5,430 research outputs found

    Essays on Manufacturers’ IT Capabilities for Digital Servitization

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    Over the last decades, studies have found that transformational drivers affect how firms innovate their business models (Chesbrough, 2010; Massa et al., 2016). In markets in which physical products become commodities, the servitization of business models is a transformational driver for firms (Wise & Baumgartner, 1999). For its part, digitalization increases the potential to reshape business models through novel use cases of technology (Yoo et al., 2010). Recently, digitalization was found to extend the opportunities from servitization through digital technologies as digital servitization (Paschou et al., 2020). Digital servitization describes a firm’s shift from product-centric offerings to service-centric offerings with the help of novel IT assets (Naik et al., 2020). The manufacturing industry provides promising examples of firms with portfolios of physical offerings that might undergo such a transformational shift (Baines et al., 2017). So far, digital servitization research focuses primarily on four topics: re-defining the notion of servitization in the context of digitalization, identifying digital servitization value drivers, linking the transformation to specific technologies, and deriving how novel service offerings arise (Paschou et al., 2020; Zhou & Song, 2021). Despite the breadth of digital servitization research, how firms can shift to service-centric offerings remains unclear (Kohtamäki et al., 2019). Specifically, research lacks studies on the prerequisites and mechanisms that link theory with evidence on achieving IT-enabled service innovation (Paschou et al., 2020). Further, how firms must organize to build and operate IT-enabled services around these technologies remains unclear (Paschou et al., 2020). In a recent report on the manufacturing industry, practitioners confirm these gaps and associate them with a lack of managerial and technical knowledge (Illner et al., 2020). A theoretical lens that helps to address these shortcomings is the knowledge-based theory. It suggests that knowledge is the primary rationale, so that a firm benefits from its assets (Grant, 1996b; Nonaka, 1994). The knowledge-based theory understands a capability as a directed application of knowledge in a firm’s activities (Grant, 1996b; Nonaka, 1994). In the context of digitalization, firms require IT capabilities based on knowledge of how to capitalize on IT assets (Lee et al., 2015). Digital servitization research finds that IT capabilities are critical for identifying, adapting, and exploiting IT-enabled service innovations (Johansson et al., 2019). Still, little extant research informs firms that undergo digital servitization about which IT capabilities can help to strengthen their competitive advantage (Coreynen et al., 2017). Even though IT capabilities may be necessary for success in innovating IT-enabled services, the required knowledge needs to be disseminated effectively throughout an organization (Foss et al., 2014; Grant, 1996a; Nonaka, 1994). The organizational control theory offers a theoretical perspective about knowledge dissemination mechanisms, which can be horizontal or vertical (Ouchi, 1979). Horizontal knowledge dissemination mechanisms depend on codifying processes in rules or measuring process outputs through indicators, while the locus of exerting these rules and indicators determines the vertical knowledge dissemination. The IT innovation and IT governance literature refers to these knowledge dissemination mechanisms as formalization of IT activities and centralization of IT decision-making (Weill, 2004; Winkler & Brown, 2013; Zmud, 1982). However, how to orchestrate knowledge, particularly for IT capabilities, in firms that undergo digital servitization is not yet clear (Kohtamäki et al., 2019; Münch et al., 2022; Sjödin et al., 2020). Against this background, this dissertation addresses how manufacturers organize their IT capabilities while encountering the transformational drivers of digital servitization by answering the following overarching research question: How can manufacturers organize their IT capabilities to capitalize on digital servitization? (References to be found in the full text):List of abbreviations in synopsis............................................................................................................V Part I: Synopsis of the dissertation..........................................................................................................11 Motivation.......................................................................................................................................12 Research design...............................................................................................................................22. 1Conceptual approach and research objectives....................................................................22. 2Research methodologies and methods................................................................................4 3Structure of the dissertation.............................................................................................................5 3.1Systematization of the papers.............................................................................................5 3.2Paper1: Revisiting the concept of IT capabilities in the era of digitalization....................7 3.3Paper2: Short and sweet –Multiple mini case studies as a form of rigorous case studyresearch...............................................................................................................................9 3.4Paper3: Linking IT capabilities and competitive advantage of servitized business models..........................................................................................................................................11 3.5Paper4: From selling machinery to hybrid offerings –Organizational impact of digitalservitization on manufacturing firms................................................................................11 3.6Paper5: Manufacturers’ IT-enabled service innovation success as a multifacetedphenomenon: A configurational study..............................................................................13 3.7Paper6: The missing piece –Calibration of qualitative data for qualitative comparativeanalyses in IS research......................................................................................................14 3.8Paper7: Prerequisites and causal recipes for manufacturers’ success in innovating ITenabled services................................................................................................................16 4Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................19 4.1Resultssummary...............................................................................................................19 4.2Contributions....................................................................................................................20 4.2.1Theoretical contributions......................................................................................20 4.2.2Methodological contribution................................................................................21 4.2.3Practical contribution............................................................................................21 4.3Limitations and future research........................................................................................22 5References.....................................................................................................................................24 Part II: Papers of the dissertation...........................................................................................................29 Paper1: Revisiting the concept of IT capabilities in the era of digitalization.......................................30 Paper2: Short and sweet –Multiple mini case studies as a form of rigorous case study research.......41 Paper3: Linking IT capabilities and competitive advantage of servitized business model..................64 Paper4: From selling machinery to hybrid offerings –Organizational impact of digital servitization on manufacturing firms......................................................................................................................80 Paper5: Manufacturers’ IT-enabled service innovation success as a multifaceted phenomenon: A configurational study...................................................................................................................108 Paper6: The missing piece –Calibration of qualitative data for qualitative comparative analyses in IS research........................................................................................................................................119 Paper7: Prerequisites and causal recipes for manufacturers’ success in innovating IT-enabled services.....................................................................................................................................................136 Overview of the digital appendix on CD.............................................................................................17

    The Politics of Platformization: Amsterdam Dialogues on Platform Theory

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    What is platformization and why is it a relevant category in the contemporary political landscape? How is it related to cybernetics and the history of computation? This book tries to answer such questions by engaging in multidisciplinary dialogues about the first ten years of the emerging fields of platform studies and platform theory. It deploys a narrative and playful approach that makes use of anecdotes, personal histories, etymologies, and futurable speculations to investigate both the fragmented genealogy that led to platformization and the organizational and economic trends that guide nowadays platform sociotechnical imaginaries

    Explainable temporal data mining techniques to support the prediction task in Medicine

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    In the last decades, the increasing amount of data available in all fields raises the necessity to discover new knowledge and explain the hidden information found. On one hand, the rapid increase of interest in, and use of, artificial intelligence (AI) in computer applications has raised a parallel concern about its ability (or lack thereof) to provide understandable, or explainable, results to users. In the biomedical informatics and computer science communities, there is considerable discussion about the `` un-explainable" nature of artificial intelligence, where often algorithms and systems leave users, and even developers, in the dark with respect to how results were obtained. Especially in the biomedical context, the necessity to explain an artificial intelligence system result is legitimate of the importance of patient safety. On the other hand, current database systems enable us to store huge quantities of data. Their analysis through data mining techniques provides the possibility to extract relevant knowledge and useful hidden information. Relationships and patterns within these data could provide new medical knowledge. The analysis of such healthcare/medical data collections could greatly help to observe the health conditions of the population and extract useful information that can be exploited in the assessment of healthcare/medical processes. Particularly, the prediction of medical events is essential for preventing disease, understanding disease mechanisms, and increasing patient quality of care. In this context, an important aspect is to verify whether the database content supports the capability of predicting future events. In this thesis, we start addressing the problem of explainability, discussing some of the most significant challenges need to be addressed with scientific and engineering rigor in a variety of biomedical domains. We analyze the ``temporal component" of explainability, focusing on detailing different perspectives such as: the use of temporal data, the temporal task, the temporal reasoning, and the dynamics of explainability in respect to the user perspective and to knowledge. Starting from this panorama, we focus our attention on two different temporal data mining techniques. The first one, based on trend abstractions, starting from the concept of Trend-Event Pattern and moving through the concept of prediction, we propose a new kind of predictive temporal patterns, namely Predictive Trend-Event Patterns (PTE-Ps). The framework aims to combine complex temporal features to extract a compact and non-redundant predictive set of patterns composed by such temporal features. The second one, based on functional dependencies, we propose a methodology for deriving a new kind of approximate temporal functional dependencies, called Approximate Predictive Functional Dependencies (APFDs), based on a three-window framework. We then discuss the concept of approximation, the data complexity of deriving an APFD, the introduction of two new error measures, and finally the quality of APFDs in terms of coverage and reliability. Exploiting these methodologies, we analyze intensive care unit data from the MIMIC dataset

    Chatbots for Modelling, Modelling of Chatbots

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    Tesis Doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Departamento de Ingeniería Informática. Fecha de Lectura: 28-03-202

    Design of a Multimodal Mixed Reality Work Environment with Wearable Technology

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    Issues relating to health and well-being at work have risen in prominence, exerting negative effects upon both individuals and organizations. Two main contributing factors are a lack of awareness of one's bodily status and a lack of accessible and effective adjustment mechanisms. Through a comprehensive literature review in the fields of Physiology and Biosensors, Mixed Reality, and Environmental Psychology, this study examines the impacts of environmental attributes and investigates how technology can be leveraged to provide solutions for coping with changes in bodily status caused by internal or external stressors. To address the problem, this study proposes and develops a hybrid wearable and Mixed Reality system prototype that enhances awareness of bodily status and provides mediation. This prototype can adapt to the individual's real-time biometric data through a wearable glove, and provide personalized feedback in a Multimodal Mixed Reality working environment. A small-scale user testing was conducted and has yielded positive feedback. Ultimately, this study highlights that the implementation of a wearable and Mixed Reality system has the potential to contribute to a healthier and more productive workplace for individuals and organizations alike

    Handbook Transdisciplinary Learning

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    What is transdisciplinarity - and what are its methods? How does a living lab work? What is the purpose of citizen science, student-organized teaching and cooperative education? This handbook unpacks key terms and concepts to describe the range of transdisciplinary learning in the context of academic education. Transdisciplinary learning turns out to be a comprehensive innovation process in response to the major global challenges such as climate change, urbanization or migration. A reference work for students, lecturers, scientists, and anyone wanting to understand the profound changes in higher education

    Computer Vision and Architectural History at Eye Level:Mixed Methods for Linking Research in the Humanities and in Information Technology

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    Information on the history of architecture is embedded in our daily surroundings, in vernacular and heritage buildings and in physical objects, photographs and plans. Historians study these tangible and intangible artefacts and the communities that built and used them. Thus valuableinsights are gained into the past and the present as they also provide a foundation for designing the future. Given that our understanding of the past is limited by the inadequate availability of data, the article demonstrates that advanced computer tools can help gain more and well-linked data from the past. Computer vision can make a decisive contribution to the identification of image content in historical photographs. This application is particularly interesting for architectural history, where visual sources play an essential role in understanding the built environment of the past, yet lack of reliable metadata often hinders the use of materials. The automated recognition contributes to making a variety of image sources usable forresearch.<br/

    Structured machine learning models for robustness against different factors of variability in robot control

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    An important feature of human sensorimotor skill is our ability to learn to reuse them across different environmental contexts, in part due to our understanding of attributes of variability in these environments. This thesis explores how the structure of models used within learning for robot control could similarly help autonomous robots cope with variability, hence achieving skill generalisation. The overarching approach is to develop modular architectures that judiciously combine different forms of inductive bias for learning. In particular, we consider how models and policies should be structured in order to achieve robust behaviour in the face of different factors of variation - in the environment, in objects and in other internal parameters of a policy - with the end goal of more robust, accurate and data-efficient skill acquisition and adaptation. At a high level, variability in skill is determined by variations in constraints presented by the external environment, and in task-specific perturbations that affect the specification of optimal action. A typical example of environmental perturbation would be variation in lighting and illumination, affecting the noise characteristics of perception. An example of task perturbations would be variation in object geometry, mass or friction, and in the specification of costs associated with speed or smoothness of execution. We counteract these factors of variation by exploring three forms of structuring: utilising separate data sets curated according to the relevant factor of variation, building neural network models that incorporate this factorisation into the very structure of the networks, and learning structured loss functions. The thesis is comprised of four projects exploring this theme within robotics planning and prediction tasks. Firstly, in the setting of trajectory prediction in crowded scenes, we explore a modular architecture for learning static and dynamic environmental structure. We show that factorising the prediction problem from the individual representations allows for robust and label efficient forward modelling, and relaxes the need for full model re-training in new environments. This modularity explicitly allows for a more flexible and interpretable adaptation of trajectory prediction models to using pre-trained state of the art models. We show that this results in more efficient motion prediction and allows for performance comparable to the state-of-the-art supervised 2D trajectory prediction. Next, in the domain of contact-rich robotic manipulation, we consider a modular architecture that combines model-free learning from demonstration, in particular dynamic movement primitives (DMP), with modern model-free reinforcement learning (RL), using both on-policy and off-policy approaches. We show that factorising the skill learning problem to skill acquisition and error correction through policy adaptation strategies such as residual learning can help improve the overall performance of policies in the context of contact-rich manipulation. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates how to best do this with DMPs and propose “residual Learning from Demonstration“ (rLfD), a framework that combines DMPs with RL to learn a residual correction policy. Our evaluations, performed both in simulation and on a physical system, suggest that applying residual learning directly in task space and operating on the full pose of the robot can significantly improve the overall performance of DMPs. We show that rLfD offers a gentle to the joints solution that improves the task success and generalisation of DMPs. Last but not least, our study shows that the extracted correction policies can be transferred to different geometries and frictions through few-shot task adaptation. Third, we employ meta learning to learn time-invariant reward functions, wherein both the objectives of a task (i.e., the reward functions) and the policy for performing that task optimally are learnt simultaneously. We propose a novel inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) formulation that allows us to 1) vary the length of execution by learning time-invariant costs, and 2) relax the temporal alignment requirements for learning from demonstration. We apply our method to two different types of cost formulations and evaluate their performance in the context of learning reward functions for simulated placement and peg in hole tasks executed on a 7DoF Kuka IIWA arm. Our results show that our approach enables learning temporally invariant rewards from misaligned demonstration that can also generalise spatially to out of distribution tasks. Finally, we employ our observations to evaluate adversarial robustness in the context of transfer learning from a source trained on CIFAR 100 to a target network trained on CIFAR 10. Specifically, we study the effects of using robust optimisation in the source and target networks. This allows us to identify transfer learning strategies under which adversarial defences are successfully retained, in addition to revealing potential vulnerabilities. We study the extent to which adversarially robust features can preserve their defence properties against black and white-box attacks under three different transfer learning strategies. Our empirical evaluations give insights on how well adversarial robustness under transfer learning can generalise.

    The Dark Arts. A Future For Practitioners of Architecture.

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    Many practitioners experience dissonance between the potential of their field and the realities of practice as defined by status-quo conventions. The forces that shape practice create inefficiencies, barriers to opportunity, and amplify contingency across the built environment. This work aims to establish a new mode of practice that can flow around the status-quo, with the extended goal of accessing a means to impact problems on a systemic plane. This dissertation follows a practice-based design science research methodology. Beginning with a critical dissection of the architectural profession, it progresses via a series of representational and reflective tools that illustrate an emergent framework for the ‘creative project’: the conception, design, and implementation of a novel strategic design practice, called ‘Future Workshop’ (FW). This is developed in parallel with (and in contrast to) an existing architectural practice (DWA). The strategic design approach synthesizes new professional methods from architecture and other disciplines, allowing client organizations to target higher-order problems upstream of typical design engagements, focusing the impact of future design efforts on the most important goals and priorities. The research traverses the tensions between the pragmatic and intellectual hemispheres of practice and establishes metrics for considering these abstract problems through a particular series of diagrams and representational tokens, or ‘glyphs’. The contribution of this work is multivalent, including a novel way of operating a design practice (FW), and new means of inquiry, proposing situated methodologies for research within professional practice
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