Analysis of eBusiness Models for Digital Media Content

The digitalization of media content and the development of new communication and distribution channels change the media sector and the business environment worldwide. Over the last ten years, technical advances have enabled the consumers to digitize, store, share and modify the content quickly and cheaply on a mass scale. Presently there are lots of file sharing tools and peer-to-peer networks with which the consumers can illegally copy and share content for free. Consequently, companies have implemented internet-based business models for digital content. At the moment, only a limited number of these e-business models are really successful and realize profits. In this context, the following core questions arise: What kind of e-business models are suitable to manage digital media content? What are the key requirements for companies to be successful in the economical utilization of copyrighted media content, especially in the internet? How do the present e-business models fulfil these requirements? The target of this paper is the analysis of e-business models for digital content. In this context the authors examine different aspects with regard to the management of rights on digital content, the consumption of digital content, and the organization of internal processes and structures. The analysis is focussed on e-business models for digital media content in the German music market. The results of this analysis will show that the presented e-business models do not fulfil all requirements. Hence, the attractiveness of these e-business models is lower than peer-to-peer networks and the illegal download because of the restricted usage of digital media content

A Descriptive Literature Review and Classification Framework for Gamification in Information Systems

Gamification evolved to one of the most important trends in technology and therefore gains more and more practical and scientific notice. Yet academia lacks a comprehensive overview of research, even though a review of prior, relevant literature is essential for advancing knowledge in a field. Therefore a novel classification framework for Gamification in Information Systems with the intention to provide a structured, summarized as well as organized overview was con-structed to close this gap of research. A literature review on Gamification in quality outlets combined with a Grounded Theory approach served as a starting point. As a result this paper provides a foundation for current and future research to advance the knowledge on Gamifica-tion. Moreover it offers a structure for Gamification research which was not available previous-ly. Findings from the literature review were mapped to the \ classification framework and analyzed. Derived from the classification framework and its out-come future research outlets were identified

IT Support for Intra-Organizational Innovation Networks – An Exploratory Study

The paper examines requirements for IT support in open innovation within companies. Based on an in-depth single-case study, we derive four major levels of IT requirements: incentive & inspiration, information & knowledge, communication & collaboration, and feedback & feed-forward. The multitude of requirements identified on each level clearly points to the need for IT support during the internal open innovation process. The paper concludes that many findings from prior research on innovation management systems apply to the internal open innovation context as well, but with some interesting differences. An IT system for open innovation within a company should pay particular attention to the incentives and inspiration of employees. The system should motivate all employees to participate in open innovation and stimulate innovative ideas by indicating clear benefits as well as recent needs, challenges and developments in their company’s context. Furthermore, a virtual community seems to be a powerful concept for driving open innovation in the company. It fosters the activity of and the interaction between employees, thereby addressing all of our requirement levels. To build and run such an intraorganizational open innovation community, social software offers useful concepts and applications. Based on the identified requirements, we present initial concepts for their implementation

Web-based Aptitude Tests at Universities in German-speaking Countries

Universities can select their students more and more independently. In order to support the selection process, web-based aptitude tests are a possibility to balance benefits und efforts of this task. Within this paper, we will point out how current web-based aptitude tests are designed, what competences are covered, and which methods for development are used. For this purpose, we developed a classification how web-based aptitude tests are implemented. Furthermore, competences as the basis of web-based aptitude tests are appraised. Four competence categories (professional, methodological, personal, and social competences) are selected as the most appropriate pattern. Thereafter, we analyse methods for developing competence specifications. Finally, we state lessons learned for the development of web-based aptitude tests at universities. These results are an important preparatory work and a basis for a systematically development of a web-based aptitude test for the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Evaluation of User Acceptance for Web-based Aptitude Tests

Web-based aptitude tests, which are a special category of aptitude tests, can be used for rather standardized test methods and for a large amount of users. The characteristics of web-based aptitude tests can have an impact on the test results and the user acceptance. The aim of our research is to develop a method for the evaluation of the user acceptance for web-based aptitude tests. Therefore, we used the DART-approach with the dimension (Perceived) Usefulness, (Perceived) Ease of Use, (Perceived) Network Effects and (Perceived) Costs as the theoretical basis, identified important acceptance indicators, developed a questionnaire and conducted a survey. Afterwards, we proved the reliability and conducted a factor analysis. The results point out that some of the defined acceptance indicators should be revised. Additionally, the factor analysis shows that a combination of two dimensions (Perceived) Usefulness and (Perceived) Network Effects is useful especially with regard to web-based aptitude tests. Finally, we conducted a univariate analysis to evaluate the user acceptance of a web-based aptitude test. The visualised result on the basis of a DART-chart clearly shows that the interviewees evaluated the indicators very differently. There are fields, where the aptitude test fulfils the expectations, and fields, which can be improved

USER-DESIGNED SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE – CAN CONCEPTUAL WORK BE SHIFTED TO THE END-USER

Cloud Computing and especially Software as a Service (SaaS) is predicted to bring about the next information technology(IT) revolution. Benefits and risks have been discussed extensively in both research and practice. Key benefits like higherflexibility and lower costs are confronted with major risks such as loss of data control. These benefits and risks arepredominantly discussed in the context of traditional SaaS. Here, the administrator configures and maintains the application.In contrast, new SaaS concepts allow shifting conceptual work to end-users by enabling them to adjust standard SaaSsoftware independently from their IT department. Using an action research approach, we investigated the benefits and risks ofthis so called user-designed SaaS, and compared them to those of traditional, administrator-designed SaaS. Many benefitsand risks still apply to user-designed SaaS, but also so far unknown benefits like higher user acceptance and lowerdependency to administrators, as well as new risks like shifting conceptual skills to the end-user were observed

Key Differentiators of Open Innovation Platforms – A Market-oriented Perspective

Within the open innovation debate, significant attention has beenpaid to the fact that customers can be a useful source for bringingnew ideas and concepts into a company. In this context, onlineplatforms have become a widely used instrument to facilitateinteraction between companies and customers. While priorliterature discusses various aspects of open innovation platforms,a market-oriented analysis covering all types of platforms for ideacreation and concept development seems to be still missing. Byevaluating a total of 44 different innovation platforms, we identifythe degree of interrelation between five major platform attributesand develop two key differentiating dimensions: The platformoperator (company vs. third party) and the platform purpose (findsolutions vs. understand customers). The resulting classificationmatrix highlights a newly emerging category of online openinnovation platforms, opening the field for deeper investigation infuture research

Employee’s Acceptance of Process Innovations: An Action Research Approach

Organizational changes are becoming more and more important due to increasing competition and rapid technological evolution. However, the intended benefits of organizational changes depend strongly on how effectively process innovations are implemented within an organization. Hereby, the management of the employee’s acceptance is considered as one of the most critical tasks in change management projects. Normally, employee acceptance is evaluated using theory-based acceptance models. We start by reviewing the existing process innovation-related acceptance models. In a next step, we describe a new model, called DART, which is based on the idea of the balanced scorecard, using a meta-structure in order to identify a balanced set of individually measurable acceptance criteria. Guided by an action research approach, we further describe a case example showing the application of DART in a process reengineering project. We close our paper by reviewing the consequences of our research, as well as the suitability of DART in the research context. The results presented in this paper are expected to have important implications for both, researchers who should benefit from a very flexible acceptance model as well as managers and process designers who should gain valuable insights for their change implementation efforts