What Makes Digital Technology? A Categorization Based on Purpose

Digital technology (DT) is creating and shaping today’s world. Building on its identity and history of technology research, the Information Systems discipline is at the forefront of understanding the nature of DT and related phenomena. Understanding the nature of DT requires understanding its purposes. Because of the growing number of DTs, these purposes are diversifying, and further examination is needed. To that end, we followed an organizational systematics paradigm and present a taxonomic theory for DT that enables its classification through its diverse purposes. The taxonomic theory comprises a multi-layer taxonomy of DT and purpose-related archetypes, which we inferred from a sample of 92 real-world DTs. In our empirical evaluation, we assessed reliability, validity, and usefulness of the taxonomy and archetypes. The taxonomic theory exceeds existing technology classifications by being the first that (1) has been rigorously developed, (2) considers the nature of DT, (3) is sufficiently concrete to reflect the diverse purposes of DT, and (4) is sufficiently abstract to be persistent. Our findings add to the descriptive knowledge on DT, advance our understanding of the diverse purposes of DT, and lay the ground for further theorizing. Our work also supports practitioners in managing and designing DTs

Assessing the relationship between bpm maturity and the success of organizations

Pinto, J., & dos Santos, V. D. (2020). Assessing the relationship between bpm maturity and the success of organizations. In R. Silhavy (Ed.), Applied Informatics and Cybernetics in Intelligent Systems: Proceedings of the 9th Computer Science On-line Conference, CSOC 2020 (pp. 108-126). (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing; Vol. 1226 AISC). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51974-2_10For the past decades, organizations have been investing heavily in BPM projects in the hope of improving their competitive advantage in an increasingly complex environment. However, although it is believed that the higher the level of BPM maturity the greater the success of the organization, experience shows that this relationship is not always possible to prove. The purpose of this study is to help clarify the relationship between the level of BPM maturity and the success of an organization. This was done through the implementation of a case study-based research within a global company, focusing on the shared services organization. An analysis of the existing BPM maturity models and its level of coverage of BPM core areas was conducted to select the most suitable BPM maturity model to conduct the assessment of the current BPM maturity level. It was also established a framework to characterize the success of an organization. These two inputs, along with information gathered to understand implemented process improvements, were the basis for conducting the research. Results show a successful organization, with a high maturity level according to the BPM OMG maturity model, that has been investing in continually improving its processes with a strong focus on digital transformation. The identified benefits from a high level of BPM maturity, namely improved productivity, cost reduction, error & risk prevention, higher agility, employee upskilling and knowledge retention, were shown to have a positive influence in the majority of the dimensions used to characterize the success of the organization.authorsversionpublishe

A Project Portfolio Management Approach to Tacklingthe Exploration/Exploitation Trade-off

Organizational ambidexterity (OA) is an essen-tial capability for surviving in dynamic business environ-ments that advocates the simultaneous engagement inexploration and exploitation. Over the last decades,knowledge on OA has substantially matured, coveringinsights into antecedents, outcomes, and moderators of OA.However, there is little prescriptive knowledge that offersguidance on how to put OA into practice and to tackle thetrade-off between exploration and exploitation. To addressthis gap, the authors adopt the design science researchparadigm and propose an economic decision model asartifact. The decision model assists organizations inselecting and scheduling exploration and exploitation pro-jects to become ambidextrous in an economically reason-able manner. As for justificatory knowledge, the decisionmodel draws from prescriptive knowledge on projectportfolio management and value-based management, andfrom descriptive knowledge related to OA to structure thefield of action. To evaluate the decision model, its designspecification is discussed against theory-backed designobjectives and with industry experts. The paper alsoinstantiates the decision model as a software prototype andapplies the prototype to a case based on real-world data

How to Exploit the Digitalization Potential of Business Processes

Process improvement is the most value-adding activity in the business process management (BPM) lifecycle. Despite mature knowledge, many approaches have been criticized to lack guidance on how to put process improvement into practice. Given the variety of emerging digital technologies, organizations not only face a process improvement black box, but also high uncertainty regarding digital technologies. This paper thus proposes a method that supports organizations in exploiting the digitalization potential of their business processes. To achieve this, action design research and situational method engineering were adopted. Two design cycles involving practitioners (i.e., managers and BPM experts) and end-users (i.e., process owners and participants) were conducted. In the first cycle, the method’s alpha version was evaluated by interviewing practitioners from five organizations. In the second cycle, the beta version was evaluated via real-world case studies. In this paper, detailed results of one case study, which was conducted at a semiconductor manufacturer, are included

Process improvement through economically driven routing of instances

Purpose – Process improvement is a fundamental activity of the business process management (BPM) lifecycle. However, practitioners still lack concrete guidance and adequate objectives for process improvement. Moreover, improvement projects typically tie up considerable amounts of capital and are very risky. Thus, more guidance is needed on how to derive concrete recommendations for process improvement in a goal-oriented manner. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The authors propose a decision model that determines along which paths the instances of a process should be routed to maximize the value contribution of the process. To do so, the decision model requires a process model and a set of historical process instances as inputs. Findings – The decision model builds on the idea that only the parameters of the process, i.e., the values according to which it is decided on which path an instance traverses the process, can be modified, without altering the structure of the process. The decision model determines the parameter setting that maximizes the value contribution of the process, which is measured in terms of the expected cash flow of the process. When determining the optimal parameter setting, the decision model considers that different instances and paths have different cash flow effects. Practical implications – The authors prototypically implemented the decision model and report on the insights from a demonstration example that is based on the order verification process of an IT distributor. Originality/value – The decision model complements existing approaches to process improvement as it reveals additional improvement potential by focussing on the decision points in a process without altering the structure of the process. The decision model also enables identifying an optimal parameter setting, as a concrete recommendation for process improvement, in line with the principles of value-based BPM

Maturing maturity models: A methodological extension using the analytical hierarchy process and Google PageRank

Maturity models are used in various application domains, as they provide well-structured overviews about companies’ as-is situations in a certain discipline due to applying different stages of development. However, maturity models face criticism. Most maturity models structure only their respective field of activity without adding value for decision-making purposes. There is a lack of models for prescriptive purposes that help derive and balance concrete improvement measures. In addition, maturity models are criticised for oversimplifying reality. To address this gap, we propose a methodological extension to enhance maturity models, such that they explicitly account for the importance of multiple capability areas and consider the impact of the interactions among capability areas. To do so, we combine methods from multi-criteria decision-making, that is, the error-adjusted Analytical Hierarchy Process, and from network analytics, that is, the Google PageRank

What’s in a Smart Thing?: Development of a Multi-layer Taxonomy

Digital technologies immerse in our private lives and force businesses to rethink existing work practices. Among the emerging digital technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT) is attributed disruptive potential, as it refers to the equipment of physical things with sensor and communication technologies and to the integration of these things into the networked society. Until today, the IoT is low on theoretical insights. Most notably, smart things, which constitute a vital building block of the IoT and the foundation of IoT-based business models, have been neglected by academic research. Taking a smart thing’s perspective, our study aims to complement extant work on the IoT. We offer a multi-layer taxonomy of smart things that comprises ten dimensions structured along the architectural layers of existing IoT stacks (i.e., the thing itself, interaction, data, and services). To evaluate our taxonomy, we used a sample of 50 real-life smart things from the B2C context