Special Issue Editorial – Accumulation and Evolution of Design Knowledge in Design Science Research: A Journey Through Time and Space

Sir Isaac Newton (1676) famously said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Research is a collaborative, evolutionary endeavor—and it is no different with design science research (DSR), which builds upon existing design knowledge and creates new design knowledge to pass on to future projects. However, despite the vast, growing body of DSR contributions, scant evidence of the accumulation and evolution of design knowledge has been articulated in an organized DSR body of knowledge. Most contributions rather stand on their own feet than on the shoulders of giants, and this continues to limit how far we can see, curtailing the extent of the broader impacts that can be made through DSR. In this editorial, we aim at providing guidance on how to position design knowledge contributions in wider problem and solution spaces. We propose (1) a model conceptualizing design knowledge as a resilient relationship between problem and solution spaces, (2) a model that demonstrates how individual DSR projects consume and produce design knowledge, (3) a map to position a design knowledge contribution in problem and solution spaces, and (4) principles on how to use this map in a DSR project. We show how fellow researchers, readers, editors, and reviewers, as well as the IS community as a whole, can make use of these proposals, and also illustrate future research opportunities

Towards Phenomenon-driven Design Science Research

We propose a research approach that extends phenomenon-driven research – which is primarily aimed at producing descriptive and explanatory knowledge about novel phenomena – with a design-oriented focus. The resulting approach aims to develop not only explanatory knowledge about novel phenomena but also prescriptive knowledge about how to face corresponding novel challenges and does so in conjunction and in a mutually reinforcing way. We illustrate our approach with two examples to understand and produce design principles for the novel phenomena of organising the IT setups in Scaled Agile organisations and Digital Innovation Units, respectively. Researchers can draw on our approach to understand novel phenomena and simultaneously produce knowledge that is also relevant to practitioners facing novel practical challenges resulting from these novel phenomena

Design of a virtual battery system : Add-on service for commercial Finnish solar plants

Matching electricity consumption and production becomes an important aspect when a solar plant is added to the electricity system of a building. Companies are currently economically and environmentally incentivized only to install solar plants whose energy production matches the consumption as well as possible. This is due to the excess energy production being not as valuable as production that is consumed instantaneously locally. Such is the case in regions without a net-metering system in place. This study aims to provide means to solve this proposed problem by designing and testing a solution that increases the environmental value of excess solar production from the perspective of a Finnish company that produces solar energy. This should incentivize companies to build larger solar plants, which in turn would increase the additionality of renewable energy. First, this paper builds a theoretical fundament by examining the standard practices and frameworks in design science research and cyber-physical system development. Based on these two, the initial design and development of the proposed virtual battery artifact is executed. Its functionality and architecture are depicted. The artifact is then demonstrated via a simulation that produces real-world financial and environmental effects of its usage. Lastly, the artifact is evaluated by presenting the artifact and gathering feedback in semi-structured interviews. Seven interviewees were picked randomly from a pool of potential customer base. In addition, the artifact’s design process is mirrored to design science research framework to ensure a rigorous and thorough product. The demonstration phase showed that oversizing solar plants in Finland led to slight economies of scale effect. Additionally, relative production to own use increased in the spring and fall as a by-product. The interview's key findings were the difficulty in affecting environmental indicators by transferring overproduction between properties. However, contrary to the initial presumptions, the environmental indicators' range was far more concise than thought. The interviewees were surprisingly keen on moving towards producing excess solar energy to their needs. The two main reasons behind this were the set ambitious environmental goals and recently increased financial return on investment due to the elevated electricity prices. Increasing own renewable electricity production was seen as more valuable than purchasing CO2 emission-free electricity due to the concept of renewable additionality. On the other hand, the proposed virtual battery system also raised a few concerns. These concerns were limited to mainly two issues: the power purchase agreement model and recognition of transferred overproduction by environmental indicator administrators. In combination with the proposed virtual battery system, the power purchase agreement model would lead to diminishing profitability. These two issues need to be considered in future development.Kun rakennuksen energiajärjestelmään lisätään aurinkovoimala, sähkön kulutuksen ja tuotannon oikea-aikaisuuden merkitys kasvaa ratkaisevasti. Nykytilassa yritysten on niin rahallisesti kuin ympäristökannaltakin kannattavaa rakentaa aurinkovoimaloita ainoastaan, mikäli niiden tuotanto ja kulutus kohtaavat ajallisesti mahdollisimman hyvin. Ylituotannon tuottaminen ei ole yrityksille kannattavaa, etenkään alueilla, jossa sähkön netotusmittaus ei ole käytössä. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tarjota ratkaisu kyseisen ongelman selättämiseksi. Tutkimuksessa on suunniteltu ja testattu ratkaisua, joka lisää aurinkovoimalan ylituotannon ympäristöarvoa suomalaisen yrityksen näkökulmasta. Kuvattu ratkaisu kannustaisi onnistuessaan yrityksiä rakentamaan kookkaampia aurinkovoimaloita, mikä vuorostaan nostaisi todellista uusiutuvan energian lisäävyyttä. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen pohja rakentuu suunnittelutieteessä sekä kyberfysikaalisten järjestelmien kehittämisessä yleisesti käytetyistä viitekehyksistä sekä käytännöistä. Virtuaaliakkuartefaktin suunnittelu sekä luominen on toteutettu tämän teoreettisen pohjan perusteella. Tutkimuksessa kuvataan artefaktin toiminnallisuus sekä arkkitehtuuri. Artefaktia demonstroidaan simulaatiolla, jonka avulla saadaan selville sen käytöstä koituvat rahalliset sekä ympäristölliset vaikutukset. Lopuksi artefaktin onnistumista arvioidaan esittelemällä se osana teemahaastatteluja. Haastateltavia oli seitsemän, ja heidät valittiin sattumanvaraisesti artefaktin potentiaalisten asiakkaiden joukosta. Viimeiseksi tutkimuksessa tehty suunnitteluprosessi peilattiin suunnittelutieteen viitekehykseen, perusteellisen lopputuloksen takaamiseksi. Demonstraatiovaiheessa kävi ilmi, että aurinkovoimaloiden ylimitoitus johti pieneen mittakaavaetuun, ja suhteellinen tuotanto omaan käyttöön lisääntyi keväällä ja syksyllä. Haastatteluissa kävi ilmi, että ympäristövaikutusten mittareihin oli odotettua vaikeampaa vaikuttaa ylituotantoa siirtämällä. Tosin, käytettyjen mittareiden laajuus sekä niiden mielletty tärkeys olivat oletettua suppeammat sekä pienemmät. Haastateltavat olivat yllättävän innokkaita siirtymään tuottamaan ylituotantoa aurinkovoimaloilla. Tähän liittyi kaksi pääsyytä; yrityksien kunnianhimoiset ympäristötavoitteet sekä kohonneesta sähkön hinnasta johtuva aurinkovoimaloiden takaisinmaksuajan lyheneminen. Oman uusiutuvan sähköntuotannon lisääminen koettiin uusiutuvien energiamuotojen lisäävyyden vuoksi arvokkaammaksi kuin hiilidioksidipäästöttömän sähkön ostaminen. Toisaalta esitetty artefakti nosti esiin myös muutamia huolenaiheita. Nämä huolenaiheet rajoittuivat pääasiassa nykyiseen aurinkoenergian sähkönostosopimuksen malliin sekä ympäristömittareiden toimintatapaan olla tunnustamatta siirrettyä aurinkoenergiaa. Sähkönostosopimuksella asennettu aurinkovoimala yhdistettynä virtuaaliakkuratkaisuun tarkoittaisi todennäköisesti rahallisen kannattavuuden laskua. Nämä kaksi asiaa on huomioitava ratkaisun tulevassa kehityksessä

Research Perspectives: Design Theory Indeterminacy: What Is it, How Can it Be Reduced, and Why Did the Polar Bear Drown?

Design science research strives to be practical and relevant. Yet few researchers have examined the extent to which practitioners can meaningfully utilize theoretical knowledge produced by design science research in solving concrete real-world problems. Are design theories developed by scientists readily amenable to application by practitioners? Does the application of a theory by practitioners always lead to the outcomes predicted (by the scientists)? We examine a particularly difficult challenge—ensuring that the development and deployment of an IT artifact by practitioners based on a design theory result in appropriate changes in the environment predicted by the design theory. As we show in our paper, a gulf exists between theoretical propositions and concrete issues faced in practice—a challenge we refer to as design theory indeterminacy. Design theory indeterminacy might result in considerable ambiguity when implementing a design theory in practice and reduce the potential relevance of information systems knowledge. In this paper, we articulate the problem of design theory indeterminacy, examine factors that contribute to it, and suggest fruitful directions for future research to help reduce it

Design Science Research in Green IS - Analyzing the Past to Guide Future Research

The field of Green IS research addresses the environmental challenges of our rapidly growing economy. IS-based solutions are valuable tools for emissions reduction and waste mitigation. The development of novel sustainable IS artifacts falls in the domain of Design Science Re-search. Applying the Design Science Research paradigm helps to design, develop, improve and implement IS related artifacts to solve prevailing problems or challenges. Hence, regarding sustainability, it acts as an aid to the goals of Green IS. Thus, the development of novel sustain-able artifacts falls in the intersection of Green IS and Design Science Research. We analyze the relationship between Design Science Research and Green IS by providing a deeper understanding of current research knowledge and opportunities at the intersection of these two important IS topics. Based on these findings, we present five directions for future re-search that aim to facilitate further contributions to theoretical knowledge, Design Science Re-search, and sustainable solution development in the field of Green IS

On Implementing Ethical Principles in Design Science Research

Technological innovations raise axiological questions such as what is right or wrong, good and bad, and so on (i.e., ethical considerations). These considerations have particular importance in design science research (DSR) projects since the developed artifacts often actively intervene into human affairs and, thus, cannot be free from value. To account for this fact, Myers and Venable (2014) proposed six ethical principles for DSR in order to support researchers to conduct ethical DSR. However, ethical principles per se—and the ethical DSR principles that Myers and Venable propose— have an abstract nature so that they can apply to a broad range of contexts. As a consequence, they do not necessarily apply to specific research projects, which means researchers need to contextualize them for each specific DSR project. Because doing so involves much challenge, we explore how contemporary DSR publications have dealt with this contextualization task and how they implemented the six ethical principles for DSR. Our results reveal that DSR publications have not discussed ethical principles in sufficient depth. To further promote ethical considerations in DSR, we argue that both DSR researchers and reviewers should be supported in implementing ethical principles. Therefore, we outline two pathways toward ethical DSR. First, we propose that researchers need to articulate the next generation of ethical principles for DSR using prescriptive knowledge structures from DSR. Second, we propose extending established DSR conceptualizations with an ethical dimension and specifically introduce the concept of ethical DSR process models. With this work, we contribute to the IS literature by reviewing ethical principles and their implementation in DSR, identifying potential challenges hindering efforts to implement ethics in DSR, and providing two pathways towards ethical DSR

Cloud Technology Selection: A structured framework for decision making

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementThis study aims to get organizations to improve their decision making during the selection of cloud technology process. As the technology evolves alongside an ever-increasing abundance in market offer, it may be challenging to choose the desirable service that encompasses several business approaches. For the purpose of this study to be attained, the reader must first comprehend the definition of Cloud Technology: it is the delivery of IT resources over the Internet, being applications, software, storage, among other services. Furthermore, understanding the current main technologies/architectures and their capabilities/limitations will play an important role in designing and developing the prospected solution. A thoroughly research will be produced to better define the criteria used in the process. Despite the fact that technology is able to be tailored up to a certain level for the organization needs, a higher level of participation will encourage vendors and architecture designers to develop a better knowledge on the companies’ desires, thus delivering more appropriate features to their unique needs

A novel hybrid recommendation system for library book selection

Abstract. Increasing number of books published in a year and decreasing budgets have made collection development increasingly difficult in libraries. Despite the data to help decision making being available in the library systems, the librarians have little means to utilize the data. In addition, modern key technologies, such as machine learning, that generate more value out data have not yet been utilized in the field of libraries to their full extent. This study was set to discover a way to build a recommendation system that could help librarians who are struggling with book selection process. This thesis proposed a novel hybrid recommendation system for library book selection. The data used to build the system consisted of book metadata and book circulation data of books located in Joensuu City Library’s adult fiction collection. The proposed system was based on both rule-based components and a machine learning model. The user interface for the system was build using web technologies so that the system could be used via using web browser. The proposed recommendation system was evaluated using two different methods: automated tests and focus group methodology. The system achieved an accuracy of 79.79% and F1 score of 0.86 in automated tests. Uncertainty rate of the system was 27.87%. With these results in automated tests, the proposed system outperformed baseline machine learning models. The main suggestions that were gathered from focus group evaluation were that while the proposed system was found interesting, librarians thought it would need more features and configurability in order to be usable in real world scenarios. Results indicate that making good quality recommendations using book metadata is challenging because the data is high dimensional categorical data by its nature. Main implications of the results are that recommendation systems in domain of library collection development should focus on data pre-processing and feature engineering. Further investigation is suggested to be carried out regarding knowledge representation