Digitalisierung – Das Ende der Unternehmens-IT?

In vielen Unternehmen wird traditionell die Verantwortung für IT in Produkten und Produktion organisatorisch anders verankert als die Verantwortung für alle anderen IT-Aufgaben, die der so genannten Unternehmens-IT obliegen und in klassischen IT-Abteilungen wahrgenommen werden. Der Digitalisierungstrend verschärft diese Zweiteilung weiter und droht die Unternehmens-IT überflüssig zu machen, obwohl sie vordergründig viel bedeutender werden müsste. Worauf ist diese Entwicklung zurückzuführen? [Aus dem Volltext.

From selling machinery to hybrid offerings – organizational impact of digital servitization on manufacturing firms

The transition towards services has been imperative for manufacturing firms for years. The change from a product-oriented to a more service-dominant business model affects the organizational structure of firms. However, literature provides limited insights into how manufacturing firms organize themselves in this transition. Even though digital technologies are critical for the transition, it is unclear how to orchestrate digital and traditional Information Technology (IT) resources in manufacturing firms accordingly. We analyze the case of a typical manufacturing firm that has adjusted its structure to reorganize for solution offerings based on product, service, and digital components. Our results describe a hybrid organizational structure that splits front- and back-end units. The back-end units are split along solution components. Digital IT resources are internalized and governed decentrally, with traditional IT resources being outsourced and steered centrally. Our findings contribute to digital servitization research by clarifying the overarching as well as the digital and traditional IT-related organization for manufacturing firms

Nutzung interorganisationaler Informationssysteme in der Lieferkette – Einflussfaktoren und Kausalmodell: Nutzung interorganisationaler Informationssysteme in der Lieferkette – Einflussfaktoren und Kausalmodell

Akzeptanz und Verbreitung von Informationssystemen (IS), die über Unternehmensgrenzen hinweg eingesetzt werden, sogenannte Interorganisationale Informationssysteme (IOS), werden von Faktoren beeinflusst, die nicht in erster Linie auf einer individuellen, endbenutzerbezogenen, sondern auf einer organisationalen Ebene angesiedelt sind. Über erfolgreiche Nutzung oder Nicht- Akzeptanz entscheiden dabei häufig nicht nur Eigenschaften der Systeme und der zugrunde liegenden Technologien selbst, sondern Merkmale der beteiligten Unternehmen, ihrer Beziehungen zueinander oder der marktlichen Rahmenbedingungen. Zudem ist zu berücksichtigen, dass der Nutzen vieler IOS mit zunehmender Anzahl beteiligter Partner steigt und folglich auch Netzwerkeffekte zu berücksichtigen sind. Der Beitrag entwickelt einen umfassenden Bezugsrahmen für Faktoren, die die Nutzung von IOS in der Lieferkette potenziell beeinflussen und erweitert diesen zu einem Kausalmodell.The adoption of information systems (IS) which extend beyond organisational boundaries, so-called interorganisational information systems (IOS), is influenced by factors on the organisational rather than the individual end-user-oriented level. The question of adoption or non-adoption is usually decided not only by system or technology features, but also by organisational characteristics and interorganisational or environmental factors. As the benefits derived from IOS use increase as more partners participate, network effects also need to be considered. Within this paper, we develop a comprehensive framework of factors potentially influencing the adoption of IOS in supply chains and on this basis derive a causal model

From selling machinery to hybrid offerings – organizational impact of digital servitization on manufacturing firms

The transition towards services has been imperative for manufacturing firms for years. The change from a product-oriented to a more service-dominant business model affects the organizational structure of firms. However, literature provides limited insights into how manufacturing firms organize themselves in this transition. Even though digital technologies are critical for the transition, it is unclear how to orchestrate digital and traditional IT resources in manufacturing firms accordingly. We analyze the case of a typical manufacturing firm that has adjusted its structure to reorganize for solution offerings based on product, service, and digital components. Our results describe a hybrid organizational structure that splits front- and back-end units. The back-end units are split along solution components. Digital IT resources are internalized and governed decentrally, with traditional IT resources being outsourced and steered centrally. Our findings contribute to digital servitization research by clarifying the overarching as well as the digital and traditional IT-related organization for manufacturing firms

Embarking on the Digital Transformation Journey Toward a Data-Driven Organization: Empirical Insights Into Transformation Starting Points

Organizations are increasingly initiating and expanding their digital transformation initiatives to become more data-driven. Given that such digital transformations are highly complex and idiosyncratic endeavors, organizations striving to become a data-driven organization (DDO) have many options on where to start. To better understand such transformation starting points, we analyzed 13 companies of various industries and sizes currently undertaking DDO transformations. On this empirical basis, we find that top-level managers embark on transformation journeys by either focusing on the transformation foundations (asset-driven, workforce-driven), or on the outcome (exploitative use case-driven, explorative use case-driven), with each starting point showing different DDO elements being addressed first. Our data suggest that the selection of a specific starting point is mainly based on managers’ understandings of a DDO and the motivation to become such an organization. Finally, our work points to advantages and disadvantages of the respective starting points. Contributions and practical implications are discussed

Change management lessons learned for Lean IT implementations

Lean Management is a standard production mode that has been familiar to production organizations for several decades. To date, however, academic literature has presented surprisingly little information about the application of Lean Management in Information Technology (IT) organizations, or what is called Lean IT. Drawing upon an empirical qualitative case study of the IT departments of two multinational companies, in this paper we identify change management lessons learned for Lean IT implementations, as well as seven characteristics of a corresponding change management approach. As an extension of our work, researchers should validate and expand our initial findings, preferably in a quantitative setting

A Configurational Approach to Maturity Model Development – Using fsQCA to Build a Multiple-Pathway Maturity Model

Maturity models can be used as tools which depict the developmental trajectories of entity classes in domains and evaluate the relative position of an entity within this framework. However, their development process has been the focus of researchers and practitioners ever since, resulting in different procedures, development approaches, and conceptual models. Thus, a major criticism of maturity models is the often missing conceptual and theoretical grounding when it comes to the interpretation of the concept of maturity. To address this shortcoming, our research approach focuses on the rigorous development of a multiple-pathway maturity model. By following a sequential, theoretically grounded process, the resulting maturity model can be viewed as an instantiation of the predefined conceptual components and characteristics in a predefined domain. We present and discuss the instantiated sector and size-specific maturity model for innovation capability in small industrial firms, which is developed by applying configurational methods on a dataset and thereby offers multiple pathways to maturity. This concept of equifinality is central to our approach. It has rarely been considered in maturity model development research, although it offers the potential to build more realistic models with greater applicability, especially in domains with many interdependencies

We have a platform, but nobody builds on it – what influences Platform-as-a-Service post-adoption?

When higher-level management of a company has strategically decided to adopt Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) as a Cloud Computing (CC) delivery model, decision-makers at lower hierarchy levels still need to decide whether they want to post-adopt PaaS for building or running an information system (IS) – a decision that numerous companies are currently facing. This research analyzes the influential factors of this managerial post-adoption decision on the IS-level. A survey of 168 business and IT professionals investigated the influential factors of this PaaS post-adoption decision. The results show that decision-makers’ perceptions of risks inhibit post-adoption. Vendor trust and trialability reduce these perceived risks. While competitive pressure increases perceived benefits, it does not significantly influence PaaS post-adoption. Controversially, security and privacy, cost savings, and top management support do not influence post-adoption, as opposed to findings on company-level adoption. Subsamples constructed by the form of post-adoptive use (migration of IS, enhancement of IS, new IS development) exhibit better goodness-of-fit measures than the full sample. Future research should explore this interrelation of the form of post-adoptive use and the post-adoption influence factors

Cloud Computing Adoption: A Literature Review on What Is New and What We Still Need to Address

Research on cloud computing (CC) recently emerged congruently with the technology’s importance for organizations at a fast pace. This makes it difficult for practitioners to obtain a consolidated overview of what determines CC adoption based on the numerous papers in this regard. Moreover, for further research in the field to add value, it is necessary to identify what still needs to be addressed. In this vein, we conducted a descriptive review of 39 papers, integrating the results of a previous review on 23 papers from 2014, to compare findings across studies. We identify 44 determinant factors that exhibit consistent directional influence on the dependent meta-variable “CC adoption”, extending previous literature reviews with regard to asset, client, and environmental characteristics. We then critically reviewed the research landscape to identify what is there, and what is not yet covered: Future research should specifically regard the adoption of Infrastructure-, Platform-, and Everything-as-a-Service, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud deployment, investigate vendor, solution, and individual characteristics, analyzing information systems, or the decision-maker

Adding experts’ perceptions to complement existing research on information systems backsourcing

This paper extends the existing literature on information systems (IS) backsourcing by the perception of practitioners. For this purpose, we conducted a series of qualitative, semi-structured interviews with IS sourcing experts. The interview questions focused on the participants’ perceptions and experiences with the topic, on identifying reasons for and against IS backsourcing, and on revealing relevant trends pertinent to IS backsourcing. We then compared those findings with two previously conducted comprehensive literature reviews on academic and practitioner literature on IS backsourcing. By following this approach, we contribute to the existing research by verifying previous findings, for example, the most important reasons why companies decide in favor of IS backsourcing. Additionally, we were able to enhance previous contributions as we highlight the significance of differentiating between the scope of IS backsourcing by looking at the underlying services which are potentially backsourced. Further, we identified the importance of managers’ personal preferences as an additional reason for IS backsourcing, for example, based on personal experiences or a perceived need for change. Based on our findings, we created a comprehensive overview of all aspects connected to the IS backsourcing process and derived opportunities for further research to contribute to the IS backsourcing research agenda