owards a reference model for grassroots enterprise mashup environments

Health care services in German hospitals are causing immense expenses. Successful IT Governance might help to support specific challenges for every organization with an adequate use of IT. The market structure of hospitals in Germany is very heterogeneous, e.g. in size and sponsorship. This paper analyses the state of the art of IT Governance based on a survey among 220 IT executives in German hospitals. The quantitative analyses of collected survey data reveal that hospitals govern their IT differently according to size and sponsorship. In addition, our analyses show that decision-making authority for the IT budget rises with hospital size and is positively correlated with the fraction of IT projects in the overall IT budget. We also show that the investments in innovative IT projects increase with hospital size. Our study revealed that a high number of private and larger hospitals lack a systematic IT Governance approach within the decision domain on IT projects. This study is the first to shed light into the empirical situation of IT Governance in German hospitals

NON-OPTIMIZED TEMPORAL STRUCTURES AS A FAILURE FACTOR IN VIRTUAL TEAMS

Despite the expected benefits of global virtual teams, their performance has been spotty and management continues to search for reasons why these teams fail. This work addresses this issue by performing a longitudinal case study of two virtual teams in order to uncover why one was more successful than the other. The study found that a key factor for one team’s poor performance was the entrainment of the temporal norms of both the countries and the social situations of the members that reduced the available real time meeting space to zero

Using Online Social Networking to Enhance Social Connectedness and Social Support for the Elderly

Social integration is crucial for the overall well-being of the elderly who are more prone to social exclusion because of the natural aging process. We propose online social networking as means to enhance social connectedness and social support – two aspects of social networks that have significant implications for the well-being of elderly. While prior research investigating the benefits of online social networking has primarily focused on user groups such as teenagers and college students, there is less understanding on how online social networks can be used to support and strengthen social ties among elderly. This study intends to investigate means of increasing social connectedness and social support among elderly through participation in online social networks, and the resulting implications on overall satisfaction with life. Our aim is to identify features of online social networks that cater to the specific social connectedness and support related requirements of elderly users

FROM PRODUCTS TO PRODUCT-SERVICE SYSTEMS: IT DRIVEN TRANSFORMATION OF A MEDICAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER TO A CUSTOMER-CENTRIC SOLUTION PROVIDER

Meditec is a German manufacturer of instruments for surgeries. The company is quality leader in this sector and supplies many German and international hospitals. However, the opportunities for differentiation against competitors decrease continuously. New competitors from emerging markets are challenging the market position of established companies in this industry. Meditec is therefore forced to change its strategy and business model in order to survive in this novel competitive environment. The management of Meditec has decided to traverse from a pure product manufacturer to a customer-centric solution provider. This transformation requires the development of new processes, competencies and capabilities – especially with respect to IT and IT services. This teaching case helps in understanding the role of IT in product-service systems (PSS) and PSS-based business models. Therefore the case illustrates why IT is necessary to establish a PSS-based business model and why a customer-centric view is important for this kind of business model

Using NFriendConnector to Extend Facebook to the Real World

This study presents a novel approach towards establishing online social connections using Facebook and NFC-enabled mobile phones. There is increasing convergence between users’ real life social networks and their online social networks, with online connections following actual social acquaintance and interactions. Accordingly there is a need to provide users with means of accessing and establishing online connections in social networking platforms such as Facebook as and when they interact with other people in their real lives. The NFriendConnector is a prototype application which fulfills this functionality. This paper describes the design and development of the prototype application. The expectation confirmation theory is used to analyze the extent to which the NFriendConnector fulfills this inherent need among users and how this influences their intention to adopt and use the prototype. The proposed research model is tested in an experimental setup

Social Connectedness on Facebook – An Explorative Study on Status Message Usage

With over 400 million active users Facebook is undeniably a large social phenomenon and one of the largest social networks on the Internet. Together with Facebook a variety of novel communication styles have developed, dramatically influencing social interaction. The underlying paper reports the results of a survey (N=109) analyzing Facebook’s micro-blogging function available through users’ status updates. Our results suggest that the use of status update messaging generates a feeling of connectedness between users. Furthermore, non-parametric analyses distinguishing between low- and highconnected groups have been performed and experimentally confirmed the existence of distinct user profiles as a function of the variable “feeling connected”. The analyses revealed that the more individuals use their status message function to actively reveal information about themselves, the more connected they feel. Connectedness seems the result of active information sharing modulated by the amount of information shared rather than by the type of information an individual is sharing

NFriendConnector: Design and Evaluation of An Application for Integrating Offline and Online Social Networking

This paper describes the design and evaluation of NFriendConnector, a prototype application that allows for better integration between online and offline social networks. Online social networks are currently used to maintain and strengthen existing real-life social connections, rather than establishing ties that exist only online. However, users incur significant time and search related costs in replicating a naturally occurring social interaction using a social networking site (SNS). Therefore, there exists a gap between initiating social contact in real-life versus initiating social contact via an online social network. Using the design science paradigm, our research addresses this gap by introducing NFriendConnector. This application allows users to map their offline interactions, as and when they take place, onto their SNS presence, therefore making it possible to complement offline social interactions with SNS profile information. The prototype is implemented using Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled mobile phones and Facebook. We evaluate the prototype in an experimental setting using expectation confirmation theory (ECT) as the theoretical framework. Findings show that NFriendConnector was able to satisfy users, therefore indicating a successful design exercise. We discuss the implications of this research in the context of current developments in online social networking

RFID-Based Media Usage Panels in Real-World Settings

Traditional paper-based longitudinal or cross section panel surveys, used for market research are time and cost consuming and can suffer from contaminating effects like social desirability bias or respondent conditioning. Electronic data capture methods can improve the time and cost efficiency of market research panels. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology allows a seamless and non-intrusive integration of information systems into everyday life environments. This enables the automated electronic acquisition of media usage data, without direct interference with the media consumption and thus without the contaminating effects of traditional panel surveys. Consequently, we introduce an RFID-based prototype system called MUSE (Media Usage in Supportive Environments) that supports automatic measurements of print media usage in public environments. MUSE was tested in an initial field study over the course of six weeks in the waiting room of a German medical practice. The study showed that MUSE could monitor the usage of print media, laid out for waiting patients, autonomously and with minimal errors. Furthermore, the RFID technology was perceived as nonintrusive. This study is the first to show how RFID enhanced real world settings can be used for nonintrusive media usage analysis in real life. Based on the findings we derive recommendations for future research for RFID supported media usage analysis