Augmented Sustainability Reports: A Design Science Approach

Sustainability reports provide stakeholders with information about a company’s efforts to balance its economic, ecological and social goals. Because of their influence on a company’s image as well as on the customers’ buying and shareholders’ investment decisions, sustainability reports are an integral part of today’s corporate online communication. Following a design science research approach, this paper describes the design, prototypical implementation and evaluation of augmented sustainability reports. In contrast to traditional PDF- or print media-based sustainability reports, augmented sustainability reports contain multimedia contextual information that is displayed depending on the user’s gaze position. In our prototype the gaze position is simulated using mouse tracking. The comparative evaluation of the prototype was conducted via a quantitative questionnaire based on the technology acceptance model (TAM). Additionally, qualitative feedback was gathered during the course of the evaluation. Traditional and augmented sustainability reports were compared on the basis of the questionnaire results which reveal room for improvement of the prototype as well as possible starting points for future research. Overall, the evaluation results indicate that our test users had a strong preference for the augmented sustainability report compared to the PDF-based report even though both alternatives had identical content

Experimental Evaluation of a Process Benchmarking Tool in a Green Business Process Management Context

Using a combination of metamodels, ontologies, green performance indicators and metrics, we apply a novel approach in Semantic Business Process Benchmarking to the area of Green Business Process Management (Green BPM). Up to now, process benchmarking has mainly been a manual process; the approach described and empirically evaluated in this paper partially automates the time-consuming and costly process analyses while introducing more flexibility regarding varying terminology, level of abstraction and modeling notation. Also, overviews of literature relevant to the field of Green Semantic BPM and commonly applied metrics in a Green BPM context are given

Development and Simulation of a Balanced Scorecard for Sustainable Supply Chain Management – A System Dynamics Approach

The objective of this article is to develop a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM). The BSC provides a framework for simulation experiments which serve to evaluate benefits of sustainability investments for the partners within a recycling supply chain. A system dynamics approach was employed to perform the simulation experiments. First, the simulations help to identify the preconditions that must be met before environmental and social measures can lead to a long-term profit increase for all network partners. Second, they demonstrate how limitations of the traditional BSC can be overcome, especially regarding multi-causal relationships between key performance indicators. The model is based on the results of a literature review and information gathered in expert interviews. The limits of the analysis lie in the fact that the simulation experiments are partly based on hypothetical assumptions. However, where possible, the authors have drawn on expert knowledge and existing surveys

Panel: Why do we toil? Benefiting research at the cost of practice or vice versa?

In this paper, we present a systematic literature review in the field of IT Outsourcing with a focus on risk management. The source material of the review consists of 97 high quality journal articles published in 18 journals between 2001 and September 2008. Besides an analysis of related work, this review provides an overview of applied research methods and theories in the field of IT Outsourcing. The articles are then analyzed from a risk management point of view to highlight key risk factors and their specific impact on IT Outsourcing. Identified risk factors are further analyzed in order to assign each risk factor to the phases of a typical IT Outsourcing process (life-cycle). The results of the review show that empirical research is the most applied method and that action research and reference modelling have not been used at all so far. Furthermore, elements of a research agenda are discussed in order to determine further steps to the construction of a reference model for risk management in IT Outsourcing. This paper mainly aims at an audience of experienced researchers in the field of IT Outsourcing who are looking for research ideas and at junior scientists (e.g. PhD students) entering this emerging field of research

UNDERSTANDING THE BENEFIT STRUCTURE OF CLOUD STORAGE AS A MEANS OF PERSONAL ARCHIVING - A CHOICE-BASED CONJOINT ANALYSIS

While cloud storage has seen an increasing rise in demand and diffusion, it is also becoming a commodity, which makes it more difficult for cloud storage providers to be competitive in the market. To be successful as a storage provider, it is crucial to understand customer preferences so that these can be addressed accordingly. In this paper, we investigate consumer cloud storage choice decisions by employing a conjoint analysis that is based on empirical data collected from 340 participants and analyzed by means of hierarchical Bayes estimation. Our findings indicate significant differences in consumer preferences for price, storage capacity, encryption mechanism and accessibility. Based on these differences, we derive three consumer clusters that also exhibit differences in, e.g., their privacy concerns and risk beliefs. Based on our findings, we highlight some practical implications that can aid cloud storage providers in service design and adjustment decisions. This study contributes to the literature by providing a better understanding of the benefit structure and trade-offs user make in the choice of storage services. As an alternative to commercial conjoint software packages, we further contribute a method that can be adopted by other scholars who seek to conduct conjoint analyses using free software

Understanding Socio-Technical Impacts Arising from Software-as-a-Service Usage in Companies - A Mixed Method Analysis on Individual Level Data

Given the advantages of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), such as cost efficiency and flexibility gains, decision-makers increasingly deploy this technology for supporting business processes as well as core business processes. But the impact of SaaS integration on a company’s IT organization often does not become apparent until the implementation is completed. Therefore, this paper examines the perceptions of IT professionals in internal IT departments regarding the effects of SaaS. In order to analyze the changes in the daily work processes of internal IT professionals in companies using SaaS, we start with the design and test of a suitable quantitative research model. In a second step, we conduct triangulation by investigating four SaaS cases from the perspectives of internal IT professionals and end users. This step constitutes the qualitative part of the study. From the empirical results we can deduce that with an increasing SaaS usage level a socio-technical instability emerges in the perceived individual job outcome (e.g., job satisfaction, job acceptance, job significance). This is especially true for IT professionals. Our valuable findings help management to understand the need for balancing both their willingness for SaaS adoption and the socio-technical consequences

Mobile Computing and Auto ID Technologies in Supply Chain Event Management - An Agent Based Approach

This paper presents the architecture of an agent-based system for Supply Chain Event Management. Auto-ID (= Automatic Identification), mobile and agent technologies are combined within this agentbased system called CoS.MA (Cooperative and Ubiquitous Supply-Network Monitoring Agents) in order to realize permanent tracking & tracing of resources (e.g. products, vehicles) in supply networks and to visualize resource-related key performance measures. Potentials and challenges in realizing supply networks by means of such technologies are discussed. CoS.MA is based on a peer-topeer network architecture. Each member (node) of a supply network will be represented by one CoS.MA agent platform. Mobile agents may migrate between those agent platforms to integrate and to visualize distributed data. An overview of existing agent-based prototypes in Supply Chain Event Management is given to show the state-of-the-art in this emerging research area

Towards an Understanding of Needs, Capabilities and Alignment Mechanisms in Digital Preservation: Results from an Explorative Case Study

Today digital information is conceived as a firm’s most important asset whose availability cannot be taken for granted. As part of an effort to sustain its availability which is threatened by expeditiously changing technologies associated with the risk of obsolete software and hardware, digital preservation (DP) provides effective means. However, to date little is known about DP in the firm. Our study is the first to fill this gap and seeks to provide a deeper understanding of a firm’s DP needs, capabilities and alignment mechanisms. We use a multiple-case design to analyze three firms and adopt the information processing theory as our theoretical lens. We find lacking decision making procedures and organizational responsibilities hampering the alignment between DP needs and capabilities facilitating a culture of information hoarding. Based on the consolidated results we suggest a set of propositions to explain DP needs, capabilities and alignment mechanisms

EVALUATING AUGMENTED REALITY APPLICATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION – A COST-BENEFIT ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK BASED ON VOFI

Industry 4.0 application scenarios, based on the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in combination with wearable devices like Smart Glasses or Head-Mounted Displays (HMD), offer construction companies several opportunities to better deal with the complexity of the construction environment. Despite the given maturity of AR technology, tools or methods to estimate the costs and benefits associated with its adoption have not been provided to date. In general, high implementation costs and unclear benefits of this technology are considered as barriers to its widespread adoption. Therefore, the primary aim of this paper is to develop an assessment framework for evaluating costs and benefits of information systems (IS) investments based on an AR-based application scenario in the construction domain. By the same token, we intend to demonstrate how a traditional cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can be applied more effectively to assist in the decision-making process. The assessment framework is developed by means of a systematic literature review and evaluated by means of expert interviews as well as a simulation using the appraisal method Visualisation of Financial Implications (VoFI). Additionally, risk considerations are made by conducting a sensitivity analysis and a probability risk analysis