UNPACKING THE ROLE OF POLITICAL-WILL IN DIGITAL BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT FOR SOCIOECONOMIC BENEFITS

As digital technology transforms many organisational alliances, new collaborative networks such as digital business ecosystems have emerged. In digital business ecosystems, participants leverage technological innovations to develop capabilities for value co-creation. Despite the growing number of studies, there is lack of research on how political-will facilitates development of digital business ecosystems. Therefore, this study develops a framework to explicate the role of political-will in the development of digital business ecosystems to achieve socioeconomic benefits. The findings show that political-will leads to provision of resources and legislative support as well as formulation of strategic initiatives required at the birth, expansion and maturity phases of digital business ecosystems to generate socioeconomic benefits such as (1) reduced corruption, (2) improved operational processes, (3) increased government revenue, (4) reduced bureaucracy and (5) improved transparency, fairness and accountability

Cloud computing research: a review of research themes, frameworks, methods and future research directions

This paper presents a meta-analysis of cloud computing research in information systems with the aim of taking stock of literature and their associated research frameworks, research methodology, geographical distribution, level of analysis as well as trends of these studies over the period of 7 years. A total of 285 articles from 67 peer review journals from year 2009 to 2015 were used in the analysis. The findings indicate that extant cloud computing literature tends to skew towards the technological dimension to the detriment of other under researched dimensions such as business, conceptualization and application domain. Whilst there has been a constant increase in cloud computing studies over the last seven years, a significant number of these studies have not been underpinned by theoretical frameworks and models. Also, majority of cloud computing studies utilized experiment and simulation as methods of enquiry as compared to the qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methodologies. This study contributes to cloud computing research by providing holistic insights into trends on themes, methodology, research framework, geographical focus and future research directions

Preliminary insight into cloud computing adoption in a developing country

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of cloud computing adoption (CCA) in a developing country context through the lens of the technology, organisation and environment (TOE) framework.Design/methodology/approach – The study was carried out using the quantitative research methodology based on a survey of 305 organisations from different industries in Ghana. Based on the TOE framework, a conceptual model consisting of ten hypotheses were proposed and tested through a confirmatory factor analysis and logistic regression analysis.Findings – The findings indicate that relative advantage, security concern, top management support, technology readiness, competitive pressure and trading partners’ pressure were the TOE factors found to be significant in CCA in a developing country context. Conversely, firm size, scope, compatibility and regulatory support were found to be insignificant.Originality/value – This study provides insights into CCA across different industries in a developing country environment. The study is arguably the first kind of empirical research into CCA in a developing country context, specifically in Ghana. The findings from this study provide a foundation for other studies as well as constructive insights for the development of cloud computing, due to its infancy in the developing world

Digital business ecosystem: literature review and a framework for future research

Digital innovation has radically changed how organisations collaborate and compete. Coupled with this change are new collaborative value creation networks such as digital business ecosystems (DBEs). DBE is a socio- technical network of individuals, organisations and technologies that collectively co-create value. Since the emergence of DBE over a decade ago, there have been limited attempts to critically review and synthesise the body of knowledge presented over the years. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to fill this gap in DBE research by: (1) developing a comprehensive framework that synthesises and provides an overall direction of DBE research; (2) pointing out gaps in DBE literature; and (3) providing future research directions. To address this purpose, we systematically analysed 101 research articles on DBE. The findings provide insightful revelations to address some limitations in the current DBE research. As such, this study makes important contributions and serves as a useful resource for future DBE studies and practice

Strategies and practices to reduce the ecological impact of product returns: An environmental sustainability framework for multichannel retail

Product returns in retail are inherently wasteful and have considerable negative environmental impacts. Besides the monetary costs, they lead to increased transportation, packaging and processing, and the returned items are often discarded. We present strategies and practices retailers can adopt to manage their product returns in a way that reduces environmental impacts. With eCommerce flourishing, product returns have increased significantly. Whilst highest for online sales, they are a challenge across all channels. The importance of developing sustainability management in operations and supply chains is evident from the growing body of literature, but there is a gap regarding the management of product returns in a more environmentally sustainable manner. To address this gap, we interviewed multichannel retailers, retail experts and return service providers operating in the UK and North America. The findings reveal that although retailers have started paying attention to the financial impact of returns, there is little awareness of the scale of environmental impacts. In addition, retailers lack a comprehensive approach to addressing the environmental impact of product returns. Based on our findings, we (1) unpack the barriers inhibiting retailers from developing environmental sustainability plans in returns management, (2) present a set of strategies for retailers to reduce the environmental impact of returns and (3) develop a framework for environmental sustainability in returns management. Our findings and proposed framework have implications for research and practice on addressing the environmental impact of product returns

Understanding behaviour patterns of multi-agents in digital business ecosystems: an organisational semiotics inspired framework

Digital business ecosystem (DBE) is a collaborative network of organisations, processes and technologies that collectively create value. Thus, value creation in DBEs is jointly undertaken by multiple human and digital agents. To aid appropriate apportionment of work and design of information systems, it is essential to understand behaviour of both human and digital agents. However limited attention has been paid to agents’ behaviour in the extant DBEs literature. Moreover, multi-agent research has also largely focused on technical issues while limited research exists on agents’ behaviour. As such, in this paper, we develop a framework to understand behaviour patterns of multi-agent in DBEs. This framework builds its foundation on the theoretical lens of Organisational Semiotics, a sociotechnical theory towards contribution to DBE research

Understanding digital business ecosystem partnerships and developing a method for evaluating the impact of interdependencies between entities in value co-creation

New organisational alliances such as digital business ecosystems (DBEs) have emerged in line with technological developments. DBE is a socio-technical network of digital technologies, processes, individuals and organisations that collectively co-create value. At the core of DBEs are interdependencies, which refer to interactions between entities. While some interdependencies make positive contributions to value co-creation in DBEs, others lead to inefficiencies. Thus, it is necessary to understand DBE partnerships and evaluate the impact of various interdependencies. In the extant information systems (IS) literature, there is limited understanding of DBE partnerships while approaches for evaluating the impact of interdependencies are arguably not available due to the paucity of interdependence research. Though some approaches exist, they largely focus on interdependence patterns, modelling and analysis, value exchanges and network structure at the business ecosystem level with little emphasis on measuring the impact of interdependencies. In response, this study investigates DBE partnerships and subsequently develops a method to evaluate the impact of interdependencies in value co-creation. The study conceptualises five components that are interdependence types, classes, behaviour taxonomies, entities and outcome flows as elements needed to understand the formation and behaviour of DBE partnerships. Subsequently, the study develops a Method for Evaluating the Impact of Interdependencies (MEII) in value cocreation. MEII as the main contribution of this study is a methodological solution that provides techniques to articulate DBEs’ context, identify, visualise, analyse and measure the impact of interdependencies. For validation, the study employed the case study and the expert review strategies. By explaining the formation and behaviour of DBE partnerships and developing MEII, the study makes several theoretical, methodological and practical contributions. Theoretically, the study contributes by developing MEII as a sound solution to evaluate the impact of DBE interdependencies. Also, this study propounds definitions, a notation and a kernel theory for DBE interdependencies, partnerships, interdependence classes and interdependence evaluation metrics respectively. The study also extends the theory of Organisational Semiotics by adding operational and strategic impact assessment metrics to its social valuation framing technique. Methodologically, the techniques of MEII are valuable artefacts that provide systematic processes for evaluating the impact of DBE interdependencies. Practically, the solutions to understand DBE partnerships and MEII can be useful tools for practitioners to improve value co-creation and resilience in DBEs