Creating Evaluation Profiles for Games Designed to be Fun: An Interpretive Framework for Serious Game Mechanics

Background. Games can be great pedagogical tools for educators and students. COTS games (commercial-off-the-shelf) are designed for the pure purpose of leisure but can also contain educational value. Aim. In this paper, we address the potential of COTS games as serious games. We develop an interpretive evaluation framework that can identify the educational value in COTS games. Application. The presented framework can create evaluative profiles of the learning, social, game, and immersive mechanics of COTS games as educational tools. Moreover, the framework can position COTS games between four intertwined dimensions, namely pedagogical, design, knowledge, and sociotechnical considerations. Demonstration. To validate the practical application of the interpretive framework, we apply it to a real-world example. Our demonstration reveals the usefulness of the framework. Conclusions. The framework enables critical reflection on the game mechanics; thereby capturing the complexity of the game mechanics that makes COTS game both educational and fun to play. </jats:p

Digital Innovation and Organizational Culture: The Case of a Danish Media Company

In this study, we investigate the relationship between organizational culture and digital innovation, with a particular focus on understanding firms’ abilities to achieve a balance between stability and flexibility. On the background of an in-depth case study of the development of a digital news service in one of the largest media companies in Denmark, we rely on the widely used Competing Values Framework and the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument to identify the dominant organizational culture as a basis for understanding the challenges of transforming the company by using digital technology to innovate existing product and service offerings. Our study shows that the digital news service and the emerging work practices associated with it were negatively influenced by an imbalance towards the control-oriented dominant culture of the company, leading to limited heterogeneity within the innovation network and the digital innovation processes. The article contributes to the body of knowledge on digital innovation by investigating how organizational culture influence a firm’s ability to engage in digital innovation. Implications for both practitioners and researchers are discusse

Auditing of explorative processes

Process management is a central part of quality management concepts like Total Quality Management, methods like Six Sigma and Lean but also of management systems standards such as ISO 9001, where it is represented by different requirements on process design, process control and process improvement. Research has been conducted on process management and the understanding of exploitation and exploration, but also the sometimes negative effects from process management practices on exploration in organisations when operating in competitive environments. The purpose of this paper is to study if internal auditors adapt to explorative processes when auditing ISO 9001 process management requirements. This paper is based on a qualitative case study in a global company in the consumer electronics industry. The study points towards that internal auditors apply ISO 9001 MSS requirements for process control across the studied organisations and processes even though the audited organisations and processes were considered to be explorative and the environment competitive. Not adapting requirements for process management, to an explorative process in a competitive environment, can stunt an organisation’s capability to be innovative, thereby negatively affecting its competitiveness

The Professionalization of Hackers: A Content Analysis of 30 Years of Hacker Communication

Underground hacking has evolved from its early countercultural roots to become a complex and varied phenomenon. By combining a historical review of the literature with a content analysis of 30 years of underground hacker communication, we show that hacking has evolved in three waves to embrace learning and creativity, intrusion and crime, as well as politics and cyberwarfare. We uncover a paradoxical relationship between hackers and society at large where underground hacking is considered a digital crime while at the same time inspiring and driving corporate innovation, cybersecurity, and even cyberwarfare. The outcome of our research provides a nuanced picture of the hacker underground by highlighting differences between competing discursive themes across time. Moreover, by translating these themes into a set of six contrasting personas of IS professionals, we discuss how knowledge, technologies, and creative practices of underground hackers are being professionalized. We use this discussion to provide implications and a research agenda for IS studies in cybersecurity, innovation, and cyberwarfare

Towards an augmented audit service

To be competitive performing with good quality, improving customer satisfaction, and increasing operational efficiency have become key. Concepts and methods such as Total Quality Management, Six Sigma and Lean have been implemented to manage these demands. Also, ISO management system standards such as ISO 9001 have gained widespread attention and are now implemented by more than one million organisations worldwide. Following this diffusion of ISO management system standards, internal and external audits have become a universal activity in organisations that are certified towards any of these standards. However, audits are reported to have a negative association within many organisations as they are perceived as an inspection activity focusing on compliance and documentation. As a result, management have started to ask for return on investment for the non-negligible costs associated with certification and periodical external and internal audits. The purpose of this thesis is to explore and describe how an organisation can advance the process for internal and external auditing to add value beyond verifying compliance towards a standard. This thesis builds on a qualitative research design and departs from quality management, process management, exploitation and exploration, ambidexterity, and service logic. Data has mainly been collected through interviews and questionnaires.The three appended papers contribute to the purpose of this thesis by bringing forward examples of how an organisation can operationalise practices for business-relevant audits, but they also point towards possible challenges in the audit process. By abandoning the cyclic audit programme and instead align the audit programme to an organisation’s strategies and risks, a more business relevant audit programme can be established. Furthermore, introducing an audit sponsor for each individual audit establishes a closer connection with management. This practice also enhances customer (auditee) participation, which is a central component in a service logic. However, this closer participation from management may jeopardise auditor independence, which is one of the principles of auditing. Findings also indicate that ISO knowledge is more of a qualifying factor, which means that ISO compliance can be argued to be a primary responsibility for the audit provider, and a resource that the audit provider contributes in the audit process. Further, auditors apply requirements in the management system standard, such as requirements for process control across various types of processes, even though they were characterised as explorative. This indicates that there might be a challenge for auditors in moving between exploitative and explorative processes, which could be a result of auditors lacking organisational knowledge and context-related skills. However, the findings show that this can be mitigated by spending more time in the preparation phase of the audit and by adding experts to the audit team. Finally, implementing new report designs and shortening the time from the closing meeting until delivery of the audit report increases the accessibility of the audit services