Strategic value of data analytics in interorganizational relationships

Researchers suggest that data analytics (DA) enhance decisions related to interorganizational relationships (IOR) and lead to reduced risk and improved performance. However, and despite this potential, firms face challenges regarding effective use of their DA capabilities to enhance their IORs. The massive investment in DA, as well as the need for an efficient use of DA in IOR settings, create the potential opportunities for two streams of research: a deeper understanding of business value of DA in IOR; and a systematic examination of DA’s strategy for an enhanced alignment with IORs. Despite the published scholarly works in these two research streams, the complexity, diversity, and newness associated with DA technologies make our understanding of the business value of DA in IOR and DA strategy for IOR incomplete. First, our understanding of why and how DA impact IOR performance is inadequate and fragmented. Second, the focus of the preponderance of published empirical papers in understanding the value of DA is at the operational level, and the strategic implications of DA capabilities in IOR are not addressed. Third, the literature fails to consider the inherent heterogeneity among the user base of DA systems, and consequently, the findings are not generalizable. Finally, the literature fails to address the impact of external factors, such as complexity and volatility on DA strategy. In this dissertation, I attempt to contribute to the literature by focusing on these research gaps and investigating them in three studies. In the first study, a holistic value-view of a firm’s supply chain enabled by DA for improved business performance, is presented based on two complementary views of market-oriented coordination and strategic supplier partnership. The study discusses how DA capabilities impact the constituents of this complementary view of supply chain to amplify business performance. I propose a theoretical model of the effect of DA capabilities on a firm’s co-creation of value, with its partners for business performance. Then, I test the model empirically based on a survey of 198 practitioners. My findings show that DA capabilities improve upstream and downstream integration and leverage the co-creation of value. The second study provides a better understanding of the impact of DA on interorganizational collaborations by answering two fundamental research questions: “How does a firm use its DA capabilities to improve collaboration and enhance performance?” and “What is the impact of DA capabilities on a firm’s collaboration and performance?” To answer these questions and to provide a deeper insight from multiple perspectives, I utilized a mixed method research by conducting a thorough content analysis of 34 published case studies, followed by a confirmatory research based on a survey of 210 practitioners to empirically test the insights generated from my content analysis. My findings identify several paths to improved performance using DA capabilities. My analysis suggests that DA capabilities, used appropriately in an interorganizational collaborative environment, lead to reduced costs and the need for required working capital and ultimately better performance through improved collaborative relationships such as planning and scheduling. In the third study, I expand the results of the two prior studies by analyzing the DA strategic focus. I employ an agent-based simulation to test different DA strategies in various business environments that are identified by levels of complexity and dynamism. My findings indicate that optimum DA strategy has a quadratic relationship with the levels of complexity and dynamism, which explains the prior contradictory findings of the IS literature. These three studies contribute to the business value of IT and IS strategy literatures by investigating the business value of DA in IOR settings, identifying impacts of DA on value co-creation in IORs and determining a suitable DA strategy based on various environmental factors

A Resource-Based Perspective

Geschäftsprozesstechnologien unterstützen dabei, operative Tätigkeiten effizienter und effektiver durchzuführen. In einem sich dynamisch verändernden Umfeld wird es für Organisationen essenziell, diese Technologien gezielt einzusetzen, um durch schnelle Anpassung weiterhin wettbewerbsfähig zu bleiben. Die derzeitige Forschung hat bisher keine Antwort darauf gefunden, wie Organisationen dies trotz ständig wechselnder Umfeldbedingungen und fortschreitender organisationaler Reife durch gezielte Ressourcenallokation erreichen können. Diese Dissertation adressiert diese Forschungslücke, indem untersucht wird, wie organisationale Fähigkeiten mithilfe von Geschäftsprozesstechnologien innerhalb dynamischer Umfelder ausgebildet und erneuert werden können.Business process technologies help to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of day-to-day operations. Organizations face the challenge of leveraging these technologies to quickly adapt business processes accordingly to cope with different levels of environmental turbulence. From prior research, we know how organizations apply business process technologies and how they affect performance. We do not fully understand how organizations orchestrate related resources based on changing environmental conditions and evolving organizational maturity. This dissertation addresses this research problem and presents research on how to develop and renew organizational capabilities with business process technologies through turbulent environments

The Role of Business Intelligence and Communication Technologies in Organizational Agility: A Configurational Approach

This study examines the role that business intelligence (BI) and communication technologies play in how firms may achieve organizational sensing agility, decision making agility, and acting agility in different organizational and environmental contexts. Based on the information-processing view of organizations and dynamic capability theory, we suggest a configurational analytic framework that departs from the standard linear paradigm to examine how IT’s effect on agility is embedded in a configuration of organizational and environmental elements. In line with this approach, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze field survey data from diverse industries. Our findings suggest equifinal pathways to organizational agility and the specific boundary conditions of our middle-range theory that determine what role BI and communication technologies play in organizations’ achieving organizational agility. We discuss implications for theory and practice and discuss future research avenues

Assessing Navy Flag-Level Command Transitions: Commanders, Command Teams, and Effectiveness

NPS NRP Technical ReportAssessing Navy Flag-Level Command Transitions: Commanders, Command Teams, and EffectivenessCommander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force (COMOPTEVFOR)This research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Exploring levers for agility and their inter-relations in the German energy industry via neo-configurational theory

Organisational agility describes firms’ ability to proactively and reactively handle external changes like the COVID and Ukraine crises. This thesis researches how levers like culture (in this thesis = mindset) or strategy impact agility. Existing research shows agility’s outcome but neglects its origin and its levers’ interactions. Since mindsets guide employees and leaders, research was requested for how organisational culture influences other levers’ effects. Therefore, this thesis developed a literature-based framework of levers, tailored it to the studied context, proposing that strategy, technology, linkages, and structures, filtered through employees’ and leaders’ mindsets, interact to lead to agility. Neo-configurational theory (NCT) provided the theoretical underpinning for lever inter-relations, basing this research in wider organisational theory. As critical realist work, the thesis recognised agility’s context-specificity and examined the recently turbulent German energy industry as exemplary context. 36 semi-structured interviews in 15 purposefully sampled companies were analysed in three steps: All data were thematically analysed. Fuzzy-values were derived using the Generic Membership Evaluation Template (GMET). The concluding fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) determined pathways to agility and non-agility, levers’ interdependencies, and mindset’s role. The results show that agility presupposes an implemented agile strategy (i.e. strategy filtering agility) but not necessarily a very agile culture, while non-agility comes with a very non-agile employee mindset (i.e. culture filtering non-agility). Three strategy-dependent paths to agility exist for energy companies: one builds on internal and external linkages, one on lacking technological capabilities with improvement spirit, and one couples agile employee mindsets with decentralised structures. Three employee mindset-dependent paths describe non-agility: one builds on lacking linkages and supportive leadership, one on lacking technological capabilities, supportive leadership and strategy, and one on lacking technology capabilities reflecting in inadequate structures. This thesis’ major methodological contributions are refining the GMET as new tool to transform qualitative data into fuzzy-values and further establishing fsQCA in management research. Academics gain a sound theoretical basis for agility in form of NCT and practitioners and academics a view on agility levers’ role, especially on culture and strategy. Utilities’ managers can use this to prioritise levers facing sudden changes

Agility and Resilience as Sources of Competitive Advantages a Theoretical and Empirical Investigation

Today’s hypercompetitive global climate makes lasting competitive edge unsuitable. Firms face increasing complexity due to the rapid entry and growth of internationalizing firms from emerging markets, technological breakthroughs, discontinuous innovation, and the uncertainties surrounding unexpected shocks transmitted across world markets, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. In this research, I examine how firms have built and applied two adaptive abilities (agility and resilience) to respond to environmental changes and disruptions to create sustainable competitive advantage. An agile organization is simultaneously a resilient organization. Despite agility’s increased relevance in the academy and practitioners\u27 publications, its epistemological and ontological analyses are superficial at best. Specifically, supported by inductive and deductive analysis, I bring clarity to agility’s concept and its boundary conditions. Thus, I propose an integrative multilevel framework of the antecedents, the enablers, and the outcomes of the process of agility performance. Moreover, through in-depth interviews with executives, I explore how agility and resilience manifested in emerging market multinational firms (EMNEs) enhance their competitiveness by using both adaptive abilities in their international operations. The findings reveal that all organizations possess some degrees of agility and resilience simultaneously as two faces of the same coin. Furthermore, agility and resilience are interdependent, comprising five common domains

The influence of relational competencies on supply chain resilience : a relational view

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Purpose – The purpose of this research is to explore the resilience domain, which is important in the field of supply chain management; it investigates the effects relational competencies have for resilience and the effect resilience, in turn, has on a supply chain’s customer value. Design/methodology/approach – The research is empirical in nature and employs a confirmatory approach that builds on the relational view as a primary theoretical foundation. It utilizes survey data collected from manufacturing firms from three countries, which is analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings – It is found that communicative and cooperative relationships have a positive effect on resilience, while integration does not have a significant effect. It is also found that improved resilience, obtained by investing in agility and robustness, enhances a supply chain’s customer value. Practical implications – Some findings contrast the expectations derived from theory. Particularly, practitioners can learn that integration has a limited role in enhancing resilience. Originality/value – The study distinguishes between a proactive and reactive dimension of resilience: robustness and agility. The relational view serves as the theoretical basis to explain the effects between three types of relational competencies (communication, cooperation, and integration) and the above-mentioned two dimensions of resilience. Keywords Relational competencies, Supply chain management, Risk management, Supply chain resilience, Supply chain agility, Supply chain robustnes

Business Intelligence and Analytics in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

This thesis presents a study of Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Although the importance of BI&A is widely accepted, empirical research shows SMEs still lag in BI&A proliferation. Thus, it is crucial to understand the phenomenon of BI&A adoption in SMEs. This thesis will investigate and explore BI&A adoption in SMEs, addressing the main research question: How can we understand the phenomenon of BI&A adoption in SMEs? The adoption term in this thesis refers to all the IS adoption stages, including investment, implementation, utilization, and value creation. This research uses a combination of a literature review, a qualitive exploratory approach, and a ranking-type Delphi study with a grounded Delphi approach. The empirical part includes interviews with 38 experts and Delphi surveys with 39 experts from various Norwegian industries. The research strategy investigates the factors influencing BI&A adoption in SMEs. The study examined the investment, implementation, utilization, and value creation of BI&A technologies in SMEs. A thematic analysis was adopted to collate the qualitative expert interview data and search for potential themes. The Delphi survey findings were further examined using the grounded Delphi method. To better understand the study’s findings, three theoretical perspectives were applied: resource-based view theory, dynamic capabilities, and IS value process models. The thesis’ research findings are presented in five articles published in international conference proceedings and journals. This thesis summary will coherently integrate and discuss these results.publishedVersio

Teams in agile software development: Design principles and examination of human factors

In response to new customer requirements, market dynamics, mergers, and technological innovation, modern software development organizations are adopting agile software development (ASD). Yet, the simple adoption of agile methods such as Scrum or eXtreme programming does not automatically result in a very agile team. While we understand the introduction and adoption of ASD from a methodical perspective, we have yet to explore design principles that guide methodical extensions of ASD, and we need to learn more about the human factors that influence software development teams. This thesis presents four studies. Studies 1 and 2 investigate the methodical extension of ASD by identifying design principles from secondary data. Study 1 extends ASD with processes and practices from user-centered design. Study 2 investigates early activities that precede development activities. The thesis also investigates human factors of agile software development in studies 3 and 4. Study 3 compares teams along their extents of agility in order to identify influential factors using a multicase study design. Study 4 tests the effects of emotional contagion in virtual software development teams using a large dataset from an open source software repository. Thus, this thesis makes two primary contributions. First, it develops design principles for methodical extensions of ASD; second, it contributes to the human factors that influence software development teams. Managers also receive guidance on the improvement of ASD in their organization