On the Design of IT Artifacts and the Emergence of Business Processes as Organizational Routines

Much of the BPM literature views business process design and implementation as a top-down process that is built on strategic alignment and managerial control. This view is inconsistent with the observation that information infrastructures, including a company’s business process infrastructure, are at drift, a term that refers to the lack of top-down management control. The paper contributes to resolving this inconsistency by developing a framework that conceptualizes business processes as emergent organizational routines that are represented, enabled, and constrained by IT artifacts. IT artifacts are developed in processes of functional-hierarchical decomposition and social design processes. Organizational routines have ostensive and performative aspects, forming a mutually constitutive duality. A literature review demonstrates that the propositions offered by the framework have been insufficiently considered in the BPM field. The paper concludes with an outlook to applying the framework to theorizing on the emergence of business processes on online social network sites

Exploring the Interplay of the Design and Emergence of Business Processes as Organizational Routines

Much of the BPM literature views business process design and implementation as a top-down process that is built on strategic alignment and managerial control.While this view has enabled the design of many IT artifacts for business processes, it is inconsistent with the observation that information infrastructures, including a company’s business process infrastructure, are at drift, a term that refers to the lack of topdown management control. The paper contributes to resolving this inconsistency by developing ameta-framework that conceptualizes business processes as emergent organizational routines that are represented, enabled, and constrained by IT artifacts. IT artifacts are developed in processes of functionalhierarchical decomposition and social design processes. Organizational routines have ostensive and performative aspects, forming a mutually constitutive duality. A literature review demonstrates that the propositions offered by the meta-framework have been insufficiently considered in the BPM field. The paper concludes with an outlook to applying the meta-framework to theorize about the interplay of design projects with the subsequent emergence of business processes in organizations

Mapping the Emerging Field of Service Science: Insights from a Citation Network and Cocitation Network Analysis

The purpose of this study is to comprehensively map the recent additions to the body of knowledge in the service science discipline. Previous literature analyses insufficiently account for these developments or refrain from applying tool-based bibliographic analysis techniques. Following the introduction of the software tool CiteBridge, a citation network and a cocitation network are constructed based on 3,783 articles and 6,775 citations. Subsequently, both networks are analyzed (a) to map the scope and structure of the discipline, (b) to identify the most authoritative papers and literature review papers, (c) to discover clusters of research in the discipline, and (d) to explore if the service dominant logic of marketing has evolved into an overarching philosophical foundation for service research. The findings are intended to provide researchers with a sound orientation about the recent developments in the field and to further shape the evolution of service science as a research discipline

CONCEPTUALIZING THE IMPACT OF WORKAROUNDS – AN ORGANIZATIONAL ROUTINES\u27 PERSPECTIVE

Employees’ acceptance and resistance of new technology and social structure are frequently examined in Information Systems research. Resistance is expressed in various forms, including a lack of cooperation, workarounds, and physical sabotage. Workarounds, in particular, have a dual nature and can refer to both, undesirable behavior that contradicts organizational structure and to desired organizational innovation. While antecedents and different forms of workarounds have been explored, literature has remained silent on how and why workarounds of an individual employee can affect activities performed by other employees and thereby, change work routines on an organizational level. Since employees’ day-to-day performances constitute the ostensive patterns of a routine, we argue that workarounds will not only impact performances of adjacent routines, but also transform the organization as a social structure. With a preliminary set of qualitative data from 24 interviews, we used a multiple case study design to conceptualize six patterns that illustrate how and why workarounds can spread through an organization. The patterns are systematized by a framework that considers three types of collaboration and two types of handoffs across routines. This first evidence points at the nature of complex desired and undesired consequences that can emerge through workarounds performed in an organization

Digitalization of Work Systems—An Organizational Routines’ Perspective

Digitalization is a hypernym that denotes the ground-shifting impact IT artifacts have on organizations. The term implicitly refers to core topics in Information Systems research, which now enfolds at increasing magnitude, speed, and reach. However, digitalization often lacks explicit references to domestic theories, concepts, and constructs in the Information Systems literature. Fundamental mechanisms that constitute digitalization as an interplay of organizations and information systems remain unexplored. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, based on extending extant theory on organizational routines, we propose four patterns that conceptualize digitalization mechanisms as an interplay of organizational routines and IT artifacts. Second, we demonstrate how more complex transformation trajectories of routines unfold, by concatenating our patterns to form transformation stories. On either level of abstraction, further research can build on the proposed patterns to theorize on how the interplay of IT artifacts and organizational routines constitutes the digitalization of work systems

A Renaissance of Context in Design Science Research

Foundational theorems for sciences of the artificial highlight that the object of design is not form alone, but ensembles of form and context. However, traditional methods, frameworks, and guidelines for design science research (DSR) strongly focus on developing artifacts as forms while downplaying their contextual reference. This undue emphasis on forms leads design researchers to develop incomplete design theories. Based on drawing on the foundational literature on design as science, we advocate for a renaissance of context, leading us to propose selective adaptations of core methods and frameworks that constitute DSR. We evaluate our approach by reviewing papers that account for most of these adaptations implicitly. Further research can draw on our results to develop IT artifacts and design theories as ensembles of context and form while discussing implications for additional methods and frameworks in DSR

Recombinant Service System Engineering

Although many methods have been proposed for engineering services and customer solutions, most of these approaches give little consideration to recombinant service innovation. In an age of smart products and smart data, we can, however, expect that many of future service innovations need to be based on adding, transferring, dissociating, and associating existing value propositions. The purpose of this paper is to outline what properties constitute recombinant service innovation and to identify if current service engineering approaches fulfill these properties. Based on a conceptual in-depth analysis of 24 service engineering methods, we identify that most methods focus on designing value propositions instead of service systems, view service independent of physical goods, are linear or iterative, and incompletely address the mechanisms of recombinant innovation. We discuss how these deficiencies can be remedied and propose a first conceptual model of a revised service system engineering approach

Recombinant Service Systems Engineering

Although many methods have been proposed for engineering service systems and customer solutions, most of these approaches give little consideration to recombinant service innovation. Recombinant innovation refers to reusing and integrating resources that were previously unconnected. In an age of networked products and data, we can expect that many service innovations will be based on adding, dissociating, and associating existing value propositions by accessing internal and external resources instead of designing them from scratch. The purpose of this paper is to identify if current service engineering approaches account for the mechanisms of recombinant innovation and to design a method for recombinant service systems engineering. In a conceptual analysis of 24 service engineering methods, the study identified that most methods (1) focus on designing value propositions instead of service systems, (2) view service independent of physical goods, (3) are either linear or iterative instead of agile, and (4) do not sufficiently address the mechanisms of recombinant innovation. The paper discusses how these deficiencies can be remedied and designs a revised service systems engineering approach that reorganizes service engineering processes according to four design principles. The method is demonstrated with the recombinant design of a service system for predictive maintenance of agricultural machines

WHERE ARE THE PARTICIPANTS? INCLUDING MOTIVATIONAL ASPECTS INTO THEORIZING AND DESIGN IN IS RESEARCH

The purpose of this paper is to identify new research prospects for the information systems discipline, based on establishing a link to the body of knowledge in the fields of work psychology and organizational psychology. Since information systems are work systems consisting of information, technologies, and participants, who are supported by information and communication technology (IT), productivity is a function of human performance. Job demands and individual resources in ITsupported work environments should therefore be considered in order to facilitate employee motivation, prevent strain, and cope with the challenges related to an ageing workforce and a high prevalence of burnout in the IT sector. As an initial literature review shows, these research vistas are underrepresented in previous information systems research. The present paper proposes directions for including job demands and individual resources into the analysis, design and operation of ITsupported work environments from two angles. First, the benefits of including psychological theories in typical phases of a business process management project are discussed. Secondly, the contributions of extending five types of information systems theories for the discipline in general are outlined