Demographic Awareness and E-Government – A Quantitative Analysis of Germany and Japan

Innovating public administrations, for instance by means of E-Government, becomes an increasingly important issue in order to satisfy growing demands of citizens and to reduce costs of public service provision. Demographic change in industrialized countries, namely societal aging and depopulation, has various influences on the development of E-Government strategies. On the one hand, elderly citizens use services of their local government more often than people of younger age-groups. On the other hand, they are less likely to use complex electronic services in general and E-Government in specific. In addition, municipalities have to deal with increased cost pressure and the aging of the workforce within their local administrations as a result of the demographic change. Our quantitative analysis focuses on identifying the perceived importance of problems related to the demographic change in German and Japanese public administrations, addresses what areas of reform are related to these problems and points out implications for the development of innovation strategies by means of E-Government. We contrast the developments in both countries with respect to both demographic situation and public innovation in order to derive possible implications for the future

Open Innovation and Public Sector Business Process Management – A Multi-Method Study

Open Process Innovation provides a framework for studying how to systematically make use of knowledge that lies outside of an organization’s boundaries for process innovation initiatives. Here, we seek to investigate into variables that impact on the qualities of Open Process Innovation taking the example of the public sector domain. This paper examines how a lack of resources impacts on BPM. Specifically in investigates how personnel resource scarcity exerts influence on the involvement of i) customers (here citizens and local companies) and ii) consultants (here management and software consultants) in public sector BPM. Our multi-method analysis shows that personnel resource scarcity has consequences for BPM-related collaboration schema as it restricts the involvement of customers. Based on our findings, implications for theory and practice are discussed, including implications for studies on BPM maturity or on business process design. We call for a governancetheory perspective on process innovation as a fundamental basis for understanding and designing the institutions that shape collaboration in open process innovation

When Routine Work Becomes Social: How Virtual Social Facilitation Increases Performance on Simple IT-Based Tasks

With the advent of social applications, the question arises of how organizations can utilize such technology for improving task performance. While social applications certainly bear the potential to trigger the development of radically new business models and business processes, we seek to study how the enrichment of IT-based routine work (simple tasks) by complementing social features (audience condition) may advance performance. In 280 experiments with altogether 40 participants, we investigate the impact of a) monitoring, b) measurement, and c) feedback dialogs on performance of simple IT-based tasks. We compare the effects of these three treatments in a setting of physical presence and in a setting of virtual presence. The results show that monitoring has the strongest effect in the physical presence setting while, in the virtual presence setting, both monitoring and feedback dialogs can improve task performance significantly. Theory-wise, we draw on social psychology and develop a (design) theory of virtual social facilitation that bears major implications for designing routine work information systems and technology

The Fluidity of the Self-Concept as a Framework to Explain the Motivation to Play Video Games

A better understanding of the motivation to play video games and potential antecedents have a long history in Human Computer Interaction research. Besides different motivational dimensions specific to video games, researchers already used the personality of players to explain the motivation to play and the subsequent video game use. At this juncture, they postulated a rather static self-concept underlying the personality of players. The study at hand tries to resolve this shortcoming and proposes a more holistic perspective on personality following the assumptions of the Social Identity Approach from psychology, which postulates a much more fluid and context-specific salient parts of the self-concept. Specifically, we use findings from consumer research arguing that the dimensional fit between the perception of the self-concept of a player and the corresponding video game holds the potential to explain the motivation to play as well as the subsequent usage of the video game

Stakeholder Involvement in Business Process Management Agenda-Setting and Implementation

Process management serves the design of IT and organizations, while multiple actors have stakes in setting the agenda and implementing process innovations. These stakeholders, from both inside and outside an organization‟s boundaries, constitute integral elements of a larger network of actors. The stimulation and utilization of such networks are critical success factors for process management and innovation initiatives. Without the inclusion of stakeholders, adaption of organizational processes to a dynamic environment can be expected to be less effective and less successful. Although the importance of process management networks and stakeholder inclusion is widely acknowledged in the literature, current research lacks a thorough empirically informed understanding of the phenomenon. Taking the public sector example, this paper sets out to study empirically the involvement of different stakeholders and to develop a theory for analysis of process management collaboration. We conduct a comprehensive quantitative survey of more than 350 organizations and apply principle component analysis to identify distinct sets of stakeholders. Empirical evidence is provided for collaborative patterns of internal actors, vertical collaboration partners, horizontal collaboration partners, political actors, commercial actors, and customers. These patterns can serve as generic theory constructs, building blocks, for future research on process management stakeholders and solving issue in research and practice regarding stakeholder involvement

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP OF IT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Psychological ownership of Information Technology (POIT) is becoming an increasingly relevant phenomenon in theory and practice since privately-owned consumer technologies and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategies effectively shaping today’s workplaces. While Information Systems (IS) research is in the beginning to explore POIT, the full complexity of the ownership phenomenon has not yet been understood. Here, we draw on psychological ownership theory to propose an extended view on POIT. Choosing a grounded theory methodology, we gathered original data (20 expert interviews, 5 and more years of work experience) and discovered “Appreciation of Technology” as a key characteristic of psychological ownership which has not been considered so far. Additionally, we identified three new antecedents (“Freedom of Choice”, “Multi-Context Use” and “Surveillance”) and one new effect (“Exception Handling”) of psychological ownership of IT. Along with previous studies, our extended view provides a new lens through which ownership and technology acceptance can be viewed and BYOD phenomena better understood. Based on these new insights, we derive several implications for theory and practice

IT Consumerization – A Theory and Practice Review

Consumerization of IT refers to privately-owned ÌT resources such as devices or software that are used for business purposes. The effects of consumerization are considered to be a major driver that redefines the relationship between employees (in terms of consumers of enterprise IT) and the IT organization. While there has been extensive debate on these matters in practice, IS research has not developed a clear theoretical understanding of the phenomenon. We present a theory and practice review, where the existing literature on consumerization is reviewed and a clear definition of the concept is developed. This study contributes to a theoretical understanding of IT consumerization in relation to fundamental aspects of IS. Our analysis shows, first, which distinct aspects of IS are affected by consumerization. Secondly, we provide an overview over major advantages and disadvantages for employees and organizations by conducting a systematic analysis of current literature available on the topic

Maturing, Flagshipping and Piggybacking: On the Use of Structuration Theory in Information Systems Research

The debate on structure and agency has a long-standing tradition in the social sciences. Developed by the British sociologist Anthony Giddens, Structuration Theory proposed the duality of structure , the notion that structure and agency are inseparable in practice. Information Systems (IS) researchers have developed IS-specific adaptations of Giddens\u27s ideas. We add to previous reviews on the use of Structuration Theory in IS by focusing on the adoption of individual concepts set forth by the theory and its IS adaptations. Based on our analysis of references to these concepts in the major journals and conferences we argue that the use of Structuration Theory in IS has matured over the past decade. We also find that some structurational concepts are frequently used as flagships and in combination ( piggybacked ). Finally, we plead in favor of a more widespread use of agency as a fundamental concept of Giddens\u27s theory