The literature on open innovation (OI) has mainly been focused on the ‘bright side’ of OI, thus neglecting the limits of OI implementation influencing innovation processes during organizational change. It requires to develop a better understanding about the limits of OI. Therefore, this study explores the limits of OI during organizational change and provides approaches that drive firms to offset these limits. The empirical analysis is based on an in‐depth single case study and data was collected through semi‐structured interviews with the representatives engaged with Partner Campus – an OI initiative developed by a multinational manufacturing company. We have found that during the change process of adapting collaborative and absorptive capabilities, and developing organizational readiness, several internal and external challenges limit the company's drive to open up. Internal challenges arise when organizations start the change process in unfreezing stage. The traditional organizational culture and structure challenge incumbent firms to break the existing silos and utilize knowledge and resources effectively for OI implementation, hindering intra‐organizational collaboration. While external challenges arise when organizations transform their endeavors across organizational boundaries and collaborate with external stakeholders. When firms lack knowledge integration and technological capabilities, OI creates collaborative complexity given the magnitude of involved diverse actors and activities at different levels, which challenges the organizations to maintain the longevity of OI practices, resulting in several risks that limit firms to open up. However, we have identified the capabilities and actions that firms can take to strengthen a collaborative environment by counterbalancing these challenges. We contribute to the literature on OI by identifying and assessing the limits of OI, embedded in the organizational change process, that hinder organizational drive for OI. We also contribute to organizational change literature by identifying specific changes related to organizational processes, structure, and culture, and outlining approaches that can support a smooth transition.

Purpose The present study intends to foster understanding of how a traditional manufacturer can utilize the "simple rules" approach of managerial heuristics to facilitate its smart solution development (SSD) process. Design/methodology/approach The study uses an in-depth single case research strategy and 25 senior manager interviews to understand the application of simple rules in smart solution development. Findings The findings reveal process, boundary, preference, schedule, and stop rules as the dominant managerial heuristics in the case and identify how the manufacturer applies these rules during the innovation process phases of ideation, incubation, transformation, and industrialization for attaining project outcomes. Research limitations/implications The study contributes to the new service development (NSD) literature by shedding light on simple rules and how managers may apply them to facilitate SSD. The main limitations stem from applying the qualitative case study approach and the interpretative nature of the study, which produces novel insights but prevents direct generalization to other empirical cases. Practical implications The resulting framework provides guidelines for managers on how to establish formal and clear simple rules that enable industrial solution providers to approach decision-making in smart solution development in a more agile manner. Originality/value The study comprises one of the first attempts to investigate managerial heuristics in the context of SSD and puts forward a plea for further NSD research applying psychological conceptualizations to enrich the simple rules perspective.

Information systems (IS) scholars have proposed guidelines for interpretive, mixed methods, and design science research in IS. Because many of these guidelines have also been suggested for evaluating what good or rigorous research is, they may be used as a checklist in the review process. In this paper, we raise the question: To what extent do research guidelines for interpretive, mixed methods, and design science research offer evidence that they can be used to evaluate the quality of research. We argue that scholars can use these guidelines to evaluate what good research is if there is compelling evidence that they lead to certain good research outcomes. We use three well-known sets of guidelines as examples and argue that they do not seem to offer evidence that we can use them to evaluate the quality of research. Instead, the "evidence" is often an authority argument, popularity, or examples demonstrating the applicability of the guidelines. If many research method principles we regard as authoritative in IS are largely based on speculation and opinion, we should take these guidelines less seriously in evaluating the quality of research. Our proposal does not render the guidelines useless. If the guidelines cannot offer cause-and-effect evidence for the usefulness of their principles, we propose viewing the guidelines as idealizations for pedagogical purposes, which means that reviewers cannot use these guidelines as checklists to evaluate what good research is. While our examples are from interpretive, mixed methods, and design science research, we urge the IS community to ponder the extent to which other research method guidelines offer evidence that they can be used to evaluate the quality of research.

The present study scrutinizes how an incumbent solution provider executes smart solution development (SSD). We aim to contribute to digital servitization research, which primarily focuses on either product, service, or software development, thus overlooking the integrative aspect of SSD. We unfold the holistic SSD development process in a single case study through 23 manager interviews, observational data, and strategic document analysis. The study extends the product-service innovations (PSI) literature by 1) identifying a set of innovation routines, such as collaborative, customer-focused, and decision-making, 2) demonstrating innovation management processes and practices associated with those routines, and 3) highlighting the co-alignment of innovation processes, routines, and practices to achieve improved outcomes from SSD. The study translates the empirical work into a framework and a set of propositions to guide future research. For managers, the study provides a framework and a set of capability-enhancing practices for a benchmark.

Despite the potential risks that social desirability (SD) bias poses to the validity of information systems (IS) research, little is known about the extent of such bias. This study examines the extent of SD bias in the IS domain and compares alternative techniques for measuring it. Our findings suggest that despite the popularity of the Marlowe-Crowne scale in IS research, the impression management scale functions better in assessing the extent of SD bias. We also found that under certain circumstances, SD bias can threaten the validity of IS research. This study contributes to the IS literature by showing the difference in SD bias across IS contexts and suggesting an effective way to test for the presence of SD bias.

Guidelines for different qualitative research genres have been proposed in information systems (IS). As these guidelines are outlined for conducting and evaluating good research, studies may be denied publication simply because they do not follow a prescribed methodology. This can result in “checkbox” compliance, where the guidelines become more important than the study. We argue that guidelines can only be used to evaluate what good research is if there is evidence that they lead to certain good research outcomes. Currently, the guidelines do not present such evidence. Instead, when it is presented, the evidence is often an authority argument or evidence of popularity with usability examples. We further postulate that such evidence linking guidelines and outcomes cannot be presented. Therefore, it may be time for the IS research community to acknowledge that many research method principles we regard as authoritative may ultimately be based on speculation and opinion, and thus, they should be taken less seriously as absolute guidelines in the review process.

Purpose - Information security policies (ISPs) are used by organizations to communicate rules on the use of information systems (IS). Research studies show that compliance with the ISPs is not a straightforward issue and that several factors influence individual behavior toward ISP compliance, such as security awareness or individual perception of security threats. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the competencies associated with users' ISP compliance behavior. Design/methodology/approach - In order to reveal the competencies that are associated with the users' ISP compliance behavior, the authors systematically analyze the ISP compliance literature and the authors develop an ISP compliance competency model. The authors then target to explore if IS users are equipped with these competencies; to do so, the authors analyze professional competence models from various industry sectors and compare the competencies that they include with the developed ISP compliance competencies. Findings - The authors identify the competencies associated with ISP compliance and the authors provide evidence on the lack of attention in information security responsibilities demonstrated in professional competence frameworks. Research limitations/implications - ISP compliance research has focused on identifying the antecedents of ISP compliance behavior. The authors offer an ISP compliance competency model and guide researchers in investigating the issue further by focusing on the professional competencies that are necessary for IS users. Practical implications - The findings offer new contributions to practitioners by highlighting the lack of attention on the information security responsibilities demonstrated in professional competence frameworks. The paper also provides implications for the design of information security awareness programs and information security management systems in organizations. Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, the paper is the first study that addresses ISP compliance behavior from a professional competence perspective.

Far shore large markets provide interesting business opportunities for companies from countries where labor is expensive and production costs high. Mass population countries like China also have the market potential for companies from smaller countries like Finland. The key challenge of exporting products and services to a far shore market is cultural distance between countries. In this study we explored the cultural challenges and opportunities of exporting education. Our findings show that the e-Textbook & the pedagogical approach from Finland increased the Chinese students' motivation to study during the course. Language barrier of using English for learning is significant even in higher education. Translation into Chinese is vital, but students are also eager to practice their English skills. One of the key challenges is the Internet speed. However, as campuses did not have working WLANs, students were able to access the e-Textbook using their mobile phones. An offline version should always be provided. Many students were asking for a printed copy of the textbook. Our findings indicate that Finnish educational companies can provide interesting products and services to the Chinese market; offering educational content is not enough. Chinese appreciate 1) Finnish interactive pedagogical approaches, 2) Foreign universities certificates, and 3) Easy to use technologies. Foreign educational companies should use the foreign universities brands and certificates to get attention of the Chinese Universities. Even though Chinese students might enjoy open pedagogical approaches, the competitive, exam centric educational system forces them to be skeptical towards their own learning process: The nature of exams makes them focus on rote learning, which is not an easy change for them to adapt into. This research helps foreign educational companies exporting their products and services to the Chinese market.

Internationalization and globalization competences play a major role for graduates and employees in IS related enterprises. In contrast to other disciplines such as Business or Economics, the IS discipline rarely addresses this competence area. In the paper, we identify generic competence areas: coordination, communication, and cooperation. We derive domain specific competences for the field of E-Learning in Higher Education. The paper concludes with an outlook of promising research areas to foster and intensify research in the domain.

The adoption of Global Software Development (GSD) models by software development companies is growing continuously. A variety of challenges such as temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distance are hindering global organizations to achieve potential benefits. As a result, organizations need support in how to overcome the challenges. The emphasis in the literature to date has typically focused on overcoming the challenges by providing tool support, management guidelines and processes. This follows the assumption that a well-established and validated process results in high quality output, not taking the actors within the process into account. While recognized as an important factor for successful GSD, actors and their competences have been addressed from an organizational perspective focusing on organizational and team capabilities rather than from an individual perspective. In this article, we present the results of a literature review on competence-related challenges and competency related research for GSD. We extend existing GSD process models with functions of competence management. The resulting competence-based view allows the management of individual competences throughout the entire GSD process.

Global software development GSD holds various challenges and problems for team members. When confronted with a contextual change in their working environment, individuals have to adapt to the new situation. This includes the adaptation of working styles, behaviors, and methods. Additionally, new challenges, especially those based on the virtual work and cultural background of team members, have to be addressed. By conducting explorative expert interviews, we identified challenges and potential solutions for individuals when encountering contextual change with a focus on competences. We identified that the lack of competences was seen as a major influence factor for a variety of common challenges to GSD. The identification of underlying factors of challenges could allow for focused development of interventions to overcome these challenges. Furthermore, we identified factors influencing the adaptation of competences to the given context and provided insight into the process of competences adaptation. This is the basis for the future development of a set of internationalized GSD competences. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Global software development changes the requirements in terms of soft competency and increases the complexity of social interaction by including intercultural aspects. While soft competency is often seen as crucial for the success of global software development projects, the concrete competence requirements remain unknown. Internationalization competency represents one of the first attempts to structure and describe the soft competence requirements for global software developers. Based on the diversity of tasks, competence requirements will differ among the various phases of software development. By conducting a survey on the importance of internationalization competences for the different phases of global software development, we identified differences in terms of competence importance and requirements in the phases. "Adaptability" (of one's working style) and "Cultural Awareness" were the main differences. "Cultural Awareness" distinguishes requirements engineering and software design from testing and implementation while "Adaptability" distinguishes implementation and software design from requirements engineering and testing. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Already existing open educational resources in the field of Business and Management have a high potential for enterprises to address the increasing training needs of their employees. However, it is difficult to act on OERs as some data is hidden. In the meanwhile, numerous repositories provide Linked Open Data on this field. Though, users have to search a number of repositories with heterogeneous interfaces in order to retrieve the desired content. In this paper, we present the strategies to gather heterogeneous learning objects from the Web of Data, and we provide an overview of the benefits of the OpenScout platform. Despite the fact that not all data repositories strictly follow Linked Data principles, OpenScout addressed individual variations in order to harvest, align, and provide a single end-point. In the end, OpenScout provides a full-fledged environment that leverages on the Linked Open Data available on the Web and additionally exposes it in an homogeneous format.

Globalization has changed the requirements to professionals and students in all branches and sectors significantly in the past decade. However in the domain of Information Systems, these changes have not yet found their way into current study programs and curricula. We identify and validate core internationalization competences and their relation to IS specific competences based on an initial set of competence categories. This is the basis for designing learning services of the future. The presented study aims at validating both and identifying additional categories and competences. In this paper, we present the first results of this study focusing on the internationalization and knowledge management competences. The results can be used for different purposes exploring the human perspective on information systems development.

Allocating the right competency to the right task is often critical in complex IS development projects, which often take place in a networked world with teams working across cultural barriers, time zones, and knowledge domains. The presented research explores knowledge and competency management issues raised in the early phases of requirement analysis in international IS design projects. An important management challenge of requirement modelling is to balance user-facing and design-facing activities. Both domain knowledge and IS modelling skills are needed to achieve a correct and complete specification of requirements. Requirement modelling - eliciting, specifying, and evaluating stakeholders' requirements - calls on a variety of competencies. Some of these competencies can be derived from analysis of the information modelling processes, e. g., how communication in natural language with stakeholders informs visual representations of models meant to communicate precise requirements to developers of software or other IS artefacts. However, other competencies will be hard to describe, due to the complex organisation, and coordination and communication issues found in international and intercultural settings. The needed knowledge, skills and attitudes often surface only after some problem or breakdown of processes. Competency management in ISD, particularly in internationally distributed requirement practices, is not a well researched area. Therefore, this paper focusses on understanding how the competency domain is conceptualised in these settings as a first step towards formal competency descriptions. What processes are involved, and how are competencies derived from analysing these processes? How does an international context impact on the processes and related competencies? For example, will additional competencies in intercultural communication enable a system analyst to be a more efficient modeller? In self-recruited and intercultural teams, how are the critical competences that need management identified? This research contributes towards answering questions like these, by proposing a two-layer approach to identifying crucial competences in requirement modelling in an international context. A first layer establishes a broad set of competences identified by analysing the processes involved. The second layer of competences is a subset identified through studying breakdowns in enactment of the requirement processes. These competences are the candidates for interventions.

Open educational resources (OER) have a high potential to address the growing need for training materials in management education and training. Today, a high number of OER in management are already available in a large number of repositories. However, users face barriers as they have to search repository by repository with different interfaces to retrieve the appropriate learning content. In addition, the use of search criteria related to skills, such as learning objectives and skill-levels is not generally supported. The European co-funded project OpenScout addresses these barriers by intelligently connecting leading European OER repositories and providing federated, skill-based search and retrieval web services. On top of this content federation the project supports users with easy-to-apply tools that will accelerate the (re-) use of open content.

Already existing open educational resources in management have a high potential for enterprises to address the increasing training needs of their employees. However, access barriers still prevent the full exploitation of this potential. Users have to search a number of repositories with heterogeneous interfaces in order to retrieve the desired content. In addition, the use of search criteria related to skills, such as learning objectives and skill-levels is in most cases not supported. The demonstrator presented in this paper addresses these shortcomings by federating multiple repositories, integrating and enriching their metadata, and employing skill-based search for management related content.

Internationalization and globalization impact the work in knowledgeintensive environments dramatically. By that, internationalization has become an important factor for educational institutions and their stakeholders as well. A promising starting point for initiating international educational collaborations are open educational resources. Thus, the participants of a variety of initiatives has made their learning and teaching resources public available. But up to now, the process to use, share, and adapt such resources is still not clearly structured or even well established. The main focus of this paper is to take first steps to construct a high level process model for global educational settings that can be used as a framework to structure the adaptation process regarding internationalization of open educational resources and to identify influence factors to the corresponding processes. The framework can support the extraction of concrete process flows for specific context and scenarios.