Single-Sourcing vs. Multisourcing: An Empirical Analysis of Large Information Technology Outsourcing Arrangements

2023 | Information Systems Research | Citations: 0

Authors: Bapna, Ravi; Gupta, Alok; Ray, Gautam; Singh, Shweta

Abstract: As the information technology (IT) services landscape matures, clients are incre ... Expand

Abstract: As the information technology (IT) services landscape matures, clients are increasingly adopting multisourcing arrangements that involve multiple vendors. Although a large body of information systems (IS) literature addresses issues of whether to outsource (to a single vendor), what types of contracts to use, and how to achieve optimal relational governance, little is known about the antecedents and consequents of the single versus multisourcing decision. Moreover, while conceptual and analytical models of single-sourcing versus multisourcing have been developed, there is no empirical IS research using a large-scale data set with rigorous econometric analysis that examines the antecedents and consequents of multisourcing in the IT context. This paper fills this void, using the transaction cost economic lens and a data set of 49,057 large IT outsourcing arrangements that spans multiple industries and dates back 25 years. We find that there is a curvilinear relationship between number of IT services in an IT outsourcing arrangement and the likelihood of multisourcing. This relationship increases as the number of IT services increases to up to five services and then decreases. For managers who plan to multisource IT outsourcing arrangements, this research provides guidance to minimize exchange hazards through a better understanding of the relationship between sourcing choice, client IT outsourcing capabilities, the competitiveness of the vendor landscape, and the number of IT services in an IT outsourcing arrangement. We provide empirical evidence that the choice between single-sourcing and multisourcing is material to the performance of outsourcing contracts as an incorrect sourcing choice is likely to result in negative contract outcomes. History: Paul A. Pavlou, Senior Editor; Ning Su, Associate Editor. Collapse

Topics: outsourcing system integration IS management service desk data center

Methods: XGBoost robustness check machine learning k-nearest neighbor statistical hypothesis test

Theories: transaction cost economics game theory

No Ground Truth at Sea – Developing High-Accuracy AI Decision-Support for Complex Environments

2023 | HICSS | Citations: 0

Authors: Bumann, Adrian

Abstract: As AI decision-support systems are increasingly developed for applications outsi ... Expand

Abstract: As AI decision-support systems are increasingly developed for applications outside of traditional organizational confinements, developers are confronted with new sources of complexity they need to address. However, we know little about how AI applications are developed for natural use domains with high environmental complexity, stemming from physical influences outside of the developers’ control. This study investigates what challenges emerge from such complexity and how developers mitigate them. Drawing upon a rich longitudinal single-case study on the development of AI decision-support for maritime navigation, findings show that achieving high output accuracy is complicated by the physical environment hindering training data creation. Further, developers chose to reduce the output accuracy and adapt the HMI design to successfully situate the AI application in an existing sociotechnical context. This study contributes to IS literature following recent calls for phenomenon-based examination of emerging challenges when extending the scope frontier of AI and provides practical recommendations for developing AI decision-support for complex environments. Collapse

Topics: artificial intelligence decision support decision support system geographic information system innovation management

Methods: qualitative interview single case study personal interview longitudinal research field study

Theories: socio technical theory

An Empirical Study of Information Technology Capabilities to Enable Value Chain Activities and Interfaces

2023 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 0

Authors: Chou, Yen-Chun; Shao, Benjamin B. M.

Abstract: Information technology (IT) is a critical resource and asset for a firm’s intern ... Expand

Abstract: Information technology (IT) is a critical resource and asset for a firm’s internal operations and external interactions with outside stakeholders. This paper explores IT capabilities that enable a retailer’s value chain activities and interfaces with suppliers and customers. IT capabilities that enable the value chain activities of logistics and operations as well as those of marketing and sales are identified to examine how they influence a retailer’s implementation of value chain interfaces. Through the lens of organizational information processing theory (OIPT), we find that both IT capabilities and IT infrastructure play a pivotal role in implementing value chain interfaces but in distinctive ways. On the supplier-facing side, a retailer’s IT infrastructure and IT capabilities enabling logistics and operations are essential to its vendor-managed inventory (VMI) system. On the customer-facing side, a retailer’s e-commerce website requires IT infrastructure and IT capabilities that enable marketing and sales. Moreover, synergies are found downstream for e-commerce website that benefits from the integration of IT infrastructure and IT capabilities enabling logistics and operations while such synergies are not found upstream for VMI. This partial complementary effect is explicated by the sequential asymmetric information dependency of value chain activities. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the research and practice of IT enablement and integration. Collapse

Topics: information technology capability electronic commerce website information technology infrastructure logistics management

Methods: survey chi squared test descriptive statistic econometric modeling regression analysis method

Theories: organizational information processing theory

Introduction to the Digital Government and Business Process Management (BPM) minitrack HICSS'56

2023 | HICSS | Citations: 0

Authors: Delgado, A.; Astudillo, H.; García, F.

Abstract: Interoperability is a key challenge for organizations to collaborate with each ... Expand

Abstract: Interoperability is a key challenge for organizations to collaborate with each other and be able to provide high-quality services. Digital Government (e-Government) focuses on value delivery to citizens through information and communication technology (ICT) support for processes, activities, and resources, from different public organizations. Hence, interoperability in the context of e-Government is of critical importance to link and integrate processes and services sharing data from organizations to deliver better public services to citizens. Business Process Management (BPM) provides support for the business processes lifecycle, defining phases and activities to provide services or products with value for end users. Successful inter-organizational collaborative process management within e-Government organizations will lead to better conceptual and technological integration, not only with each other but also with citizens and users in general. To this end, it is necessary to devise new ways to deal with the complexity of e-Government collaborative process. Collapse

Topics: organizational culture open data innovation management digital innovation business process management

Methods: case study business process modeling event log computational algorithm literature study

Opinion Paper: “So what if ChatGPT wrote it?” Multidisciplinary perspectives on opportunities, challenges and implications of generative conversational AI for research, practice and policy

2023 | International Journal of Information Management | Citations: 0

Authors: Dwivedi, Yogesh K.; Kshetri, Nir; Hughes, Laurie; Slade, Emma Louise; Jeyaraj, Anand; Kar, Arpan Kumar; Baabdullah, Abdullah M.; Koohang, Alex; Raghavan, Vishnupriya; Ahuja, Manju; Albanna, Hanaa; Albashrawi, Mousa Ahmad; Al-Busaidi, Adil S.; Balakrishnan, Janarthanan; Barlette, Yves; Basu, Sriparna; Bose, Indranil; Brooks, Laurence; Buhalis, Dimitrios; Carter, Lemuria; Chowdhury, Soumyadeb; Crick, Tom; Cunningham, Scott W.; Davies, Gareth H.; Davison, Robert M.; Dé, Rahul; Dennehy, Denis; Duan, Yanqing; Dubey, Rameshwar; Dwivedi, Rohita; Edwards, John S.; Flavián, Carlos; Gauld, Robin; Grover, Varun; Hu, Mei-Chih; Janssen, Marijn; Jones, Paul; Junglas, Iris; Khorana, Sangeeta; Kraus, Sascha; Larsen, Kai R.; Latreille, Paul; Laumer, Sven; Malik, F. Tegwen; Mardani, Abbas; Mariani, Marcello; Mithas, Sunil; Mogaji, Emmanuel; Nord, Jeretta Horn; O’Connor, Siobhan; Okumus, Fevzi; Pagani, Margherita; Pandey, Neeraj; Papagiannidis, Savvas; Pappas, Ilias O.; Pathak, Nishith; Pries-Heje, Jan; Raman, Ramakrishnan; Rana, Nripendra P.; Rehm, Sven-Volker; Ribeiro-Navarrete, Samuel; Richter, Alexander; Rowe, Frantz; Sarker, Suprateek; Stahl, Bernd Carsten; Tiwari, Manoj Kumar; Van Der Aalst, Wil; Venkatesh, Viswanath; Viglia, Giampaolo; Wade, Michael; Walton, Paul; Wirtz, Jochen; Wright, Ryan

Abstract: ☆ This editorial opinion paper provides a subjective viewpoint on the potential ... Expand

Abstract: ☆ This editorial opinion paper provides a subjective viewpoint on the potential impact of generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT in the domains of education, business, and society. Its objective is to offer initial guidance on the opportunities, challenges, and implications associated with these technologies. It is worth noting that, given its nature as an editorial opinion piece, this submission has not undergone a formal double-blind review process but has been reviewed informally by appropriate experts.Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts for organisations, society, and individuals. Offering multi-disciplinary insight into some of these, this article brings together 43 contributions from experts in fields such as computer science, marketing, information systems, education, policy, hospitality and tourism, management, publishing, and nursing. The contributors acknowledge ChatGPT's capabilities to enhance productivity and suggest that it is likely to offer 1 Equal contributions Y.K. Dwivedi et al.International Journal of Information Management 71 (2023) 102642 3 significant gains in the banking, hospitality and tourism, and information technology industries, and enhance business activities, such as management and marketing. Nevertheless, they also consider its limitations, disruptions to practices, threats to privacy and security, and consequences of biases, misuse, and misinformation. However, opinion is split on whether ChatGPT's use should be restricted or legislated. Drawing on these contributions, the article identifies questions requiring further research across three thematic areas: knowledge, transparency, and ethics; digital transformation of organisations and societies; and teaching, learning, and scholarly research. The avenues for further research include: identifying skills, resources, and capabilities needed to handle generative AI; examining biases of generative AI attributable to training datasets and processes; exploring business and societal contexts best suited for generative AI implementation; determining optimal combinations of human and generative AI for various tasks; identifying ways to assess accuracy of text produced by generative AI; and uncovering the ethical and legal issues in using generative AI across different contexts. Collapse

Topics: artificial intelligence generative AI Twitter privacy innovation management

Methods: chatGPT chatbot generative pre-trained transformer literature study language model

Sustaining complementor engagement in digital platform ecosystems: Antecedents, behaviours and engagement trajectories

2023 | Information Systems Journal | Citations: 2

Authors: Engert, Martin; Evers, Julia; Hein, Andreas; Krcmar, Helmut

Abstract: Digital platform ecosystems increasingly dominate the enterprise software domain ... Expand

Abstract: Digital platform ecosystems increasingly dominate the enterprise software domain, and the persistence of platforms depends on the sustained engagement of complementors. However, there is a limited understanding of its antecedents, complementors' evaluation of antecedents and the manifestations and dynamic changes of complementors' engagement. Therefore, we investigate complementors' engagement within platform ecosystems over time. We draw on actor and stakeholder engagement from service research to conceptualise complementor engagement (CE) and create an integrated empirical understanding of CE and its dynamics in digital platform ecosystems. Our embedded case study builds on 30 interviews with complementors in Anubis and Osiris enterprise software platform ecosystems. Inductive data analysis reveals five CE antecedents: platform resources and rules, platform value proposition, platform agents, customer needs and other complementors' value propositions. The antecedents are associated with three CE behaviours: generating, networking and synchronising. Further analysis of CE over time resulted in 26 different sequences representing stable and changing engagement trajectories, the latter comprising selective, growing and abating engagement as subcategories. We show how complementors' evaluations of antecedents lead to behaviour changes, providing a novel perspective on the dynamics underlying CE. Finally, we link complementors' evaluation outcomes to their (dis)satisfaction, contributing to the discussion on what drives and impedes CE. The findings implicate the debate on dynamic platform governance and inform platform owners about using cooperative and competitive approaches in the short and long term. Collapse

Topics: digital ecosystem platform governance enterprise information system digital platform innovation management

Methods: qualitative interview case study qualitative coding design artifact theory development

Critical Success Factors for AI-driven Smart Energy Services

2023 | Americas Conference on Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Gerlach, Jana; Lier, Sarah; Hoppe, Paul; Breitner, Michael H.

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) can significantly contribute to decentralizing and ... Expand

Abstract: Artificial Intelligence (AI) can significantly contribute to decentralizing and digitalizing the energy sector and environmental sustainability. Integrating AI-driven smart energy services (SES), such as energy production forecasting, building energy management, and predictive maintenance, remain in an early phase for plant providers or energy utilities. However, the knowledge regarding key factors determining the design of AI-driven SES is limited in the literature. Therefore, we derive critical success factors (CSFs) for the design of AI-driven SES in a design science research (DSR) approach in connection with the design thinking process. We identified ten CSFs and 31 CSF categories by iteratively combining the knowledge of interviewed AI business experts, scientific literature, and results of AI programming projects with students. Based on this, we developed a further research agenda containing six research demands and direct further research questions. KeywordsArtificial intelligence, energy sector, critical success factors, design thinking, design science research. Research Needs and MotivationAI solutions in the energy sector can be deployed for various tasks, such as energy generation forecasting, demand side management, building energy management, weather forecasting, predictive maintenance, plant and storage management, and energy price forecasting (Li et al. 2022). A forecast for the year 2025 predicts that the AI software market will generate annual revenue of 126 billion US dollars (Omdia 2020). Reasons for the increasing integration are the development of technologies for the collection and storage of big data and the constantly evolving computing power (Haenlein and Kaplan 2019). According to Nishant et al. (2020) AI systems in the energy sector contribute threefold: to task automation, gaining insights from data, e.g., documents, videos, and e-mails, and solving complex problems through computing capabilities. Automation tasks include the automated usage of drones for inspection and safety purposes. Gaining insights from data involves image analysis to provide predictive maintenance for power lines or energy production forecasting for energy planning. Solving complex problems includes planning efficient and multiple usages of battery storage (Nishant et al. 2020;Quest et al. 2022). Therefore, AI solutions, here AIdriven SES, can significantly impact energy efficiency and contribute to environmental sustainability, decarbonization, and decentralization of the energy sector (Antonopoulos et al. 2020;Nishant et al. 2020). Environmental sustainability, one of the three dimensions of sustainable development, concerns climate change and the measures required to quantify and reduce its impacts. Sustainability must be understood as consuming natural resources only so that future generations are not exposed to natural resource depletion (Purvis et al. 2019). Current literature on AI-driven SES addresses AI and Machine Learning (ML) models (Li et al. 2022), application areas and business models (Antonopoulos et al. 2020;Li et al. 2022;Quest et al. 2022), and advantages and disadvantages (Ahmad et al. 2021;Benbya et al. 2020). However, knowledge CSFs for AI-driven Smart Energy Services Collapse

Topics: artificial intelligence design thinking critical success factor user interface explainable artificial intelligence

Methods: design methodology qualitative interview literature study personal interview computational algorithm

THE IMPACT OF CEOS’ TECHNOLOGICAL FRAME ON ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY AND THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF DIGITAL BUSINESS CAPABILITIES: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

2023 | European Conference On Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Glanz, Alena; Greven, Andrea; Brettel, Malte

Abstract: The information systems (IS) literature elaborates on how firms develop organiz ... Expand

Abstract: The information systems (IS) literature elaborates on how firms develop organizational agility based on organizational capabilities to sense and respond to rapidly changing environments. However, the underlying mechanism of how companies and their chief executive officers (CEOs) understand and implement digital technologies to foster organizational agility is lacking. The technological frame concept provides an impetus to explain the process by which CEOs' sensemaking of digital technologies influences organizational agility. Our paper draws on the individual-level perspective of the technological frame concept and proposes a mediating role of digital business capabilities, composed of digital strategy, digital integration, and digital control. Our quantitative research design is based on findings derived from 386 German CEOs and confirms that CEOs' technological frame influences organizational agility through digital business capabilities. Thereby, we expand the concept of the technological frame on the individual level and contribute to the IS literature by revealing the mechanism of how CEOs' sensemaking influences organizational agility. Collapse

Topics: sensemaking information systems strategy information technology capability electronic business systems implementation

Methods: survey partial least squares path modeling descriptive statistic partial least squares regression mediation analysis

Theories: technological frames of reference theory of organizational sensemaking dynamic capabilities theory

Social Determinants of Health and ER Utilization: Role of Information Integration during COVID-19

2023 | ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Guo, Tianjian; Bardhan, Indranil; Khurshid, Anjum

Abstract: Emergency room (ER) admissions are the front door for the utilization of a commu ... Expand

Abstract: Emergency room (ER) admissions are the front door for the utilization of a community's health resources and serve as a valuable proxy for a community health system's capacity. While recent research suggests that social determinants of health (SDOH) are important predictors of patient health outcomes, their impact on ER utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic is not well understood. Further, the role of hospital information integration in moderating the impact of SDOH on ER utilization has not received adequate attention. Utilizing longitudinal claims data from a regional health information exchange spanning 6 years including the COVID-19 period, we study how SDOH affects ER utilization and whether effective integration of patient health information across hospitals can moderate its impact. Our results suggest that a patient's economic well-being significantly reduces future ER utilization. The magnitude of this relationship is significant when patients are treated at hospitals with high information integration but is weaker when patients receive care at hospitals with lower levels of information integration. Instead, patients' family and social support can reduce ER utilization when they are treated at hospitals with low information integration. In other words, different dimensions of SDOH are important in low versus high information integration conditions. Furthermore, predictive modeling shows that patient visit type and prior visit history can significantly improve the predictive accuracy of ER utilization. Our research implications support efforts to develop national standards for the collection and sharing of SDOH data and their use and interpretation for clinical decision making by healthcare providers and policy makers. Collapse

Topics: healthcare data pandemic information exchange accounting health information system

Methods: experimental group machine learning XGBoost longitudinal research econometric modeling

Collectively Ambidextrous Digital Service Ecosystems: A Case of Bureaucracy of Death

2023 | European Conference On Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Hietala, Heidi; Päivärinta, Tero; Annanperä, Elina; Liukkunen, Kari

Abstract: Public services often extend beyond the public sector, requiring collaboration ... Expand

Abstract: Public services often extend beyond the public sector, requiring collaboration and interaction between public and private actors. Initiating digital service innovations in collaboration is challenging, especially in large-scale public service ecosystems. While individual service providers may have clashing interests, balancing incremental improvements and radical changes (i.e., pursuing ambidextrous development) requires collective efforts. We report a case of a digital service ecosystem related to the bureaucracy of a person's death in Finland. We focused on the pursuit of collective ambidexterity, which requires collaborative development among various actors. The suggested contributions are summarized as four propositions to facilitate collective ambidexterity in service ecosystems: 1) adoption of multiple collaboration modes pursuing both efficiency gains and innovation outcomes, 2) parallel foci of top-down and bottom-up ambidextrous balancing, 3) governance of collaboration and (dis)benefits management both intra-and inter-organizationally, and 4) focus on citizen life-events to facilitate development across organizational silos and innovation beyond suboptimization. Collapse

Topics: innovation management business process innovation digital service system integration digital innovation

Methods: case study single case study theory development focus group personal interview