A framework for increasing business value from social media

Organisations are investing heavily in various social media applications. Several case studies show that such undertakings may be promising at first glance, but often amount to little. More attention has to be paid to the factors that influence the business value of a social media application. The paper proposes a framework which argues that the business value of a social media activity depends on having a correctly identified purpose of its implementation (scope and targeted benefits), on the technological solution and also on user involvement (user groups, users’ motivation and skills). The framework is evaluated with a longitudinal case study of a wiki in a software development company where an assessment of the business value of the wiki at two different points in time was made. The case study shows how the interplay of components led to failure at one time point and success at the other

A method for using business process models in the elicitation of user stories

Agile software development projects often manage user requirements with models that are called user stories. Approaches for eliciting user stories from customer’s existing documentation are missing. Furthermore, proper understanding of user story’s context requires an understanding of execution-order and integration dependencies among user stories, which are also missing. In this thesis we propose so-called BuPUS method which 1) facilitates elicitation of user stories from existing business process models, and 2) supports better understanding of execution-order and integration dependencies among user stories from customer’s existing documentation. The method associates user stories with corresponding BPMN’s activity elements, or with corresponding text-written use case model’s events. We defined three levels of association granularity: a user story can be more abstract, approximately equal to, or more detailed than its associated business process model’s event/activity element. In our experiments we evaluated these three levels. We run two experiments. We applied comprehension, problem-solving and recall tasks to evaluate the hypotheses which refer to understanding of the dependencies. On the other hand, we measured user story elicitation’s effectiveness with counting correctly defined user stories. The statistical results provide support for eight out of eleven of the hypotheses. The results of our first experiment show, that understanding of the execution-order and integration dependencies among user stories, when associated business process models are available, is significantly greater. In our second experiment, we compared text-written use case model and BPMN model. There appears to be greater understanding of the execution-order dependencies when using BPMN models, while there were no significant differences in understanding integration dependencies. Similarly, for the elicitation of user stories there are no significant differences when using either of the mentioned models

A method for using business process models in the elicitation of user stories

Agile software development projects often manage user requirements with models that are called user stories. Approaches for eliciting user stories from customer’s existing documentation are missing. Furthermore, proper understanding of user story’s context requires an understanding of execution-order and integration dependencies among user stories, which are also missing. In this thesis we propose so-called BuPUS method which 1) facilitates elicitation of user stories from existing business process models, and 2) supports better understanding of execution-order and integration dependencies among user stories from customer’s existing documentation. The method associates user stories with corresponding BPMN’s activity elements, or with corresponding text-written use case model’s events. We defined three levels of association granularity: a user story can be more abstract, approximately equal to, or more detailed than its associated business process model’s event/activity element. In our experiments we evaluated these three levels. We run two experiments. We applied comprehension, problem-solving and recall tasks to evaluate the hypotheses which refer to understanding of the dependencies. On the other hand, we measured user story elicitation’s effectiveness with counting correctly defined user stories. The statistical results provide support for eight out of eleven of the hypotheses. The results of our first experiment show, that understanding of the execution-order and integration dependencies among user stories, when associated business process models are available, is significantly greater. In our second experiment, we compared text-written use case model and BPMN model. There appears to be greater understanding of the execution-order dependencies when using BPMN models, while there were no significant differences in understanding integration dependencies. Similarly, for the elicitation of user stories there are no significant differences when using either of the mentioned models

The impact of perceived crisis severity on intention to use voluntary proximity tracing applications

During a crisis such as COVID-19, governments ask citizens to adopt various precautionary behaviours, such as using a voluntary proximity tracing application (PTA) for smartphones. However, the willingness of individual citizens to use such an app is crucial. Crisis decision theory can be used to better understand how individuals assess the severity of the crisis and how they decide whether or not to adopt the precautionary behaviour. We propose a research model to examine the direct influence of perceived crisis severity on intention to use the technology, as well as the indirect impact via PTAs\u27 benefits for citizens. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm the two dimensions of the benefits, namely personal and societal benefits. We used PLS-MGA to evaluate our research model. The results confirm the influence of the perceived severity of COVID-19 on the intention to use the PTA, as well as the mediating effects of personal and societal benefits on this relationship. Our findings contribute to the technology adoption literature and showcase the use of crisis decision theory in the field of information systems

The roles of privacy concerns and trust in voluntary use of governmental proximity tracing applications

A growing aspect of e-government is healthcare-related. Although preventative e-health services provided by governments like proximity tracing applications (PTAs) can bring important benefits, their adoption is lagging behind expectations. Researchers and policymakers need a better understanding of the factors that influence their adoption. The paper draws from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model and extends it by including privacy concerns as an explanatory factor regarding the intention to use PTAs. The study empirically evaluates the impact of privacy concerns together with two of its antecedents – trust in government and trust in technology – on the intention to use a PTA. Data from 762 adult respondents from Slovenia and Germany were collected and analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The main findings are: (1) even in the unique context of a PTA the universal predictors of UTAUT have a significant impact(2) privacy concerns have a direct impact on intention to useand (3) trust in government and trust in technology both have a significant impact on privacy concerns. The theoretical implications are important for technology adoption research on e-health services provided by the government generally and PTAs in particular

Impact of the conceptual model\u27s representation format on identifying and understanding user stories

Context: Eliciting user stories is a major challenge for agile development approaches. Conceptual models are used to support the identification of user stories and increase their understanding. In many companies, existing model documentation stored as either use cases or BPMN models is available. However, these two types of business process models might not be equally effective for elicitation tasks due to their formats. Objective: We address the effectiveness of different elicitation tasks when supported either with visual or textual conceptual model. Since the agile literature shows little attention to reusing existing BPMN documentation, we propose several hypotheses to compare it to the use of textual use case models. Method: We conducted an experiment to compare the effectiveness of the two business process formats: textual use cases and visual BPMN models. We studied their effects on three elicitation tasks: identifying user stories and understanding their execution-order and integration dependencies. Results: The subjects better understood execution-order dependencies when visual input in the form of BPMN models was provided. The performance of the other two tasks showed no statistical differences. Conclusion: We addressed an important problem of user story elicitation: which informationally equivalent model (visual BPMN or textual use case) is more effective when identifying and understanding user stories