Four facets of a process modeling facilitator

Business process modeling as a practice and research field has received great attention in recent years. However, while related artifacts such as models, tools or grammars have substantially matured, comparatively little is known about the activities that are conducted as part of the actual act of process modeling. Especially the key role of the modeling facilitator has not been researched to date. In this paper, we propose a new theory-grounded, conceptual framework describing four facets (the driving engineer, the driving artist, the catalyzing engineer, and the catalyzing artist) that can be used by a facilitator. These facets with behavioral styles have been empirically explored via in-depth interviews and additional questionnaires with experienced process analysts. We develop a proposal for an emerging theory for describing, investigating, and explaining different behaviors associated with Business Process Modeling Facilitation. This theory is an important sensitizing vehicle for examining processes and outcomes from process modeling endeavors

CHALLENGES IN ESTABLISHING SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION

Within the field of information systems an interest in environmental issues has driven the agenda for research from green IT improvement to sustainable innovation. A challenge yet to investigate is how sustainable innovation involving a cluster of actors from multiple settings should be 1) designed and 2) orchestrated so that the innovation performed enables sustainable change. Processes for launching sustainable innovation should consequently be analysed in order to further investigate this notion. In northern Europe there is today a strong drive towards enabling initiatives utilizing mobile information technology improving the everyday transportation of people. This paper analysis the launch of a research and innovation cluster with the aim to develop information infrastructures and processes that stimulate distributed development of digital services for everyday travel. Events performed during the two-year start-up have been analysed identifying essential actions for network design and innovation orchestration, creating hypotheses, which enables further research about the establishment of sustainable innovation

Accelerating Open Digital Innovation in the Automotive Industry: Action Design Research in Progress

Extant research has widely studied the impact of online product review on sales and most studies have found a significant impact of these reviews as an e-WOM tool. Given the importance of the online reviews, we study a hitherto understudied area of antecedents of sentiments in user reviews. We assess the impact of contagion effect of past review sentiments on reviewers\u27 choice to write a review. We analyze the impact of emotional response of users while writing product reviews triggered by the appraisal response to prior online reviews. A short selection of reviews, which most e-commerce websites show, along with the numerical product rating (if any) could strongly bias the sentiments in a review being written under their influence. Through a mix of experimental methods and text analysis of online reviews, we find that review writers tend to veer towards extreme reviews in absence of any benchmark or prior review

Empirical Evaluation of Action Design Research

There has been a growing interest in information systems (IS) research as design research. One popular methodology is Action Design Research (ADR). Despite the popularity, ADR lacks proper evaluation based on primary data. We claim that the existing empirical evidence justifying ADR is either fragmented or based on reconstructions of prior studies conducted for other purposes. Our claim is supported by the authors of ADR who state that “ … because the VIP project was not conducted explicitly as ADR, it cannot be viewed as an exemplar of its application”. The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence. Examples of empirical evidence show that ADR is highly relevant for an applied discipline such as IS, it creates a bridge between user-oriented perspectives of the IT artefact and technological perspectives and it supports a conceptual movement from a specific instance to a search for a class of problems

Inscribing Service into IT Service Management

Processes of IT Service Management (ITSM) are often defined in frameworks and standards pre-sented as best practices. However, existing best practices are often solely directed to service provid-ers, which does not correlate to a modern service-dominant logic. Moreover, existing best practices are often regarded as too comprehensive which prevents several actors from adopting them. Thus, this paper is based on the idea that there is a need to study how foundational premises of the service dominant logic could be inscribed into essential ITSM processes. This, we argue, will support practi-tioners to embrace a service culture while streamlining their work with ITSM work procedures. To this end, we have collaborated with service providers and service customers and adopted the Action Design Research methodology in order to identify, modify and evaluate essential ITSM processes in practice. Our theoretical contribution constitutes normative knowledge of enhanced essential ITSM processes from a service-dominant logic perspective

Challenges When Digital Services for Sustainable EverydayTravel is Innovated

This short paper introduce and investigates challenges when digital services for sustainable everyday travel is innovated. The notions of sustainable innovation, energy informatics persuasive technology and service ecosystem is used as a basis for a vision that facilitate the development and evaluation of persuasive solutions for sustainable travel. Based in this vision different challenges for innovation of digital services is discovered and research questions presented

Understanding the Behavior of Workshop Facilitators in Systems Analysis and Design Projects: Developing Theory from Process Modeling Projects

Organizational and technological systems analysis and design practices such as process modeling have received much attention in recent years. However, while knowledge about related artifacts such as models, tools, or grammars has substantially matured, little is known about the actual tasks and interaction activities that are conducted as part of analysis and design acts. In particular, key role of the facilitator has not been researched extensively to date. In this paper, we propose a new conceptual framework that can be used to examine facilitation behaviors in process modeling projects. The framework distinguishes four behavioral styles in facilitation (the driving engineer, the driving artist, the catalyzing engineer, and the catalyzing artist) that a facilitator can adopt. To distinguish between the four styles, we provide a set of ten behavioral anchors that underpin facilitation behaviors. We also report on a preliminary empirical exploration of our framework through interviews with experienced analysts in six modeling cases. Our research provides a conceptual foundation for an emerging theory for describing and explaining different behaviors associated with process modeling facilitation, provides first preliminary empirical results about facilitation in modeling projects, and provides a fertile basis for examining facilitation in other conceptual modeling activities

Digital Innovation and Incubators: A Comparative Interview Study from the Perspective of the Automotive Industry

As non-corporate (herewith referred to as “independent”) incubators gain in popularity for propelling digital innovation, traditional automotive firms have set up in-house incubators (herewith referred to as “corporate”) to accelerate innovation without disrupt-ing too much the inherent organizational structures and corporate cultures. The overarching objective is to establish the expected benefits for automotive firms from independent incubators when organizing corporate incubators. Using a comparative interview study, ten successful independent incubators in North America are discussed in terms of their ability to provide support in the digital domains. Our work has resulted in novel operating models for categorizing incubators to describe variations in focus areas and support for digital innovation. The results sheds light on how corporate incubators (internal to automotive firms) have the potential to shield digital ventures from the complexities of large and traditional establishments, and to promote interactions with other business units within the firm when performing digital innovation

BEYOND INNOVATION CONTESTS: A FRAMEWORK OF BARRIERS TO OPEN INNOVATION OF DIGITAL SERVICES

Recently, the interest in the innovation of digital services based on open public information (i.e. open data) has increased dramatically. Innovation contests, such as idea competitions and digital innovation contests, have become popular instruments to accelerate the development of new service ideas and prototypes. However, only a few of the service prototypes developed at innovation contests become viable digital services. In order to strengthen the role of innovation contests as innovation instruments, we propose a framework of innovation barriers to open innovation of digital services. The framework has been designed using a systematic research approach including a literature review of existing barriers, an online survey with participants before an innovation contest, and systematic follow-up interviews with teams participating in the contest. The framework consists of 18 innovation barriers and is intended to be used when organizing innovation contests. It supports the process after the contest when prototypes are transformed into viable digital services. For future research, we suggest the framework to be validated in a longitudinal study involving additional cases. Furthermore, we suggest using the framework as a starting point for constructing guidelines that can help in designing innovation contests