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

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

Evaluating Open Data Innovation: A Measurement Model for Digital Innovation Contests

Digital innovation contests emerge as important intermediaries in open data markets. However the understanding of how contests affect innovation value chains is low and there is a lack of innovation measurement frameworks to support the management of digital innovation contests. Therefore, in this paper we apply design science to design a measurement model for digital innovation contests from the organizer’s perspective that adds to the available knowledge of innovation measurement. We use a recent case of digital innovation contests to motivate the model and discuss its implications on the innovation value chain. The measurement model contributes with new knowledge in the area of open data innovation and provides support for practice in managing innovation through digital innovation contests. For future research we intend to enhance the model to also measure the effects on innovation ecosystems, to operationalize the measures and to evaluate the model in several digital innovation contests as well as to include the perspective of the participants

From Contest to Market Entry: A Longitudinal Survey of Innovation Barriers Constraining Open Data Service Development

Open data services have emerged as a research field. One important area of investigation within this field is exploration into how sustainable open data markets are created. Contests have become a popular method to propel and catalyse open data service development providing services to such markets. Recent research has identified numerous innovation barriers hampering development adjacent to the contest in developers’ effort to transform contest contributions to viable digital services based on open data. Little is however known about what innovation barriers over time constrain the post-contest process to transform initial innovations to finalized open data services ready for market entry. This paper presents a longitudinal survey of innovation barriers constraining teams performing open data service development after an innovation contest. The survey provides insights into 1) 24 innovation barriers constraining development, 2) a comparison of barrier importance based on team progress, and 3) a conceptualisation of phases structuring the process from contests to market entry, stipulating different innovation barriers impact open data service development. The results contribute to the understanding of how sustainable open data markets emerge and serve as a starting point for investigating how different stakeholders can manage innovation barriers constraining open data service development

Improving Organizational Effectiveness through Standard Application Packages and IT Services

Today, the design, use and distribution of standard application packages are changing due to the emergence of service orientation. In the private sector, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are extended to include IT services. In the public sector, standard application packages are integrated with IT services which are often referred to as e-Government. E-Government can be extended with mobile technology to add mobility to public processes, so called m-Government. The problem addressed in this thesis is how to improve organizational effectiveness through the use of standard application packages and IT services. The objectives are to: ­Develop a model for explaining the level of adoption of extended ERP among small and medium sized companies.   ­Identify implications and design patterns of business models for service oriented ERP. ­Establish principles for the design of local government m-services. ­Develop a method for benefits evaluation of information systems with integrated services. The thesis contributes with theory for analyzing, explaining and predicting how the use of standard application packages as well as IT services affects organizational effectiveness. To practice, it provides new concepts that can change the perceptions and mental models that IS-professionals, such as management consultants, use in their professional lives. In particular, it provides implications, design principles, a model and a method for the use of services in conjunction with standard application packages in public and private sector organizations. For future research it is suggested to investigate how service orientation affects implementation methods for standard application packages and to investigate the requirements of completely integrated e-Government on e-services, business models and back-office systems.At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper weas unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: In pres

ERP adoption in small and medium sized enterprises

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is established among a majority of small and medium sized companies in Kista Science City and seems to have a positive effect on organizational effectiveness. Kista Science City is Sweden’s largest corporate centre, with more companies and employees in a limited area than anywhere else in Europe. This study looks at the level of adoption of ERP functions, perceived organizational effectiveness and critical success factors. The most common use of ERP is for financial control and reporting, followed by order entry and purchasing. A significant relationship between the level of adoption and organizational effectiveness was found. Although Enterprise Resource Planning has become an established phenomenon the investments in ERP software are far from fully utilized. Most companies have started to use ERP to integrate functional areas but few companies have moved to extended ERP (ERPII). The adoption of functionality for customer relationship management seems to have started, but the use of e-commerce, business intelligence and supply chain management is very low. Different reasons for the low level of adoption are discussed and it is suggested that the interrelationship between SMEs and ERP-consultants be investigated further. ERP-consultants are important change agents and knowledge transfers for ERP and one way to interpret the data is that ERP-consultants are caught in a negative spiral where they focus on installations and technical maintenance of core ERP, which prevents them from developing new, extended ERP competence. An analysis of critical success factors showed that although technical competence was important socially oriented factors such as project teamwork and composition as well as communication had a greater effect on organizational effectiveness. Surprisingly enough, project management did not have any effect on organizational effectiveness. Common implementation methods for ERP focus on project management. It is suggested to further analyse if these methods could be improved by an increased adaptability to differences in company settings and requirements as well as through a better use of critical success factors. Organizational effectiveness can be measured in many ways and it was found that the success factors varied in terms of how they correlated with different measures. In the next step, the doctorial thesis, it is suggested that a prototype environment is developed to stimulate an increased use of extended ERP among small and medium sized companies. Several actors, such as SMEs, consultants, vendors and students would be involved. The prototype environment could facilitate enhancements of implementation methods and reduction of implementation costs through the development of reusable objects such as add-on solutions, process maps and system configurations. It could also help small and medium sized companies to investigate the business benefits of ERP by increasing involvement and familiarity while on the same time decrease costs and risks.QC 2010071

What happens next? : A survey of the afterlife of innovation contests

Innovation contests are becoming popular instruments for stimulating development of digital services using open data. However, experience indicates that only a limited number of the results developed during these events become viable digital services attracting a significant user base. Hence, an unresolved question is how organizers choose to support the service development process after the contest is concluded. To further deepen our knowledge about the design of digital innovation contests and the support for the processes after the contests are concluded, we conducted a survey of the websites of 33 digital innovation contests

VAMEE: A Value Aware Method for Evaluating Inclusive E-Government Initiatives

Part 3: Business ModelingInternational audienceThe growing use of ICT solutions for improving the public sector has created a need for valuating e-government initiatives. A number of methods for this purpose have been developed, but they are typically restricted to analyzing the benefits and costs of only one single actor. There is, therefore, a need for methods that take a broader view and take into account entire networks of actors. This paper proposes a novel method, called VAMEE, the purpose of which is to produce a well-grounded and easily understandable valuation of an e-government initiative that takes into consideration the benefits, costs, and interrelationships of all actors concerned. The basis of the proposed method is a combination of enterprise modeling techniques, in particular goal modeling and value modeling, with an established method for cost benefit analysis (i.e. Peng). VAMEE is designed to be inclusive, easily understandable, and visual. These properties of the method will support accurate and unbiased valuations as well as improved innovation in the development of e-government initiatives