Kevin Ortbach

A Dynamic Capability-Based Framework for Business Process Management: Theorizing and Empirical Application

Both incremental and radical business process change are undoubtedly core tasks of Business Process Management (BPM) and, thus, organizational design. The competence to successfully pursue such BPM initiatives represents an important capability which is needed by organizations exposed to a dynamic business environment. While the term BPM is omnipresent, research still lacks both a clear understanding and a theoretical framework in order to explain what constitutes BPM capability. To address this research gap, we apply Dynamic Capability Theory as a helpful means to conceptualize BPM. We further build a detailed framework of sub-capabilities we identify to be relevant for BPM based on existing literature. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our novel framework in a single case study in the telecommunications industry. Results suggest that organizations need to sense needs and opportunities for process change, seize the change options, and transform the organization accordingly.

Innovation Through BYOD

Leveraging the IT innovation capabilities of employees is becoming increasingly feasible in the era of IT consumerization. Consumer IT tools, in form of tablets, smartphones, or social media, are entering organizations and are changing the way employees use technology for work. In this article, the authors decipher the term IT consumerization in more detail by providing a framework that illustrates the various perspectives of the phenomenon. They then apply the various perspectives in order to propose an IT consumerization framework that juxtaposes consumer IT with enterprise IT in its ability to lead to individual IT innovation behaviors. Using data from 486 European employees that work for large-sized companies, they are able to infer that consumer IT and the permission to use privately owned IT exert positive effects on employees’ innovation behaviors. An examination of the various perspectives supports the assumption of science and practice that BYOD strategies and the diffusion of consumer IT within organizations are beneficial for innovation. The results provide a first step in theorizing about the innovative power of IT consumerization.

Designing electronic feedback - Analyzing the effects of social presence on perceived feedback usefulness

Feedback interventions, i.e. actions taken by (an) external agent(s) to provide information regarding one?s task performance, are an important element in motivating and raising performance. Especially the perceived feedback usefulness determines its positive effects. In today?s digitalized world, feedback is more often given electronically, i.e. computer-mediated or even automated by computer systems. Those feedback interventions? effect on perceptions resulting from the difference of communication media is essentially considered by the concept of social presence. However, information systems (IS) research lacks a structured evaluation of possible design choices of feedback media, their influence on the social presence and subsequent effect on the perceived feedback usefulness. To close this research gap, we conduct a laboratory experiment with 43 participants in which we analyze six different design choices for feedback media. We applied a 2i?3 experimental design covering the feedback source (human, non-human feedback) and media richness (text, audio, and video). We show that social presence directly and mediated by the perceived trustworthiness of feedback on simple IT-based tasks impacts perceived feedback usefulness. Our study concludes by outlining opportunities for future research and practical implications for human and non-human (i.e. automated) feedback. We model the link between social presence and perceived feedback usefulness.We analyze six different feedback design choices with respect to social presence.We find that social presence is dependent on media richness and feedback source.Social presence is an important factor determining perceived feedback usefulness.This effect is partly mediated by perceived trustworthiness of the feedback.

Design Principles for a Social Question and Answers Site: Enabling User-to-User Support in Organizations

The adoption of consumer technology in organizations, termed as IT consumerization, alters the IT infrastructure of many organizations. Letting employees decide which IT tools to use for their work increases the complexity of the organizational IT landscape and immediately raises the question how to provide adequate support given the multitude of technologies. Bring-Your-Own-Device advocates argue that employees can provide IT support on their own. An established concept to provide user-to-user support are social questions & answers sites (SQA). While such community sites are perfectly suited for exploratory problem solving, they lack however suitability to help solving specific problems subject to a specific organization. Moreover, receiving fast ad-hoc help in SQA is rather unlikely, as communication is always indirect and experts to solve the problem are unknown beforehand. The work presented in this paper explores key design characteristics of SQA sites in organizations that overcome the shortcoming of public SQA sites. Based on existing IS literature, we identify four kernel theories that are relevant for SQA sites in organizations and derive meta-requirements from them. In a next step, we analyze five public SQA sites to identify common design principles of SQA sites that are already applied. The main part of our analysis matches the identified design principles with the formulated meta-requirements to address potential gaps with respect to an enterprise environment. We conclude our research with the suggestion of additional design principles for SQA sites that account for their application in an organizational context.

SERVICE INNOVATION PERFORMANCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS FROM THE DYNAMIC CAPABILITY PERSPECTIVE

Service firms need to continuously innovate their service offerings in order to remain competitive in constantly changing market conditions. Successful innovators utilise current information technology (IT) to access service innovation capacity and knowledge which can be located internal or external to their organisation. In this paper, we develop and test a theoretical framework that explains how IT can contribute to service innovation performance, and finally, to service provision performance. Drawing on dynamic capability theory, we differentiate between sensing (SN), seizing (SZ), and transformation (TF) as the key abilities in service innovation. With our theoretical model, we can explain almost 40% of the variance in service innovation performance (SIP) (R2 = 0.3955) and provide evidence for the multi-faceted and significant effects of IT. In particular, we are able to show a significant influence of inter-organisational IT support on SN and SZ abilities while organisational IT support has a significant impact on TF abilities.

The inner and the outer model in explanatory design theory: the case of designing electronic feedback systems

Both Information Technology (IT) artifacts and design theories are important elements for knowledge capture in design science research in information systems. Building on a rich tradition of constructing and evaluating artifacts, recent design science research has made significant advances toward better understanding the explanatory aspect of design theory. Researchers have stressed the importance of mid-range theories that relate IT artifact features (causes) with measures and goals (effects). Against this background, design theorizing reveals certain commonalities with theorizing in the behavioral science field. In this paper, we explore differences and similarities between theorizing in these areas. We develop a framework that allows for a better understanding of the relationships between manifest design decisions, kernel theory constructs and their evaluation metrics. We identify common issues that arise from conceptual distances between these ideas and show their potential impact on both the design and evaluation of artifacts. The field of electronic feedback systems is used as an illustrative example.

IT consumerization under more difficult conditions: insights from German local governments

Public sector organizations work under more difficult conditions, when intending to embrace IT consumerization, defined as the diffusion of consumer IT in the workplace. There is an observable lack in current literature with respect to particular factors that influence consumer IT adoption by local governments. Our paper aims to investigate these aspects in detail. We apply an inductive design for our study, in form of a multiple-case study with two German local governments. From the case data we were able to identify five major factors that influence the adoption and diffusion of consumer IT in the public sector. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the impact organizational characteristics may have on the adoption of consumer IT for work purposes. We think that our results provide promising insights into underlying factors that complicate the exploitations of IT consumerization as opportunity for both increasing work efficiency and creating more innovative work environments in the public sector.

The Demographic Challenge: Aging and Depopulation and their Consequences for E-Government A Case Study

E-Government is gaining in importance due to rising demands of citizens towards their local administration. At the same time demographic tendencies of depopulation and aging accelerate the need for an inclusive E-Government strategy, reorientation of existing services, and an increased focus on cost reduction. Cooperation between municipalities can be a promising approach to reduce costs and thus deal with major challenges of demographic transition in both front office and back office. Our exploratory single case study analysis introduces auspicious solutions related to these aspects and discusses in how far they might be applied to other settings.

On the relationship between the IT artifact and design theory: the case of virtual social facilitation

Both the IT artifact and design theory are fundamental elements of a design science project. While literature provides an extensive discussion on why IT artifacts and design theory can be regarded as two sides of the same coin, an operational detailed model on how to actually decode and translate the one into the other is not yet to be found. In this paper, we address this important issue taking the example of social facilitation, a theory perspective that informs us about how the integration of social media features in IT-based routine work can increase task performance. With the help of this example we are able to demonstrate how a lack of discussion regarding the relationship between the actual implementation (IT artifact perspective) and corresponding variables (design theory perspective) can create significant issues of scientific rigor. In order to overcome this gap, we develop a design theorizing framework that differentiates between the structural model (inner model), the measurement model, and the design model (both outer model components). Based on our findings, the paper concludes with discussing potentially fruitful avenues for future research and theory development in design science.

The Intensified Blurring of Boundaries Between Work and Private Life through IT Consumerisation

Consumer technologies have intensified the blurring between work and private spaces. For instance, employees increasingly use privately owned devices for work or company provided devices for private tasks. By means of a multiple case study in four organisations, we investigate the current use of consumer IT in organisations in relation to the increased blurring between work and private life. With regard to boundary theory, we are able to identify six technology-related aspects that describe the intensifying role of IT consumerisation in terms of blurring boundaries. Whether people strive for work-life integration or segmentation, they often experience conflicts in realising their individual preference. However, it seems that IT consumerisation further moved the standard for work-life blurring towards integration rather than segmentation. The number of identified conflicts suggests that there is still a lot of potential for software vendors and user companies to make the management of work and private life spaces more feasible. More specifically, there is a need for solutions that better target individual preferences towards work-life blurring. Our study sheds further light on both increasing chances and challenges that consumer technology puts on employees and organisations.