Feed the Machine - An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Openness in Innovation on IT Entrepreneurship

In the future, if businesses want to innovate, IT will have to play a substantial role. Furthermore, innovating with IT will most likely imply opening up the innovation channel and collaborating with various kinds of external partners, as digital platforms and eco-systems involving various actors arise. According to prior research, emphasizing external innovation collaboration bears the risk of inhibiting internal innovation. As the ability to innovate with IT becomes a key differ-ential factor in almost every industry, business managers – especially in non-IT firms – must cultivate the entrepreneurial role of their IT departments and the respective employees. There-fore, the question arises of how the focus on external innovation sources and the emphasis on internal innovativeness of IT professionals relate to each other. Prior research has generated conflicting results on this issue. With our large-scale (n = 354) empirical analysis, we provide evidence that firm openness fosters the entrepreneurial behavior of IT professionals. Further-more, this impact is mediated by the absorptive capacity of the IT unit. Consequently, as our model shows, valuable external knowledge can be integrated for internal innovation purposes, thus driving both IT professionals’ willingness to act entrepreneurially as well as their perceived ability to do so

Uncovering the Role of IS in Business Model Innovation - A Taxonomy-driven Approach to Structure the Field

Business model innovations (BMIs) are one of the key activities organizations must undertake to survive and thrive. As information systems (IS) penetrate more and more aspects of life, they become an important factor affecting both the process and the outcome of business model innovations. The increased importance of IS in a growing number of industries has led various researchers to focus on examining the role of IS in innovation. However, these insights concentrate on process, product, and service innovations, while business model innovations encompass characteristics that are fundamentally different from these. Therefore, in this paper we use a rigorous taxonomy-building approach to uncover the distinct roles IS play in this important endeavor, employing a meta-perspective and drawing from documented empirical research on business model innovations. We found that IS act, first, as enablers of business model innovation, second, as capabilities in the business model innovation process, and third, as frames of reference for business model innovations. Our findings indicate that IS are thus both operand and operant resources in business model innovations. Hence, business managers must be aware of all of these roles, as they could have transformative impacts in every industry

Sharing Yet Caring - Mitigating Moral Hazard in Access-Based Consumption through IS-Enabled Value Co-Capturing with Consumers

The quest for creating smart and sustainable cities entails various substantial challenges, such as environmental degradation and a shortage of space. To negotiate these hurdles, innovative approaches must be implemented. A key aspect in this regard is the shared use of resources via forms of access-based consumption. Owing to advances in the digitalization of contemporary societies, these concepts have recently attracted both consumer and scholarly interest. However, the digitally enabled separation of ownership and use brings along the risk of moral hazard by consumers using resources in careless or wasteful ways, which is detrimental to the sustainability of the overall system. In this study, the authors conceptualize and empirically investigate how these adverse effects can be mitigated by applying the potentials of connectivity and digital data to enable users to participate economically while acting favorably from a collective perspective. The results of the quasi-experimental research design, situated in a carsharing context and comprising data records of 2,983 bookings, indicate that this form of value co-capturing with consumers can significantly motivate users to alter their behavior. From these findings, the authors derive important implications for research on the sustainability of digital business eco-systems in the specific context of smart cities

Too Much of a Good Thing? An Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Digital Technology-enabled Business Models on Individual Stress and Future Adoption of Sustainable Services

The pervasive diffusion of digital technologies affords the development of innovative and sustainable business models. With increased connectivity, options arise for enabling sharing-based services with pay-per-use pricing. Besides the merits that these services gather, e.g., concerning sustainability, flexibility and economics, less is known about the potential adverse impacts on individuals. Thus, we employed an experimental research design to examine how digital technology-enabled business models affect individual stress and perception concerning the future usage of these services. Specifically, we investigated the context of car sharing, a service that has recently been advanced by the use of digital technologies and received increasing adoption rates. The empirical results indicate that digital technology-enabled business model designs significantly influence psychological stress in an unfavorable manner, and hence, negatively affect the willingness to use car sharing. Thus, our investigation points to the importance of accounting for potential dysfunctional societal effects of information systems in sustainability transformation

Entering the Digital Era – The Impact of Digital Technology-related M&As on Business Model Innovations of Automobile OEMs

Digital technologies have reached the sphere of industrial-age, primarily physical industries, thus forcing incumbent firms to digitally innovate their business models. Employing a longitudinal dataset of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers from 2000 to 2013, we found empirical evidence of a positive effect of digital technology–related mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on digital business model innovativeness. Moreover, this effect is enhanced by previous non-digital M&A experience, a diversified M&A history, as well as early experience with digital technology–related M&As. Consequently, our findings reveal that OEMs acquiring complementary and heterogeneous external knowledge on digital technologies and possessing the absorptive capacity to integrate as well as commercialize this type of knowledge are better prepared to master the digital transformation of their business. Furthermore, we find indications of a positive influence of digital business model innovations on the expected future firm performance of automobile manufacturers, thus substantiating the importance of digital transformation

Top management team characteristics and digital innovation:Exploring digital knowledge and TMT interfaces

On their journey toward digital transformation, industrial firms need to embrace digital innovation. The top management team (TMT) is expected to set the course for digital innovation, which is a challenging endeavour given the novel and cross-functional nature of digital innovation. We draw on role theory to make sense of emerging role requirements for the TMT and combine this view with upper echelon theory to hypothesize on the specific TMT characteristics that are needed for digital innovation. We first theorize that firms could benefit from TMT digital knowledge. Second, we argue that the effective utilization of TMT digital knowledge can be fostered at internal TMT interfaces, such as between the chief executive officer (CEO), respectively a chief digital officer (CDO), and other top managers. Finally, we consider the TMT hierarchical structure as a contextual factor in the stimulation of TMT integration processes by integrative CEOs and CDOs. We employ panel data regressions to a longitudinal dataset of US industrial firms and find a positive relation between TMT digital knowledge and digital innovation, on average. We additionally find evidence for the integrative roles of CEOs and CDOs. However, our findings also indicate that the CDO's integrating role can be hampered by a strong hierarchical structure in the TMT

Business Models for Internet of Things Platforms: Empirical Development of a Taxonomy and Archetypes

A wide range of Internet of Things platform providers operate diverse business models to cater for the manifold requirements of the IoT. This paper contributes to a more precise understanding of IoT platforms as an essential building block of the IoT based on the characteristics of its business models. Even though research listing technological dimensions according to which IoT platforms differ, they have neither been systematically derived nor been linked to the business model concept. In turn, they lack descriptive power on the heterogeneous value creation mechanisms of the platform providers. Within our research, we first analyzed 195 IoT platforms and systemically developed a taxonomy allowing the characterization of IoT platform business models. Second, based on this taxonomy, we identified nine archetypes of IoT platform business models and illustrated typical combinations of business model characteristics. Equipped with such an understanding, practice and research can analyze existing IoT platforms more accurately

Digital M&A, digital innovation, and firm performance:an empirical investigation

Aiming to support digital innovation endeavours, industrial-age companies increasingly acquire firms that heavily build upon digital technologies. Related research has raised serious concerns regarding the prospects of such plans, yet has not focused the particular context of digital mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Drawing on a knowledge-based perspective as well as the particularities of digital technologies and the context of digital innovation, we theorise the link between digital M&A, a digital knowledge base on the part of the acquirer, and the consequences for digital innovation and firm performance. We employ panel data regressions to a longitudinal dataset of the world's largest automobile manufacturers. Our findings suggest that executing digital M&A contributes to building the digital knowledge base of industrial-age firms, which in turn enables them to drive digital innovation. Our findings further indicate that digital innovation improves firm performance of industrial-age firms. We discuss implications for information systems research about M&A and digital innovation as well as recommendations for managerial practice