Mobile App Service Quality Dimensions and Requirements for Mobile Shopping Companion Apps

The increasing utilization of mobile apps for shopping leads retailers to provide customers with dedicated mobile shopping companion apps to create an omni-channel shopping experience involving traditional brick-and-mortar, electronic and mobile business. Mobile shopping companion apps extend the traditional and electronic services of brick-and-mortar retailers by an additional mobile channel providing the customer with a digital companion supporting the shopping within and outside the stores using mobile technology. A twofold approach is pursued in this thesis. Firstly, a structured literature review is conducted to identify candidate dimensions for developing a scale for measuring the service quality of mobile shopping companion apps. Secondly, design requirements for improving the service quality of these mobile apps are deduced from online customer reviews of three exemplary mobile shopping companion apps applying a qualitative content analysis. The mobile app service quality of mobile shopping companion apps can be measured using a hierarchical and multi-dimensional scale consisting of three primary dimensions, seven secondary dimensions and 22 related items. The primary dimensions interaction quality, environment quality and outcome quality structure the secondary dimensions responsiveness, information, security and privacy, design, performance, technical reliability and valence. Based on these dimensions, 22 implementation guidelines and 14 service design requirements are derived as potential areas for optimizing the mobile app service quality of mobile shopping companion apps and achieving a high overall service quality. A mobile shopping companion app should include a set of features consisting of 16 features from three different areas. Results show that measuring the service quality of mobile shopping companion apps require for a tailored measurement scale. Equally, design requirements are proposed for this particular category of mobile apps. Retailers should provide a single mobile shopping companion app providing all features and mobile services to the customer. Keywords: mobile service; mobile commerce; shopping companion; service quality

Design Principles for Machine Learning Marketplaces in Enterprise Systems

While standardized enterprise systems (ES) have become widely accepted, this is not the case for machine learning (ML) implementations, which are mostly developed individually in company-specific projects. Necessary historical data and rare ML capabilities result in a low cross-market ML utilization. To overcome the high usage barriers of ML, it should be incorporated into ES in a standardized manner. Therefore, we propose to implement an ML marketplace. While marketplaces in ES already exist, this paper proposes a marketplace dedicated to the exchange of ML models in a federated learning approach. Accordingly, this work formulates four meta-requirements based on interviews, which are structured by marketplace governance dimensions. With these meta-requirements, an ML marketplace was implemented in a design science research project, from which eight design principles are derived. The design principles address governance dimensions for making ML accessible to many companies and allow them to integrate ML into existing ES

Developing Multi-Sided Markets in Dynamic Electronic Commerce Ecosystems - Towards a Taxonomy of Digital Marketplaces

Multi-sided markets (MSMs) have proven to be a successful business model in the dynamic electronic commerce environment. There exists a variety of MSMs differing in their provided features and services for their participants. Existing taxonomies often focus on value creation and business-to-business transactions. We apply Nickerson et al.’s taxonomy development approach. We especially incorporated aspects of orchestrating the distinct market sides and governance dimensions. The developed taxonomy for MSMs consists of 21 dimensions and 99 characteristics in total. We have applied our taxonomy to 44 MSMs and identified asymmetries between the market sides concerning Monetization, Network Effect Amplifiers and Provided Services. We emphasize that the taxonomy is not only an artifact for classifying the current situation of an MSM but can also be used by MSM owners to derive directions for the future development. We illustrated how these developments can be conducted by examples for five dimensions of our taxonomy

Four Shades of Customer: How Value Flows in Fintech Ecosystems

The financial sector is undergoing a massive transformation, with new technology-driven players challenging established mechanisms and transforming the sector into a fast-moving market. With the gradual transition from a scale economy to a platform-driven network economy, enterprise networks are gaining strategic importance. Despite the growing interest in fintech’s, research has so far lacked a conceptualization of value creation in fintech ecosystems. Therefore, this research paper aims to analyze key players, value creation activities, and value streams based on the analysis of the business models of payment services, personal financial management, robo-advisory, peer-to-peer lending, trading, and cryptocurrency. We present a holistic value network for the fintech ecosystem based on structured literature review and analysis of 171 fintech companies. We were able to show that fintech platform orchestrates multiple market sides and that customers take four distinct roles at the center of the ecosystem when using fintech services

Eliciting Customer Preferences for Shopping Companion Apps: A Service Quality Approach

Shopping companion apps, which assist customers in product search and buying decisions, are an emerging phenomenon in the context of omnichannel retail. These retailer-provided apps link the digital with the physical servicescape of the store, allowing for new forms of online and at the same time physical service. So far, there is no dominant design for this type of information system. Both academia and practice lack empirical information about what customers expect from this kind of mobile app. Drawing from service quality literature as theoretical foundation, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of 1,448 customer reviews of three major shopping companion apps. The analysis yielded 23 aspects that customers expect from shopping companion apps, and that, in turn, can support establishing high mobile service quality. Our results contribute to the knowledge of m-service in retail and quality-driven app design

Localização de fontes harmônicas utilizando técnicas de processamento estatístico de sinais

Research in Electric Power Quality (QEE) is a field of electrical engineering responsible for providing improvements in energy supply and consumption. The term QEE works with the prevention and mitigation of electrical disturbances. Non-linear loads connected to the Electric Power Systems (SEPs) promote undesirable changes in electrical signals and contribute to the disturbance generation. This work presents a methodology for detection of harmonic current sources as a possible contribution, identifying the locations of the harmonic sources. In this document, the source estimation problem is treated as a Blind Source Separation (BSS) paradigm. This philosophy assumes that the sources are not known. Consequently, the voltage measurement is the only available parameter for network monitoring. Additionally, the initial premise assumes the power grid topology is unknown. In this case, situations with large volumes of data must be considered. Thus, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is implemented as a tool to reduce dimensionality and aid in computational complexity for the estimation step. Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a BSS tool and it is responsible for signals estimation, in this case, the profiles that characterize the sources. With the estimated profiles, the joint entropy is used to determine the probable locations where the harmonic current sources are connected. In this step, the minimum value of joint entropy is used as a decision parameter for detection. The methodology effectiveness is verified through the use of computer simulations and test systems, such as the IEEE 14 bus and the IEEE 33 bus.A pesquisa em qualidade de energia elétrica (QEE) é um campo da engenharia elétrica responsável por fornecer melhorias no fornecimento e consumo de energia. O termo QEE trabalha com a prevenção e mitigação de distúrbios elétricos. Cargas não lineares conectadas aos Sistemas de Energia Elétrica (SEPs) promovem mudanças indesejadas nos sinais elétricos e contribuem para a geração de distúrbios. Este trabalho apresenta uma metodologia para detectar fontes harmônicas de corrente como uma possível contribuição, identificando a localização das fontes harmônicas. Neste documento, o problema de estimação da fonte é tratado como um paradigma de separação cega de fontes, do inglês Blind Source Separation (BSS). Essa filosofia assume que as fontes não são conhecidas. Consequentemente, a medição de tensão fasorial é o único parâmetro acessível para monitoramento da rede. Além disso, a premissa inicial assume que a topologia da rede elétrica é desconhecida. Neste caso, situações com grandes volumes de dados devem ser consideradas. Assim, a Análise de Componentes Principais, do inglês Principal Component Analysis (PCA), é implementada como uma ferramenta para reduzir a dimensionalidade e auxiliar na complexidade computacional na etapa de estimação. A Análise de Componentes Independentes, do inglês Independent Component Analysis (ICA), é uma ferramenta de BSS e é responsável pela estimação dos sinais, neste caso, os perfis que caracterizam as fontes. Com os perfis estimados, a entropia conjunta é usada para determinar os prováveis locais onde as fontes harmônicas de corrente estão conectadas. Nesta etapa, o valor mínimo de entropia conjunta é usado como parâmetro de decisão para detecção. A eficácia da metodologia é verificada através do uso de simulações computacionais e sistemas de teste, tal como o IEEE 14 barras e o IEEE 33 barras