Alexander Andreas Neff

Developing a maturity model for service systems in heavy equipment manufacturing enterprises

There is no common understanding of service systems in industry goods companies.We develop a maturity model (MM) for appropriate IS support of service systems.The model is structured along integrating service offerings into the business model.The MM measures performance and installed base management (organisational elements).IT elements are mobile workforce management, data integration and data quality. Heavy equipment manufacturing firms are increasingly challenged by the integration of service planning and execution in their established product-centred information systems (IS) environment. Despite a few standardisation efforts, there is no common understanding of service systems in industry goods companies and the corresponding requirements for the appropriation of information systems. We address this need by developing a maturity model. The design of the model is grounded in extant literature, focus group and case study research involving eleven organisations over 1.5 years. The evaluation confirms that the maturity model makes a novel and useful contribution to the design of service systems.

Towards an Application Life-Cycle Approach for Selective Outsourcing

Selective outsourcing has been proven to be more likely to succeed in archiving efficiency targets. For application services outsourcing (ASO), selecting applications to outsource is critical for successful outsourcing. Thus, the implementation of application portfolio management (APM) is essential, in order to provide the necessary transparency throughout the entire life-cycle of an application. APM enables the classification of applications which guides the outsourcing decision. Furthermore, the application life-cycle perspective allows a differentiated and comprehensive view, which is required for selecting applications for ASO. In combination with common selection criteria identified by prior research, we studied the decision to in-or outsource an application. We evaluated outsourcing decisions in a comparative cross-case study with 37 German and Swiss companies. Our research revealed that the life-cycle perspective allows a differentiated view on outsourcing decisions.

IT Governance in Multi-business Organizations: Performance Impacts and Levers from Processes, Structures, and Relational Mechanisms

IT governance is more than ever recognized as a panacea by IT managers to ensure effective and efficient IT operation in multi-business organizations. The aim of this paper is to analyze the performance impact of IT governance. In order to do so, the study takes the resource-based perspective, and integrates the economic theory of complementarities and the concept of relatedness. The proposed increase in business process performance is grounded in the generation of sustainable competitive advantage. The framework is investigated by using five exploratory case studies in multi-business organizations. The results suggest that IT governance is positively related to business process performance through the mediators of IT relatedness and business process relatedness. Furthermore, IT governance levers have been identified which might significantly increase business process performance.

Achieving IT‐based synergies through regulation‐oriented and consensus‐oriented IT governance capabilities

This study aims at exploring the IT governance capabilities that enable organizations to achieve IT‐based synergies. Following existing work on the contextualization of theories and drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV), we develop an RBV of IT‐based synergies in two steps. First, we adopt existing context‐specific constructs and relationships from prior work on IT governance capabilities, IT relatedness, and synergies to develop a preliminary contextualization of the RBV. Second, to further refine our theoretical framework, we conduct an exploratory field study that includes interviews with 26 CIOs and other IT executives from 21 multibusiness firms. Our findings suggest that IT governance capabilities lead to IT‐based synergies through IT relatedness and business process relatedness. We found regulation‐oriented IT governance capabilities (IT roles and IT processes) to increase IT relatedness, while consensus‐oriented IT governance capabilities (IT groups and relational capabilities) had a positive effect on business process relatedness. Our results suggest that, in isolation, IT and business process relatedness lead to IT cost synergies, while collectively enabling IT‐induced business synergies. Our study is among the first to treat IT relatedness as an endogenous construct and to explicitly integrate business process relatedness into the IT governance domain. Our context‐specific decomposition of IT governance capabilities helps to better explain their links to IT and business process relatedness. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the tension between IT‐based synergies and business‐IT alignment. Decision‐makers are guided in developing IT governance capabilities to achieve IT‐based synergies.

Context Dependency in Design Research

Design research at Stanford’s Center for Design Research (CDR) has always been user-centric. Over time, the focus has been extended beyond user needs and product specifications to include the “human-machine-experience”. A recent wave of research on the autonomous-car/driver experience has focused our attention on the role of “complex adaptive machine systems” in defining the human-experience. The pursuit of a unified model for interaction design has yielded a surprising three-factor concurrent experience framework. Our intention in this article is to give readers insights into context dependency as the defining requirement of the model for autonomous-car/driver experience. As design researchers, we have observed that communication between the autonomous-car and driver takes place through three concurrent dialog channels: information, emotion and learning exchange.