Expectations vs. Reality – Benefits of Smart Services in the Field of Tension between Industry and Science

The term “Smart Service” gains increased interest in science and practice since it promises to significantly improve a company’s value offering. However, its publicity might lead to overdrawn expectations, especially between practitioners and scientists working in this field. Therefore, we conduct a mixed-method study comparing the expected benefits of Smart Services in science and industry to help identify and close occurring gaps. The study consists of a literature review for the scientific point of view and a survey among practitioners to capture the benefits of Smart Services in both groups. The results predominantly reveal the same vision of both groups for Smart Services, but indicate slight but fundamental differences

Would turkeys vote for Christmas? New entrant strategies and coopetitive tensions in the emerging demand response industry

To enter a market and scale up, entrant firms often need to cooperate with their incumbent competitors, so they are in coopetition with them. Our goal is to increase the understanding of the antecedents of coopetition and the ways in which new entrant firms navigate coopetitive tensions with incumbents. Moreover, we are interested in the impacts that coopetition has on the value creation and value appropriation of new entrant firms. So far, most literature on cooperation and coopetition in energy markets has provided the perspective of the incumbents. To study the issues empirically, we interviewed 15 demand response (DR) entrants. These firms operate in Finnish energy markets, providing automated DR services, in which Finland is a forerunner country. According to our results, collaboration between new entrant DR firms and energy incumbents was needed in order to establish the new markets. In addition, cooperation with incumbents was beneficial to DR entrants since they were able to gain new customers and increase the efficiency of their resource use due to, for example, common technological development activities. We found that the structure of energy markets was an important factor in shaping the market entry of DR entrants. According to our results, new entrants can enter electricity markets without much cooperation with the incumbents, but cooperation is necessary in natural monopoly district heating markets. As new EU regulations will enhance automated DR services, the results of this study have relevance in other EU Member States where automated DR markets have not yet been established.Peer reviewe

Imagining sustainable energy and mobility transitions: valence, temporality, and radicalism in 38 visions of a low-carbon future

Based on an extensive synthesis of semi-structured interviews, media content analysis, and reviews, this article conducts a qualitative meta-analysis of more than 560 sources of evidence to identify 38 visions associated with seven different low-carbon innovations – automated mobility, electric vehicles, smart meters, nuclear power, shale gas, hydrogen, and the fossil fuel divestment movement – playing a key role in current deliberations about mobility or low-carbon energy supply and use. From this material, it analyzes such visions based on rhetorical features such as common problems and functions, storylines, discursive struggles, and rhetorical effectiveness. It also analyzes visions based on typologies or degrees of valence (utopian vs. dystopian), temporality (proximal vs. distant), and radicalism (incremental vs. transformative). The article is motivated by the premise that tackling climate change via low-carbon energy systems (and practices) is one of the most significant challenges of the twenty-first century, and that effective decarbonization will require not only new energy technologies, but also new ways of understanding language, visions, and discursive politics surrounding emerging innovations and transitions

Developing an Industrial IoT Platform – Trade-off between Horizontal and Vertical Approaches

Demands for a digitalized, connected, and smart production provide a fertile ground for industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) platforms to arise within the manufacturing industry (e.g., Siemens Mind Sphere, AXOOM Smart Enterprise, FORCAM FORCE). Nevertheless, many companies struggle to successfully kick-off platform ecosystems. Information Systems (IS) literature is of limited help, because insights on managing platform ecosystems are mostly derived from successful examples in the business-to-consumer (B2C) context. To better understand the challenging situation of companies in the emerging IIoT environment, we conducted an in-depth case study at a prospective platform provider. Insights gained through interviews and engagement in the field uncovered a tension between a horizontal platform strategy and vertical integrated solutions as a central challenge for companies aiming to launch an IIoT-platform in the market. By conceptualizing this trade-off, its causes along with related benefits and challenges, we add to existing literature on platform governance and launch strategies

Contested smart and low-carbon energy futures: media discourses of smart meters in the United Kingdom

The Smart Meter Implementation Programme (SMIP) is arguably one of the most expansive and complex smart meter programmes globally. The UK government regards smart meters to be enablers of a low-carbon energy grid and has set out ambitious consumer-orientated aims within their programme across England, Scotland, and Wales. Despite considerable amount of research on how consumers will (or not) engage with smart meters, media discourses, where some public debates about smart meters are created and reproduced, have received little attention. This paper presents a content analysis of how smart meters are discussed within 11 years of popular print media coverage. A collection of nine discourses are identified: Four of these – “empowered consumers”, “energy conscious world”, “low-carbon grid”, and “future smart innovation” – depict smart meters as a harbinger of positive social change. Five of these – “hacked and vulnerable grid”, “big brother”, “costly disaster”, “astronomical bills”, and “families in turmoil” – represent smart meters as negative forces on society. The results show that discourses and associated storylines mainly represent continuous struggles over specific issues concerning particular socio-technical promises linked to smart meters. Somewhat missing are attempts to open up the smart energy debate to broader issues of democracy and energy justice within the print media coverage

Invited Commentaries on the Future of Frontline Research

This article contains a set of six invited commentaries written by leading scholars, expressing varied perspectives on the future of frontline research and on the frontline domain itself. The article accompanies the Journal of Service Research special issue on organizational frontlines. In their commentaries, the authors share insightful views on areas of personal interest ranging from employee emotion and customer relationship building to the effect of technology and its implementation at the organizational frontline. Included within each commentary are managerial insights and suggestions for needed research in the highlighted area

The role of interoganisational tension and conflict in market creation practice

Markets exist within a world of constant exchanges which form the basis for changes and the creation of new markets. Therefore, it is important to research these exchanges. One of the areas in which market creation can be observed is interorganisational collaborations, as firms increasingly collaborate to create markets. In market creation practice, however, interorganisational tension and conflict can form from divergent approaches and vested interests of the partners. Interorganisational tension represents the opposing intentions of interorganisational forces, and conflict is generated through disagreements. The aim of this research is to investigate interorganisational tension and conflict on market creation practice. Specifically, it attempts to: (i) expand interorganisational tension and conflict and provide insights to these concepts, as well as establishing a two-dimensional interorganisational tension (productive and unproductive) understanding, (ii) explore the interactions between interorganisational tension and conflict, (iii) develop a conceptual framework that explains the level of market creation depending on the effects of interorganisational tension and conflict, (iv) develop a typology of partnering firms based on interorganisational tension and conflict practice. To achieve this aim, and to respond to the research calls, this study follows a grounded theory approach which intends to expand the understanding of interorganisational tension and conflict. According to the findings, a major characteristic of interorganisational tension is its two dimensions: productive and unproductive. However, it is the intertwined nature of tension and conflict that influences market creation. Fundamental to these are the six interorganisational tension and three conflict types revealed by the findings of this study. The core theoretical contributions of the study are a dynamic framework that portrays the dynamic interactions between interorganisational tension and conflict on market creation practice, and a typology of market-creating partnering firms. Collectively, they explicate the development of market creation practice, and firms’ reactions to interorganisational tension and conflict