Organizations that are not efficient and innovative today quickly become irrelevant tomorrow. Ambidexterity (i.e., simultaneously conducting two seemingly contradicting activities, such as exploitation and exploration) helps organizations to overcome this challenge and, hence, has become increasingly popular with manifold applications in information systems (IS) research. However, we lack a systematic understanding of ambidexterity research, its research streams, and their future trajectory. Hence, we conduct a systematic literature review on ambidexterity in IS research and identify six distinct research streams that use an ambidexterity lens: IT-enabled organizational ambidexterity, ambidextrous IT capability, ambidexterity in IS development, ambidextrous IS strategy, ambidextrous inter-organizational relationships, and organizational ambidexterity in IS. We present the current state of research in each stream. More so, we comprehensively overview application areas, conceptualizations, antecedents for, and outcomes of ambidexterity. Hence, this study contributes to the emergent theme of ambidexterity in IS research.
In this research-in-progress paper, we present a preliminary model of how reference users shape enterprise systems (ES) acquisition and development based on the case study of Xizi Holdings, one of the largest private enterprises in China. Our model draws on the theoretical lens of the social shaping of technology in the context of streamlining complex packaged ES adoption. The model is built on stage-wise observations of the roles that reference users play across the ES acquisition and development process. Our preliminary model identifies three intermediary mechanisms (i.e. attaching, staging and shaping of technology) that are enabled by reference users in the process of negotiating ES acquisition and development. It contributes to the existing discourse in recent IS research on the expanding role of users in influencing the development of packaged enterprise systems and their acquisition.
The current study aims to improve the requirements engineering (RE) communication, as often times projects fail due to poorly specified or misunderstood requirements. We use design science methods to build and evaluate a conceptual model which can add value to managers by offering them a set of guidelines and best practices for facilitating the RE communication. We did a qualitative study to investigate what the criteria are for selecting communication artifacts and we discovered that organizational culture plays a key role in this process. We demonstrate that the used artifacts need to adequately reflect the dynamic and intensity of the communication. Finally, we extend the RE process by adding two transitional phases to avoid requirements slipping through the gaps. Our findings indicate that such transitions are more distinct in traditional waterfall organizations and less salient in agile companies. The current study approaches the RE communication process from a design science perspective which adds more knowledge on the topic and addresses some existing issues leading to project failure.
Preventive healthcare services require consumers to coordinate and manage several healthcare activities with multiple service providers. In this paper, we explore the adoption and use of a patient-centered e-health system for managing personal healthcare requirements. Specifically, using the patient-centered e-health (PCEH) framework, we analyzed the data we collected from a qualitative study of consumers who participated in a preventive care program called the Health Enhancement Program (HEP) in Connecticut in the United States and the accompanying e-health service the program offered. Data from the interviews of 15 participants revealed that users found several challenges in adopting and using the e-health system when examined in the context of their lifestyle even though the system had a patient-centric design. These findings provide implications for designing and assessing patient-centered e-health to ensure that users effectively adopt and continue to use them and insights for expanding PCEH theory and practice.
Traditionally, to seek innovation, organizations have made substantial investments into enterprise systems (ES). However, anecdotal reports have noted that many organizations have now begun to shift their focus to digital (i.e., social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) technologies. Considering this contentious contemporary technology landscape, we investigate the role of ES in innovation. Using data gathered from four case organizations, we highlight that the organizations innovate using their digital technologies and that enterprise systems act as a platform that enable innovation. We also highlight the barriers for enterprise systems-led innovations
: Preventing IT security incidents poses a great challenge for organizations. Today, senior managers allocate more resources to IT security programs (especially those programs that focus on educating and training employees) in order to reduce human misbehavior—a significant cause of IT security incidents. Building on the results of a literature review, we identify factors that affect the success of security education, training, and awareness (SETA) programs and organize them in a conceptual classification. The classification contains human influencing factors derived from different behavioral, decision making, and criminology theories that lead to IT security compliance and noncompliance. The classification comprehensively summarizes these factors and shows the correlations between them. The classification can help one to design and develop SETA programs and to establish suitable conditions for integrating them into organizations.
Researchers have identified lifestyle diseases as a major threat to human civilization. These diseases gradually progress without giving any warning and result in a sudden health aggravation that leads to a medical emergency. As such, individuals can only avoid the life-threatening condition if they regularly monitor their health status. Health recommendation systems allow users to continuously monitor their health and deliver proper health advice to them. Also, continuous health monitoring depends on the real-time data exchange between health solution providers and users. In this regard, healthcare providers have begun to use wearable devices and recommendation systems to collect data in real time and to manage health conditions based on the generated data. However, we lack literature that has examined how individuals use wearable devices, what type of data the devices collect, and how providers use the data for delivering solutions to users. Thus, we decided to explore the available literature in this domain to understand how wearable devices can provide solutions to consumers. We also extended our focus to cover current health service delivery frameworks with the help of recommender systems. Thus, this study reviews health-monitoring services by conglomerating both wearable device and recommendation system to come up with personalized health and fitness solutions. Additionally, the paper elucidates key components of an advanced-level real-time monitoring service framework to guide future research and practice in this domain.
: In reaction to the productivity challenges that hospitals around the world have faced, some hospitals have begun to move towards a process-oriented organization of care in order to enhance productivity. Existing research on process-oriented organization emphasizes severe challenges along the implementation process. However, the literature contains only a small number of documented cases of hospital-wide process-oriented reorganization. Against this background, in this case study, we explain how hospitals can successfully implement organization-wide process orientation. To do so, we conducted an exploratory single case study with semi-structured, face-to-face interviews and document analyses as our primary data-collection methods. We developed a theoretical framework of antecedents, interventions, enablers, barriers, and consequences that explain the trajectory of this successful hospital-reorganization project. We contribute a substantive theory on which other researchers can build and can extend in future studies. Further, in analyzing our unique case, we identify factors that the extant literature has not yet discussed, such as the blackboxing of diagnosis and treatment activities as an enabler. In line with existing literature, we also found that, even in this case, inflexible healthcare IT represented a barrier that hindered the case study in implementing process orientation. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis on what process orientation means in a major hospital. Our results show that hospitals need to work on the information systems and that process orientation in hospital settings starts from clinical practices, which appropriate ICT solutions can support. The findings also suggest that the performance improvements mature first after a long time and are hard to measure.
: This paper examines knowledge sharing in enterprise social network (ESNs) through an analytical model. The structure of an ESN, its underlying technology, and incentives for knowledge workers affect knowledge sharing in organizations. We present a stylized model with two groups of knowledge workers with different knowledge levels. High-knowledge workers vary in their connectivity and sharing costs. We explore the design and efficacy of various incentive policies to facilitate knowledge sharing in ESNs. The different incentive schemes target either specific workers or groups based on connectivity, efficiency, or both. Our research provides valuable insights for practitioners to design incentive policies for promoting knowledge sharing in ESNs.
As the number of BRMS-implementations increases, more and more organizations search for guidance to design such solutions. Given these premises, more implementation challenges experienced from practice become evident. In this study, we identify the main challenges regarding the governance capability as part of BRM, in the Dutch governmental context. To be able to do so, we utilized a four-round focus group and a three-round Delphi study set-up to collect our data. The analysis resulted in eight implementation challenges experienced by the participants. The presented results provide a grounded basis from which empirical and practical research on best practices can be further explored.
While organizations are increasingly implementing Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) to foster collaboration across organizational boundaries, few have been successful in motivating a substantial number of members to actively participate within such networks, and many ESNs fail owing to a lack of contributors. One of the main reasons for this dilemma is the fact that most employees only read and consume content (lurking), and very few actively participate and create content (posting). While a major research strand has studied motivations for posting and lurking behaviors in online communities, there is little research on motivations in ESNs. To bridge these gaps, this study examines whether posters and lurkers differ in their motivations to use ESNs. Building on social exchange theory, we analyze the impact of the underlying motivational factors such as common identity, common bond, social interaction, and community commitment, which have not yet been studied in the ESN context. We test our propositions with data collected from 4,892 respondents in a large knowledge-intensive multinational company. We are able to distinguish between five user groups (super frequent posters, frequent posters, infrequent posters, frequent lurkers and infrequent lurkers) with super frequent posters showing significantly higher mean values for all motivational drivers to use the ESN compared to the other user groups.
