Johannes Putzke

Co-authorship networks in electronic markets research

This article examines co-authorship networks of researchers publishing in Electronic Markets—The International Journal of Networked Business (EM). The authors visualize the co-authorship network and provide descriptive statistics regarding the degree to which researchers are embedded in the co-authorship network. They develop and test seven hypotheses associating the researchers’ embeddedness in the co-authorship network with the number of the researchers’ citations. Results indicate that author who publish co-authored articles in EM have their EM articles (whether co-authored or not) cited more frequently than those who publish EM articles only in their own names, and that the more they co-author the more they are cited because they are located in the center of a co-authorship network.

Studying Microscopic Peer-to-Peer Communication Patterns

This paper describes first results of an ongoing research effort using real time data collected by social badges to correlate temporal changes in social interaction patterns with performance of individual actors and groups. Towards that goal we analyzed social interaction among a team of employees at a bank in Germany, and developed a set of interventions for more efficient collaboration. In particular, we were able to identify typical meeting patterns, and to distinguish between creative and high-executing knowledge work based on the interaction pattern.

Measuring social capital in creative teams through sociometric sensors

We describe the results of an experiment capturing the face-to-face ‘honest signals’ of knowledge workers through sociometric badges. We find that collective creativity of teams is a function of the aggregated social capital of members. The higher it is, the higher their creative output. We collected communication data of 14 graduate students and their instructor during a one-week seminar, comparing it against the creative output of their teamwork. As a second component of social capital we also measured the level of trust team members show to each other through surveys. We find that the more team members directly interact with each other face-to-face, and the more they trust other team members, the more creative and of higher quality the result of their teamwork is.

Imitation and Quality of Tags in Social Bookmarking Systems - Collective Intelligence Leading to Folksonomies

Social bookmarking platforms often allow users to see a list of tags that have been used previously for the webpage they are currently bookmarking, and from which they can select. In this paper, the authors analyze the influences of this feature on the tag categorizations resulting from the collaborative tagging effort. The main research goal is to show how the interface design of social bookmarking systems can influence the quality of the collective output of their users. Findings from a joint research project with the largest Russian social bookmarking site BobrDobr.ru suggest that if social bookmarking systems allow users to view the most popular tags, the overall variation of keywords used that are assigned to websites by all users decreases.

Information Systems for “Wicked Problems”

The objective of this commentary is to propose fruitful research directions built upon the reciprocal interplay of social media and collective intelligence. We focus on “wicked problems” – a class of problems that Introne et al. (Künstl. Intell. 27:45–52, 2013) call “problems for which no single computational formulation of the problem is sufficient, for which different stakeholders do not even agree on what the problem really is, and for which there are no right or wrong answers, only answers that are better or worse from different points of view”. We argue that information systems research in particular can aid in designing appropriate systems due to benefits derived from the combined perspectives of both social media and collective intelligence. We document the relevance and timeliness of social media and collective intelligence for business and information systems engineering, pinpoint needed functionality of information systems for wicked problems, describe related research challenges, highlight prospective suitable methods to tackle those challenges, and review examples of initial results.

Adoption of Mass-Customized Newspapers: An Augmented Technology Acceptance Perspective

The authors propose an augmented version of the Technology Acceptance Model to examine the consumer acceptance of mass-customized (MC) newspapers. Model findings (n = 2,114) suggest that the customers willingness to invest effort for MC products is one of the main factors driving adoption. Furthermore, gender is found to moderate the relation between base category satisfaction (with the base category “newspaper”) and perceived usefulness of an individually printed daily newspaper.

Informationssysteme für „Wicked Problems“

ZusammenfassungMit unserem Forschungskommentar zeigen wir vielversprechende Forschungsrichtungen auf, die aus dem wechselseitigen Zusammenspiel von Social Media und Collective Intelligence hervorgehen. Wir konzentrieren uns auf sogenannte „Wicked Problems“ – eine Klasse von Problemen, „for which no single computational formulation of the problem is sufficient, for which different stakeholders do not even agree on what the problem really is, and for which there are no right or wrong answers, only answers that are better or worse from different points of view“ (Introne et al. in Künstl. Intell. 27:45–52, 2013). Wir argumentieren, dass insbesondere die Disziplin Wirtschaftsinformatik einen Beitrag zur Gestaltung geeigneter Systeme leisten kann und zwar aufgrund des Nutzens, der sich aus einer kombinierten Perspektive von Social Media und Collective Intelligence ableitet. Wir legen die Relevanz und Aktualität von Social Media und Collective Intelligence für die Wirtschaftsinformatik dar, schlagen erforderliche Funktionalitäten von Informationssystemen für Wicked Problems vor, beschreiben verwandte Themenfelder und Herausforderungen für die Forschung, identifizieren wissenschaftliche Methoden zu ihrer Lösung und führen konkrete Beispiele für erste Forschungsergebnisse an.AbstractThe objective of this commentary is to propose fruitful research directions built upon the reciprocal interplay of social media and collective intelligence. We focus on „wicked problems“ – a class of problems that Introne et al. (Künstl. Intell. 27:45–52, 2013) call „problems for which no single computational formulation of the problem is sufficient, for which different stakeholders do not even agree on what the problem really is, and for which there are no right or wrong answers, only answers that are better or worse from different points of view“. We argue that information systems research in particular can aid in designing appropriate systems due to benefits derived from the combined perspectives of both social media and collective intelligence. We document the relevance and timeliness of social media and collective intelligence for business and information systems engineering, pinpoint needed functionality of information systems for wicked problems, describe related research challenges, highlight prospective suitable methods to tackle those challenges, and review examples of initial results.

Analyse der Dynamik sozialer Netzwerke mit Social Badges

Die Struktur und Dynamik informeller Kommunikationsnetzwerke sind von zentraler Bedeutung fur das Funktionieren betrieblicher Arbeitsprozesse und beeinflussen die Leistungs- und Innovationsfahigkeit von wissensintensiven Organisationen. Das Management von Wissensnetzwerken und der ihnen innewohnenden Prozesse erlangt damit strategischen Rang in Unternehmen. Wahrend sich die meisten Fuhrungskrafte dessen bewusst sind, fehlt es haufig an Methoden und Verfahren, um die informelle Kommunikation in Wissensnetzwerken erfassbar zu machen und sie im Sinne der Ziele eines Unternehmens zu gestalten und zu fordern. Wir zeigen in diesem Beitrag, wie sich informelle Kommunikationsnetzwerke messbar machen lassen und wie ihr Einfluss auf die Leistung von Gruppen und der gesamten Organisation analysiert werden kann. Zudem prasentieren wir eine neue computerbasierte Methode zur Verbesserung und Gestaltung dieser Netzwerke. Die Ausfuhrungen illustrieren wir anhand einer Fallstudie, die gemeinsam mit der Kreissparkasse Koln durchgefuhrt wurde.

Der Beitrag der Wirtschaftsinformatik zur Analyse und Gestaltung von informellen Netzwerken

In diesem Beitrag stellen wir dar, welchen Beitrag die Disziplin Wirtschaftsinformatik zur Analyse von informellen sozialen Netzwerken leistet und wie sie hilft, die Struktur und die Entwicklung dieser Netzwerke zu beeinflussen. Wir zeigen anhand einer neuartigen Sensorplattform, wie die Qualitat und Verfugbarkeit von Informationen uber informelle Kommunikationsprozesse verbessert werden konnen. Im Weiteren diskutieren wir, welche aus ihrem Selbstverstandnis abgeleiteten Erkenntnisziele und Gestaltungsaufgaben der Disziplin bei der Fortentwicklung des World Wide Web erwachsen.

Identifying Key Opinion Leaders in Evolving Co-authorship Networks—A Descriptive Study of a Proxy Variable for Betweenness Centrality

Many researchers identify influentials in a network by their betweenness centrality. Whereas betweenness centrality can be calculated in small, static, connected networks, its calculation in complex, large, evolving networks frequently causes some problems. Hence, we propose a proxy variable for a node’s betweenness centrality that can be calculated in large, evolving networks. We illustrate our approach using the example of Key Opinion Leader (KOL) identification in an evolving co-authorship network of researchers who have published articles about PCSK9 (a protein that regulates cholesterol levels).