The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Aggregation and the Role of Trusted Third Parties in SME E-Business Engagement: A Regional Policy Issue

YesIt is against the background of low engagement by SMEs in e-business that this paper seeks to highlight the potential importance of aggregation and of the role of trusted third parties in facilitating higher levels of involvement. The paper is based on an ongoing SME e-business research programme and reports on some recent research on SMEs that were using high complexity e-business applications and explores the extent to which the research findings could address the core concern of low engagement. This qualitative case study based research includes analysis of data collected from 13 community intermediaries, acting as trusted third parties. It concludes that the role of community intermediaries appears to be central to the adoption of critical e-aggregation applications provided by service providers. For policymakers, this important role of critical e-aggregation applications in facilitating e-business engagement by SMEs has emerged as part of this research but there is limited evidence of policy initiatives that reflect this

Globalization and E-Commerce II: Environment and Policy in Germany

Due to its economic power as the largest economy in Europe and third largest in the world, Germany inevitably will play an important role in e-commerce. After the improvement and diffusion of high-speed Internet access, like ISDN or DSL, Germany enjoys more ISDN telephone lines than any country; also the highest DSL per capita ratio, in Europe. Germany includes a large, highly educated and relatively wealthy population, which is an important prerequisite for successful e-commerce activities. Due to foreign language skills in the German population (every pupil is required to learn English; a large number know basic French or Spanish, too), the language barrier to using international Web sites is small. Moreover, the German education system puts increasing emphasis on information and communications technology (ICT) skills. Invention activity in some areas of ICT shows signs of improvement. Starting from a low level, patent activity in mobile communications and the Internet grew faster in Germany than anywhere else in Europe. This growth could be viewed as an early indicator of strengthening the mobile e-commerce sector in Germany and may be interpreted as an important effort in catching-up with overall e-commerce development. More than 80% of the GNP is created in mid-sized companies (Mittelstand), which traditionally are considered as more flexible and innovative than large enterprises. The majority of these small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can access the Internet. Looking at Internet penetration, German SMEs are at the top together with SMEs in Scandinavian countries. The central position of Germany as a hub to Europe together with the excellent public and private transport infrastructure is a competitive advantage to attract foreign investments. Germany follows the innovation model be the best imitator of successful developments and within this course exploits the competitive advantage achievable through integration. After e-commerce technologies proved successful, Germany caught up in developing its relevant infrastructure and is now gaining momentum

Digital transformation in the financial services sector: new business models and value creation

This cumulative dissertation contributes to the field of digital transformation in the financial services sector by providing a synthesis of a set of peer-reviewed scientific articles aimed toward advancing the understanding of the value of innovation in the digital transformation of business models in the financial services sector. With this aim in mind, this dissertation focuses on three main research topics related to the field of digital transformation in financial services, whereby the first research topic addresses the digital transformation of the financial system driven by the integration of business and process innovations. To support the subsequent implementation of strategic responses based on the complexity and scope of the digital transformation required in the financial services industry, a holistic analysis of the macroeconomic and sector-specific influencing factors underlying the digital transformation in the financial services industry is presented. Furthermore, since the integration of innovations in primary or secondary business processes leads to both positive and negative consequential impacts, the ambivalent effect of the integration of digital innovations on advisory work in traditional financial institutions are further examined. The second research topic addresses the structural transformation of the financial sector inherent to the consolidation and long-term sustainability of financial technology (FinTech) companies, through the identification and empirical classification of the success factors intrinsic to the different FinTech business models. Subsequently, given that the incorporation of digital innovations into business processes not only challenges how traditional financial service providers capture and generate business value, but also how they engage with their customers to deliver value, the third research topic first explores, from a technological perspective, the digitalization of the customer interface leveraged by digital communication innovations such as chatbots, and subsequently examines the implementation of chatbots within the context of the financial industry.Diese kumulative Dissertation zielt darauf ab, einen Beitrag zum Bereich der digitalen Transformation im Finanzdienstleistungssektor zu leisten, indem sie eine Synthese einer Reihe von begutachteten wissenschaftlichen Artikeln liefert, die darauf abzielen, das Verständnis für den Wert von Innovationen bei der digitalen Transformation von Geschäftsmodellen im Finanzdienstleistungssektor zu fördern. Mit diesem Ziel vor Augen konzentriert sich diese Dissertation auf drei Hauptforschungsthemen im Bereich der digitalen Transformation im Finanzdienstleistungssektor. Das erste Forschungsthema befasst sich mit der digitalen Transformation des Finanzsystems, die durch die Integration von Geschäfts- und Prozessinnovationen vorangetrieben wird. Um die anschließende Umsetzung strategischer Maßnahmen zu unterstützen, die auf der Komplexität und dem Umfang der in der Finanzdienstleistungsbranche erforderlichen digitalen Transformation basieren, wird in dieser Arbeit eine ganzheitliche Analyse der branchenspezifischen Einflussfaktoren für die digitale Transformation in der Finanzdienstleistungsbranche vorgestellt. Da die Integration von Innovationen in primäre und sekundäre Geschäftsprozesse sowohl zu positiven als auch zu negativen Folgewirkungen führt, werden außerdem die ambivalenten Auswirkungen der Integration digitaler Innovationen auf die Beratungsarbeit in traditionellen Finanzinstituten näher untersucht. Das zweite Forschungsthema befasst sich mit dem strukturellen Wandel des Finanzsektors, der mit der Konsolidierung und langfristigen Nachhaltigkeit von Finanztechnologieunternehmen (FinTech) einhergeht, indem die Erfolgsfaktoren der verschiedenen FinTech-Geschäftsmodelle identifiziert und empirisch klassifiziert werden. Da die Einbindung digitaler Innovationen in die Geschäftsprozesse nicht nur die Art und Weise in Frage stellt, wie traditionelle Finanzdienstleister Geschäftswerte erfassen und generieren, sondern auch, wie sie mit ihren Kunden in Kontakt treten, um Werte zu schaffen, untersucht das dritte Forschungsthema zunächst aus technologischer Sicht die Digitalisierung der Kundenschnittstelle, die durch digitale Kommunikationsinnovationen wie Chatbots ermöglicht wird, und untersucht anschließend die Implementierung von Chatbots im Kontext der Finanzbranche

Beyond The Traditional \u27SME Challenges\u27 Discourse: A Historical Field Study Of A Dot.Com Failure In Ghana

To date the literatures on ebusiness have predominantly focussed upon cases within the developed world. That said, increasing attention is being given to this area in developing countries. However, this strand of work is further limited in that it focuses upon macro level issues of bringing countries ‘up to the level’ of the developed world in the context of discourses around the global knowledge economy. In this paper, we draw upon an interpretive historical field study to extend this body of work, focussing upon the isuses presented to a dot.com SME in Ghana. Current accounts of ebusiness failure tend to emphasise problems arising due to a lack of substance in business ideas, and in SME terms, issues associated with acquiring and maintaining the necessary resources, skills and technical expertise to keep the business going. In our case, the company did not significantly suffer from any of these issues. Moreover, whilst it experienced problems as a result of its geographical location it was ultimately a period of financial instability throughout Ghana that led to the company’s downfall. The findings of this study thus challenge some of the assumptions around SMEs and the capacity of those in developing countries to engage with technology