystem. However, as of now, there are few studies investigating data ecosystems in-depth. Thus, we address that issue and report on a Design Science Research study developing a morphology of data ecosystems based both on a structured literature review and two explorative case studies conducted in traditional organizations. Therefore, we generate new knowledge through first-hand insights gained via use case studies over 18 months with practitioners and support these results with existing expertise in the scientific literature. We created a morphology to reveal key characteristics and elements of data ecosystems to develop a tool for companies and scientists alike to acquire a better understanding…

The rapid digitalization of products and services has given rise to smart, technological products and services in various industries. While researchers recognize the complexity of digital components embedded in smart services, there exists scarce research on the evolution of product development, smart technology’s use, and the mechanisms wherein changes in products and services are triggered and implemented. In this research, grounded on the theoretical basis of layered modular architecture, we study a digital venture in an event management industry and offer a substantive look at the three mechanisms—system-environment fitness, data exploitation, and user expansion—that are responsible for transforming smart technology from a conceptual idea into a real product and from a simple digital device into an integrated smart system. Our research findings offer theoretical insight into the dynamics and fluidity of mechanisms that are relevant to smart technology’s design, use, and outcomes.