The Internet Factor

Abstract not available

PLATFORM COMPLEXITY: LESSONS FROM MOBILE WIRELESS

Platforms provide anchor-points for the coordination of a varied set of activities within their associated ecosystems. The understanding of platform complexity is therefore an important concern within both academia and industry as it defines the range of activities made possible by the platform and the related aspects of control. This paper argues that the abstractions applied in the current platform research remove some of the most important features that underlie the inherent complexity of digital platforms. This argument is forwarded through a small study of platform complexity in the mobile wireless industry. Our exploration highlights some of the phenomena that a comprehensive theory of digital platforms must encompass. We believe that advancement of a theoretical perspective that embraces the complexity of digital platforms is needed to fully capture the strategic and technological implications of emerging digital platforms

Strategy Sort of Died Around April of Last Year for a lot of Us

The role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is one of facilitating executive decisions regarding the innovation, provision and use of state-of-the-art Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The aim of this paper is to investigate CIO perceptions of strategy and ICT investment through qualitative interviews with CIOs from leading UK financial sector organisations. We were keen to find out how these executives strategise while coping with the increasing ubiquity and complexity of ICT on one hand and hyper business pressures on the other. As the title suggests, we found that recent changes in the market conditions, as well as in the trust bestowed technology as an agent for radical change, have had serious consequences for the perceptions of risk, strategy and ICT investment. CIOs expressed the dot-com boom to bust transition in terms of a shift from a higher-risk, top-down technology led strategy centred on killer applications towards a lower-risk, bottom-up, organic approach to strategy with the purpose of providing open, user driven enabling infrastructures for competitive advantage. We also note the implications of these trends for the value assessment activity and the enhanced value skill base which information age professionals would increasingly need

Coordination of Technology and Diverse Organizational Actors During Service Innovation – the Case of Wireless Data Servicesin the United Kingdom

Mobile operators have made massive investments in spectrum and infrastructure to provide mobile broadband content services on ‘mobile Internet’. Faced with considerable uncertainty regarding market growth, technology options and regulatory policies, the introduction of broadband services requires the integration of multiple and diverse technologies and business models across organizations. We present a detailed theory-based study of how technologies and organizations’ interests are aligned and coordinated in order to launch 3G broadband wireless services in the United Kingdom. Actor-network theory is adopted as a theoretical lens for understanding how the relationships among the actors have been shaped by the industry’s history as well as by the possibilities created by new technologies and standards. Drawing upon 17 interviews of executives from key players in the UK mobile wireless industry including network operators, content providers, regulators and technology/service innovators we conclude that the actor-network around broadband wireless services has yet to stabilize. Wireless network operators continue to explore a range of alternative relationships with content providers and other actors while uncertainties in the environment remain unresolved. Network operators’ strategies and relationships with other business and technological actors differ considerably. We explain both the rationales behind these distinct arrangements and historical “weight†of established media and fixed telecom industries in the UK. These established industries lie behind some unique arrangements with content providers and fixed network operators that have emerged during the last years. The configuration of the emerging actor-networks in the UK are contrasted with those in the US and Korea

Distributed tuning of boundary resources: the case of Apple's iOS service system

The digital age has seen the rise of service systems involving highly distributed, heterogeneous, and resource-integrating actors whose relationships are governed by shared institutional logics, standards, and digital technology. The cocreation of service within these service systems takes place in the context of a paradoxical tension between the logic of generative and democratic innovations and the logic of infrastructural control. Boundary resources play a critical role in managing the tension as a firm that owns the infrastructure can secure its control over the service system while independent firms can participate in the service system. In this study, we explore the evolution of boundary resources. Drawing on Pickering’s (1993) and Barrett et al.’s (2012) conceptualizations of tuning, the paper seeks to forward our understanding of how heterogeneous actors engage in the tuning of boundary resources within Apple’s iOS service system. We conduct an embedded case study of Apple’s iOS service system with an in-depth analysis of 4,664 blog articles concerned with 30 boundary resources covering 6 distinct themes. Our analysis reveals that boundary resources of service systems enabled by digital technology are shaped and reshaped through distributed tuning, which involves cascading actions of accommodations and rejections of a network of heterogeneous actors and artifacts. Our study also shows the dualistic role of power in the distributed tuning process

Surfing the Next Wave: Design and Implementation Challenges of Ubiquitous Computing

As computing becomes more mobile and pervasive, designing and implementing ubiquitous computing environments emerge as key challenges for information systems research and practice. The four short papers in this article report the highlights of the second Ubiquitous Computing Workshop at Case Western Reserve University in October 2003. The objectives of the papers are to set up a research agenda in this emerging interdisciplinary field, to share current level of understanding of leading edge research topics, and to create cumulative research streams in this field. Note: This paper consists of an overview of the second Ubiquitous Computing Workshop by its organizers, Kalle Lyytinen and Youngjin Yoo, followed by four papers summarizing its four major working groups. The four papers were prepared and can be read independently. They are not integrated

Wind power variability and power system reserves in South Africa

Variable renewable generation, primarily from wind and solar, introduces new uncertainties in the operation of power systems. This paper describes and applies a method to quantify how wind power development will affect the use of short-term automatic reserves in the future South African power system. The study uses a scenario for wind power development in South Africa, based on information from the South African transmission system operator (Eskom) and the Department of Energy. The scenario foresees 5% wind power penetration by 2025. Time series for wind power production and forecasts are simulated, and the duration curves for wind power ramp rates and wind power forecast errors are applied to assess the use of reserves due to wind power variability. The main finding is that the 5% wind power penetration in 2025 will increase the use of short-term automatic reserves by approximately 2%