Exploring Digital Ecosystems debate in social and Business Literature

The rapid development of smart and connected digital technologies is creating a new wave of disruptive innovation by transforming society and revolutionising how we interpret markets and business organisations. Interconnected people, organisations, and technologies form complex digital ecosystems such as smart homes, smart cities, smart factories, or smart enterprises. Such settings represent valuable business opportunities, and research and practice explore the limitations and opportunities of digital ecosystems. Digital ecosystems are multidisciplinary concepts whose meaning and interpretation vary depending on the boundaries of the disciplinary areas in which they are framed. In this paper, we aim to progress the study of digital ecosystems by presenting the preliminary results of an exploratory quantitative bibliometric study. The paper contributes by identifying themes and trends of the digital ecosystems literature

A Model-driven Approach for the Description of Blockchain Business Networks

The concept of blockchain technology has gained significant momentum in practice and research in the past few years, as it provides an effective way for addressing the issues of anonymity and traceability in distributed scenarios with multiple parties, which have to exchange information and want to securely collaborate with each other. However, up-to-date, the impact of the structure and setup of business networks on successfully applying blockchain technology, remains largely unexplored. We propose a model-driven approach, combining an ontology and a layer model, that is capable of capturing the properties of existing blockchain-driven business networks. The layers are used to facilitate the comprehensive description of such networks. We also introduce the Blockchain Business Network Ontology (BBO), formalizing the concepts and properties for describing the integral parts of a blockchain network. We show the practical applicability of our work by evaluating and applying it to an available blockchain use case

Examining the influential factors of consumer purchase intentions for blockchain traceable coffee using the theory of planned behaviour

Purpose: Given the increasing industry interest in blockchain technologies for supply chain management and product traceability, this paper aims to investigate consumer purchasing intentions for blockchain traceable coffee and their psychosocial antecedents, utilising an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Design/methodology/approach: An online questionnaire study of 123 participants was deployed, using two traceability systems (one based on blockchain and one on a more established traceability certification) for organic coffee. Findings: Adding variables such as environmental protections, trust and habits significantly increased the predictive power of TPB. The results suggest that attitude, perceived behavioural control and environmental protections drive intentions to purchase blockchain traceable coffee. Research limitations/implications: Apart from establishing the factors affecting consumer intentions for blockchain traceable coffee, this study validates the TPB as a model of explaining coffee purchasing intentions and provides evidence of new variables that can significantly increase the model's predictive power. Practical implications: The proposed format of presenting traceability information along with the significant variables revealed in our study can function as a guide for designing product features and marketing strategies for blockchain traceable organic coffee. Increasing consumer awareness on product traceability will also play a crucial role in the success of these products. Originality/value: This study is the first to explore consumer purchasing intentions for blockchain traceable coffee and establish the psychosocial variables behind them contributing, in that way, to an understudied area in academic literature as well as providing insights for a more consumer-centric design of such products

Designing, Aligning, and Visualizing Service Systems

Service is a concept that separates the concerns of an organization into (1) the value created for users and (2) the way the organization manages its resources to provide this value. The discipline of management of information technology (IT) uses services to coordinate and to optimize the use of IT resources (servers, applications, databases, etc.) in a way that brings value to users. The concrete application of the service concept is challenging due to its abstract, interdependent and recursive nature. We experienced this challenge while collaborating with the IT department of our university (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL) when the IT department adopted the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best-practices framework for IT service management. As researchers, we have the goal of improving the understanding of services as a means to structuring what people and organizations do. In the context of the IT department, we studied how to apply the service concept internally within the IT department, and externally (as business services) in the overall organization. In this thesis, we model services by using systems thinking principles. In particular, we use and improve SEAM, the systemic service-modeling method developed in our laboratory. Our main result is an ontology for SEAM service modeling. Our contributions are the heuristics that define how the ontology relates to a perceived reality: for example, the heuristics focus on behavior rather than organization and they put an emphasis on service instances rather than service types. We also define alignment between service systems, based on the properties of the systems¿ behavior. We show how to model an organization by implementing the concept of service as defined by our ontology. This ontology supports the design of service systems that align across both IT and business services. During our work with over one hundred IT services, we developed several visualization prototypes of a service cartography; we use these prototypes to describe and to relate the different views required for managing services. Our results offer a concrete way to implement the abstract concept of services. This way could be of interest for any organization willing to embark on a large-scale service project

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for supply chain traceability: industry considerations and consumer preferences

Several businesses and academic circles were quick to proclaim blockchain, the distributed ledger technology behind digital currencies, as the solution to a plethora of industry challenges. That was especially true for supply chain management and traceability applications for coffee products, where the technology's features were viewed as a potential solution to longstanding issues of communication inefficiencies, production monitoring, and communicating provenance information to the end consumer. However, despite the excessive amount of investment, research, and experimentation, blockchain growth and adoption have stagnated. This thesis suggests that a plausible reason for the current gridlock the technology finds itself in lies in the absence of primary research that goes beyond its technical implementations and provides clear insights on both how industry professionals understand blockchain and structure their decision-making process to adopt it, as well as on how consumers perceive coffee products that utilise the technology for traceability and provenance purposes. In attempting to fill that knowledge gap, add to the overall understanding of consumer perception of provenance and traceability information and, ultimately, provide companies and organisations with actionable suggestions and insights, this PhD answers two critical questions. One addresses how industry decision-makers perceive fundamental characteristics of blockchain and identify the determining factors for deciding whether they need to adopt and implement the technology in their supply chains. The second examines using blockchain as a traceability certification solution in the coffee industry, how consumers will perceive products that utilise it, and how it compares with existing traceability certifications in the market. The online survey used to explore the views of industry professionals revealed that despite the overall positive attitudes around blockchain and the importance the technology plays in their future business plans, issues around regulatory compliance, operational frameworks and concerns around the role and nature of system participation are hindering broader adoption and implementation. Inevitably, the proposed decision- making flowchart revealed that blockchain was a suitable business solution for less than half of them. At the same time, a questionnaire based on an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour combined with an online experimental study on multiple coffee certifications revealed that consumers positively value the features offered by a blockchain traceability system and found it easy to comprehend the proposed phone app format of presenting provenance information. However, a possible equation effect emerged when blockchain was compared with multiple traceability certifications in a market-like environment, highlighting the importance of consumer awareness around provenance information and the importance of product differentiation. The multifaceted insights provided in this thesis can significantly contribute to helping businesses and organisations formulate their strategies for implementing blockchain in their supply chains while also adopting a user-centred approach of considering consumer preferences and attitudes around the technology

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for supply chain traceability: industry considerations and consumer preferences

Several businesses and academic circles were quick to proclaim blockchain, the distributed ledger technology behind digital currencies, as the solution to a plethora of industry challenges. That was especially true for supply chain management and traceability applications for coffee products, where the technology's features were viewed as a potential solution to longstanding issues of communication inefficiencies, production monitoring, and communicating provenance information to the end consumer. However, despite the excessive amount of investment, research, and experimentation, blockchain growth and adoption have stagnated. This thesis suggests that a plausible reason for the current gridlock the technology finds itself in lies in the absence of primary research that goes beyond its technical implementations and provides clear insights on both how industry professionals understand blockchain and structure their decision-making process to adopt it, as well as on how consumers perceive coffee products that utilise the technology for traceability and provenance purposes. In attempting to fill that knowledge gap, add to the overall understanding of consumer perception of provenance and traceability information and, ultimately, provide companies and organisations with actionable suggestions and insights, this PhD answers two critical questions. One addresses how industry decision-makers perceive fundamental characteristics of blockchain and identify the determining factors for deciding whether they need to adopt and implement the technology in their supply chains. The second examines using blockchain as a traceability certification solution in the coffee industry, how consumers will perceive products that utilise it, and how it compares with existing traceability certifications in the market. The online survey used to explore the views of industry professionals revealed that despite the overall positive attitudes around blockchain and the importance the technology plays in their future business plans, issues around regulatory compliance, operational frameworks and concerns around the role and nature of system participation are hindering broader adoption and implementation. Inevitably, the proposed decision- making flowchart revealed that blockchain was a suitable business solution for less than half of them. At the same time, a questionnaire based on an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour combined with an online experimental study on multiple coffee certifications revealed that consumers positively value the features offered by a blockchain traceability system and found it easy to comprehend the proposed phone app format of presenting provenance information. However, a possible equation effect emerged when blockchain was compared with multiple traceability certifications in a market-like environment, highlighting the importance of consumer awareness around provenance information and the importance of product differentiation. The multifaceted insights provided in this thesis can significantly contribute to helping businesses and organisations formulate their strategies for implementing blockchain in their supply chains while also adopting a user-centred approach of considering consumer preferences and attitudes around the technology