Sebastian Köffer

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.

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.

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.

Die Digitalisierung der Wissensarbeit – Handlungsempfehlungen aus der Wirtschaftsinformatik-Forschung

ZusammenfassungDie Digitalisierung aller Lebensbereiche hat zu steigenden Bedürfnissen und Anforderungen an die technologische Unterstützung am Arbeitsplatz geführt. Die Unternehmen finden sich durch diese Entwicklung in einem Zwiespalt wieder. Einerseits möchten Sie Ihren Beschäftigten vor dem Hintergrund möglicher Effizienzgewinne und Innovationspotenzialen mehr Freiheiten und Autonomie in Bezug auf Auswahl und Einsatz von IT einräumen. Andererseits ist ein Mindestmaß an Kontrolle vor allem aufgrund von Compliance und Steuerbarkeit unerlässlich. Der Beitrag nennt konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen für die Gestaltung des digitalen Arbeitsplatzes, die in der Wirtschaftsinformatik-Forschung abgegeben werden.AbstractThe digitalization of all areas of life has also increased the demand to support digital knowledge work with adequate tools and software. As a result, organizations are caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, they may grant their employees more freedom and autonomy in terms of IT selection to realize innovations and productivity gains. On the other hand, they must monitor their work processes to ensure control and compliance. The article summarizes managerial implications from information systems research about the design of digital knowledge work.

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.

Die Digitalisierung der Wissensarbeit – Unternehmen im Spagat zwischen Innovation und Kontrolle

Die Digitalisierung aller Lebensbereiche hat zu steigenden Bedurfnissen und Anforderungen an die technologische Unterstutzung am Wissensarbeitsplatz gefuhrt. Die Unternehmen finden sich durch diese Entwicklung in einem Zwiespalt wieder. Einerseits mochten Sie ihren Beschaftigten vor dem Hintergrund moglicher Effizienzgewinne und Innovationspotenzialen mehr Freiheiten und Autonomie in Bezug auf Auswahl und Einsatz von IT einraumen. Andererseits ist ein Mindestmas an Kontrolle vor allem aufgrund von Compliance und Steuerbarkeit unerlasslich. Der Beitrag nennt konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen fur die Gestaltung des digitalen Arbeitsplatzes, die in der Wirtschaftsinformatikforschung abgegeben werden.

WeChange - Eine demografiesensible Supportplattform zur Wissensvernetzung im Unternehmen

Eine wichtige Herausforderung zur Erhaltung der Innovationsfahigkeit von Unternehmen ist die Gestaltung der organisationalen Informationstechnologien (IT). Der demografische Wandel geht einher mit Veranderungen im Nutzungsverhalten von IT. Allgemein ist die Bedeutung von IT im privaten Umfeld in den letzten Jahren stetig gewachsen. Die Vorlieben bezuglich der Technologienutzung unterscheiden sich dabei zum Teil erheblich und lassen sich nicht immer mit organisationalen Anforderungen in Einklang bringen. Die steigende Heterogenitat der Arbeitnehmer, unterstutzt durch demografische Entwicklungen, fuhrt inzwischen dazu, dass immer mehr verschiedene Hard- und Software in Unternehmen eingesetzt werden. Fur die IT-Abteilung wird es so zunehmend schwieriger, einen zentralen Support bereitzustellen. Zur gleichen Zeit sind Nutzer von Technologie inzwischen deutlich versierter in deren Umgang, so dass sie viele Probleme entweder selbst oder untereinander losen konnen. Hier setzt die Idee des dezentralen Supports an, in der sich Nutzer direkt miteinander vernetzen, um gegenseitig Supportanfragen zu losen. Im Forschungsprojekt WeChange wurde eine demografiesensible dezentrale Supportplattform entwickelt, die auf die Bedurfnisse der Unternehmen und Nutzer zugeschnitten ist. Kern der Plattform ist die dezentrale Interaktion zwischen Nutzern, die anstatt prozess-orientierten Strukturen zu folgen, die Vorteile sozialer Vernetzung nutzt.