Introduction to Supply Chain Security and Mutual Trust Research Minitrack

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Strategies for Successfully Managing Organizational IT Projects

Over 70% of information technology (IT) projects in large organizations in the United States run over budget or fail to reach completion primarily due to a lack of effective strategies. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that IT project managers used to successfully complete IT projects. Hersey and Blanchard\u27s situational leadership theory was the conceptual framework. Purposive sampling method was used to identify 2 successful IT project managers in Central Texas. Data gathered from semistructed interviews and collected from publicly available documents were analyzed using coding techniques, constant comparison, and key word phrases. Member checking enhanced the credibility of the interpretations of participant responses. Two themes emerged from data analysis: good customer focus and providing a standard IT project methodology. Findings may be used to improve IT business managers\u27 competence and sustainability, increase business incomes, provide a better quality of life for employees and their communities, and benefit the U.S. economy

Explaining Software as a Service Outsourcing: Economic and Social Considerations

Software as a service (SaaS) offers an innovative way to deliver software over the Internet to distributed organizations. While more and more SaaS providers are joining the market and competition among providers becomes more intense, we need to understand the considerations of potential clients. Built on transaction cost theory and social exchange theory, this study empirically investigates, with a national survey of IT/IS executives, the role of economic factors and the impact of social relationships on the economic factors in firms’ deciding to adopt SaaS. We found that cost savings are a critical consideration in SaaS and that social relationships exert a strong, positive direct impact on cost savings and positively moderate the impact of cost savings on SaaS. This paper expands our theoretical understanding of the SaaS phenomenon and provides some managerial insights

Data-Driven Understanding of Smart Service Systems Through Text Mining

Smart service systems are everywhere, in homes and in the transportation, energy, and healthcare sectors. However, such systems have yet to be fully understood in the literature. Given the widespread applications of and research on smart service systems, we used text mining to develop a unified understanding of such systems in a data-driven way. Specifically, we used a combination of metrics and machine learning algorithms to preprocess and analyze text data related to smart service systems, including text from the scientific literature and news articles. By analyzing 5,378 scientific articles and 1,234 news articles, we identify important keywords, 16 research topics, 4 technology factors, and 13 application areas. We define ???smart service system??? based on the analytics results. Furthermore, we discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of our work, such as the 5Cs (connection, collection, computation, and communications for co-creation) of smart service systems and the text mining approach to understand service research topics. We believe this work, which aims to establish common ground for understanding these systems across multiple disciplinary perspectives, will encourage further research and development of modern service systems

Exploring Blockchain Governance

Blockchain systems continue to attract significant interest from both practitioners and researchers. What is more, blockchain systems come in various types, such as cryptocurrencies or as inter-organizational systems in business networks. As an example of a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, one of the most prominent blockchain systems to date and born at the time of a major financial crisis, spearheaded the promise of relying on code and computation instead of a central governing entity. Proponents would argue that Bitcoin stood the test of time, as Bitcoin continues to operate to date for over a decade. However, these proponents overlook the never-ending, heated debates “behind the scenes” caused by diverging goals of central actors, which led to numerous alternative systems (forks) of Bitcoin. To accommodate these actors’ interests in the pursuit of their common goal is a tightrope act, and this is where this dissertation commences: blockchain governance. Based on the empirical examples of various types and application domains of blockchain systems, it is the goal of this dissertation to 1) uncover governance patterns by showing, how blockchain systems are governed, 2) derive governance challenges faced or caused by blockchain systems, and, consequently, to 3) contribute to a better understanding to what blockchain governance is. This dissertation includes four parts, each of these covering different thematical areas: In the first part, this dissertation focuses on obtaining a better understanding of blockchain governance’s context of reference by studying blockchain systems from various application domains and system types, for example, led by inter-organizational networks, states, or an independent group of actors. The second part, then, focuses on a blockchain as an inter-organizational system called “cardossier”, a project I was involved in, and its governance as a frame of reference. Hereupon, for one, I report on learnings from my project involvement in the form of managerial guidelines, and, for two, I report on structural problems within cardossier, and problems caused by membership growth and how they can be resolved. The third part focuses on a wider study of blockchains as inter-organizational systems, where I summarize findings of an analysis of 19 blockchain consortia. The findings, for one, answer the question of why blockchain consortia adopt blockchain technology, and, for two, show internal and external challenges these systems faced to derive managerial recommendations. The fourth and last part studies blockchain governance’s evolution and contributes an analysis of blockchain’s governance features and its contrast to established modes of governance. These four parts, altogether, have scientific value as they increase our understanding on blockchain governance. Consequently, this dissertation contributes to the body of knowledge on modes of governance, distributed system governance, and blockchain governance in general. I do so, by grounding the concept of blockchain governance in empirical detail, showing how these systems are governed on various application domains and system types, and by studying empirical challenges faced or caused by these systems. This approach is relevant and necessary, as blockchain systems in general, but particularly outside of cryptocurrencies, mostly still are in pursuit of a sustainable blockchain governance. As blockchains can be expected to continue to mature, the upcoming years offer very fruitful ground for empirical research along the empirical insights and theoretical lines shown in this dissertation

Building Dynamic Service Analytics Capabilities for the Digital Marketplace

Service firms are now interacting with customers through a multitude of channels or touchpoints. This progression into the digital realm is leading to an explosion of data, and warranting advanced analytic methods to manage service systems. Known as big data analytics, these methods harness insights to deliver, serve, and enhance the customer experience in the digital marketplace. Although global economies are becoming service-oriented, little attention is paid to the role of analytics in service systems. As such, drawing on a systematic literature review and thematic analysis of 30 in-depth interviews, this study aims to understand the nature of service analytics to identify its capability dimensions. Integrating the diverse areas of research on service systems, big data and dynamic capability theories, we propose a dynamic service analytics capabilities (DSAC) framework consisting of management, technology, talent, data governance, model development, and service innovation capability. We also propose a future research agenda to advance DSAC research for the emerging service systems in the digital marketplace

Satellite meteorology in the cold war era: scientific coalitions and international leadership 1946-1964

In tracing the history of the TIROS meteorological satellite system, this dissertation details the convergence of two communities: the DOD space scientists who established US capability to launch and operate these remote sensing systems and the US Weather Bureau meteorologists who would be the managers and users of satellite data. Between 1946 and 1964, these persons participated in successive coalitions. These coalitions were necessary in part because satellite systems were too big—geographically, fiscally, and technically—to be developed and operated within a single institution. Thus, TIROS technologies and people trace their roots to several research centers—institutions that the USWB and later NASA attempted to coordinate for US R&D. The gradual transfer of persons and hardware from the armed services to the non-military NASA sheds light on the US’s evolution as a Cold War global power, shaped from the “top-down” (by the executive and legislative branches) as well as the “bottom-up” (by military and non-military scientific communities). Through these successive coalitions, actor terms centered on “basic science” or the circulation of atmospheric data were used to help define bureaucratic places (the Upper Atmospheric Rocket Research Panel, International Geophysical Year, NASA, and the World Weather Watch) in which basic research would be supported by sustained and collaboration could take place with international partners.Ph.D

Contemporary Issues in Digital Marketing

Web-marketing;Customer services;International busines

Blockchain Application in Information Systems Research

Blockchain is a radical innovation with a core value proposition of shifting trust from institutions towards algorithms. Still, the potential of Blockchains remains vague due to the knowledge gap between computer science and socio-economic activities. Ninety percent of current Blockchain projects did not move from ideas to production-ready prototypes. Researchers and practitioners are searching for the meaningful leveraging of Blockchains for value creation. This dissertation aims to bridge the gap between technical and managerial knowledge of Blockchain that allows successful Blockchain system design and implementation. Therefore, the objective of the project is to identify the scope of Blockchain applications and introduce guidelines to make purposeful decisions of Blockchain implementations. The dissertation project covers four research questions. First, I consolidated knowledge of Blockchain technical configurations through the development of a taxonomy. Second, I considered the design patterns of smart contracts that represent the application logic of Blockchain systems. Third, I offered guidance for transforming initial conceptions of Blockchain ideas into working system prototypes by introducing a Blockchain configuration process model. Fourth, I investigated the common factors of Blockchain decisions to evaluate Blockchain implementations in the form of the framework. I employed a Design Science Research approach to developing four artefacts. The first three artefacts consider technical, application, and organizational aspects of Blockchain. The synergy reflects in the fourth, combinational artefact, which employs the high-level factors of Blockchain decisions. During the project, I have investigated the scientific and business studies, run Blockchain-based applications, conduct interviews, and evaluate the findings on Blockchain projects. The dissertation project contributes to research by bridging knowledge gaps between computer science and socio-economic research on a Blockchain that provides a fruitful ground for future conceptual and empirical studies. For practitioners, the developed artefacts are useful to identify and guide Blockchain projects that facilitate purposeful Blockchain adoption