Assessing and Comparing E-Mail Responsiveness in the Bavarian Public Sector

E-mail is the most important electronic communication medium for governments with their constituents. While there are a lot of matur ity models and benchmarking studies focusing on the tech nological and organizational integration of information technology in governments, the “customer side” of e-government maturity has been often neglected. Replicating studies from Australia, New Zealand, Slovenia and Denmark, this study explores the responsiveness concerning customer-government e-mail correspondence for the Bavarian Public Sector. Our study assesses the response rate and quality of 375 e-mails send to public administrations in Bavaria. Our results show that the Bavarian Public Administration has a poor responsiveness compared to other countries in terms of both quantity and quality. Based on our results, we provide recommendations for future research and practice

LEVERAGE ONCE, EARN REPEATEDLY – CAPABILITIES FOR CREATING AND APPROPRIATING VALUE IN CLOUD PLATFORM ECOSYSTEMS

Information technology (IT) advancements enabled new delivery models (i.e. Cloud Computing), thereby facilitating the emergence of new business models in the IT industry, such as Cloud platform ecosystems. With their growing acceptance and diffusion in practice, we need a deeper understanding of their IT capabilities in order to implement their business model, thereby creating and appropriating value. We draw on empirical data from four case studies of Cloud platform ecosystems utilizing a framework on IT-enabled business models for data analysis. We found four key motivations for inter-firm collaboration that each generated business model requirements specified in the context of Cloud platform ecosystems. These drive the development of unique B2B IT capabilities enabling value crea-tion and appropriation mechanisms. We propose three dyadic (relation-specific) IT customization and two network IT standardization (network-oriented) capabilities based on our cross case analysis. Fur-thermore, we describe prevalent value creation and appropriation mechanisms and suggest two addi-tional mechanisms grounded in the data: downstream capabilities and platform resourcing. We pro-vide a possible reasoning on the underlying logic of IT capabilities, value creation and appropriation of Cloud platform ecosystems

Up in the cloud: Understanding the chasm between expectations and reality

CEOs increasingly demand their IT function to fully exploit the opportunities of cloud computing for their company. At the same time, we observe that employees make experiences with cloud services in their private life, which they seamlessly transfer and expect in the workplace - a phenomenon called cloud consumerization. Thereby, employees use self-deployed cloud services for solving business problems which they find more useful than the IT products provided by work. In light of these revolutionary changes, we propose that user experiences and outcomes are contingent on the process through which cloud services are adopted in companies. Systemizing cloud adoption as a continuum of top-down and bottom-up processes, we assume that adoption processes are distinct with respect to users’ social and governance context. In this paper, we outline the theoretical and methodological foundation, provide details on the expected theoretical contributions and give information regarding next steps of our research project

A systemizing research framework for Web 2.0

Web 2.0 has recently been one of the most discussed topics in Information Systems science and practice. However, little consensus is found on what its components and characteristics actually are and what a comprehensive conceptualization might look like. This paper tries to shed light on these questions by systemizing the phenomenon’s characteristics in a hierarchical framework. In a first step, we apply content and cluster analysis on contributions of the field and inductively identify 103 raw categories which are then clustered into ten subcategories and two main categories. Namely these identified main categories of Web 2.0 are: ‘Technological Characteristics’ and ‘Socioeconomic Characteristics’. In a second step, we pretest and optimize the constructs for applicability and ambiguities and finally apply them to evaluate on the importance and weighting of the discovered subcategories. The resulting framework is found to comply with common quality measures for content analysis and classification schemes. It can be used to analyze and explore economic or social phenomena associated with Web 2.0 in a systematic manner

How cloud computing impacts stock market prices

Cloud computing is an evolution of computing technology and reflects a shift in the way it is delivered to businesses and individuals. Enterprises can significantly lower their cost of ownership, reduce time to value and faster adapt to changing needs in a globalized economy. Despite research and practice predict productivity increases and cost savings when migrating to the cloud one question remains unanswered: Does the adoption of cloud computing increase the market value of the firm? We try to answer this question by applying the event study methodology on companies that recently announced the deployment of cloud computing. Overall, we find significant positive abnormal returns. We find that investors specifically reward innovative and strategically motivated adoption of cloud computing. As a key implication of our results, we recommend in particular IT executives in large companies within the service industry to reassess their portfolio and foster the adoption of strategic and innovative cloud services

Developing and evaluating a cloud service relationship theory

This book develops, evaluates and refines a cloud service relationship theory that explains how cloud users’ uncertainties arise in these relationships and how they can be mitigated. To that end, the book employs principal-agent theory and the concepts of bounded rationality and social embeddedness. Beyond advancing IS research, the findings presented can greatly benefit governments, IT departments and IT providers, helping them to better understand cloud service relationships and to adjust their cloud service strategies accordingly