Innovation Through Information Systems

Especially in the area of genomics, global research institutions constantly provide new insights. Yet today we lack insight on how the use of research data in clinical practice is facilitated. Our study researches an entrepreneurial venture as complementing actor in the international health context who bridges data use from research to science. In this paper, we present a three-step framework how the venture legitimizes data-driven services to facilitate research data use in clinical practice. Our findings illustrate that the venture managed to adjust to clinical needs by using three mechanisms: 1) assessing and aggregating, 2) allowing for ambiguity and 3) assuring clinical assistance. This study adds to the understanding of new ventures’ services legitimation scaling across traditionally national healthcare with local systems. Moreover, our framework is of interest to entrepreneurs and investors, who seek entrepreneurial opportunities and information about ventures that have been able to navigate this field.

We model the intention of patients to use a telehealth app for the management of a chronic disease. Our model integrates the health belief model with a model of information technology acceptance to reflect the technology- and health-related parts of the intention. The intention of non-using patients to use the app is influenced by their hedonic motivation and social influence. An analysis of sub-groups reveals deeper insights: Patients without access to the app would use it based on the expected performance and their self-efficacy. Patients who do not use the app despite having access to it would use it if influenced by their social environment and if they perceive their disease to be severe. A third group does not even know whether they can use the app. The results show that proper education of patients and people influencing them is necessary even in the case of chronic diseases.

Medical teleconsulting applications improve the accessibility, increase the quality and reduce the costs of healthcare services especially for elderly people. Despite these benefits, such applications are still at an early state of diffusion. As the intention to use teleconsulting applications depends on the users’ satisfaction, we aim to reveal the application features of teleconsulting applications that lead to user satisfaction. Based on the theory of attractive quality, we argue that application features can be classified into different categories, depending on how well they achieve user satisfaction. We identify 17 application features and conduct a quantitative study with 87 elderly people for categorization. The results show how each application feature affects elderly peoples’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction with teleconsulting applications, and we derive recommendations for future teleconsulting application development.

Lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) are prevalent urological health issues affecting billions of people worldwide. While conventional aids have unhygienic and cumbersome attributes, mobile health (mHealth) solutions have the potential to significantly improve the quality of life. However, knowledge of how LUTS patients adopt mHealth and how these solutions should be designed is scarce. In this study, we present an adoption model to explain and support the adoption of mHealth solutions by patients suffering from LUTS, and derived design principles to guide future developments of such mHealth. We, therefore, conducted a systematic literature review of 67 papers and followed an action design research approach with 32 expert interviews and a confirmative survey to build, refine, and evaluate the ex-ante model. The ex-post model consists of five categories and 28 sub-categories of mHealth adoption.

Patient pathways are a means to structure the care process for patients with complex and long-term diseases in integrated care networks. Simultaneously, they have a stronger emphasis on the patient perspective and engagement than related pathway concepts. Still, there are no common mechanisms for patient engagement concepts in patient pathway models. This paper therefore explores the state-of-the-art of patient engagement tools as well as evidence on their effectivity and feasibility, picking the Option Grid, the Patient Diary, and the Question Prompt Sheet (QPS) as representative examples. Based on this, we propose recommendations for the representation of such tools in patient pathway models and demonstrate them with the application of the QPS in a colorectal cancer patient pathway. To conclude, the evidence on patient engagement tools is still diverse but promising. Anchoring successful tools in patient pathways holds the potential to support their broader application and enhance individualized care.

Care pathways and implementing information systems increasingly permeate the discipline of Health Information Systems Research (HISR). It explores the conception, modelling, realisation and impact of pathway-supporting HIS and strives for the best possible harmonisation of interdisciplinary goals from technology, medicine and public health research. A systematic literature review with qualitative content analysis is dedicated to this integrating character. It examines the interdisciplinary network of objectives associated with care pathways and pathway-supporting HIS in the HISR literature of the past decade. The research-in-progress paper presented here describes the background, methodology and interim content analysis results. Alternative questions and analysis strategies to this status are outlined in conclusion as a basis for discourse. In this way, adjustments to the research strategy of this project will be sought in a targeted exchange with researchers from the HISR.

Hand hygiene plays a key role in the prevention of infections. However, there is still a lack of hand hygiene practices among both healthcare professionals and the public. Electronic hand hygiene monitoring systems have the potential to improve the situation by giving an accurate assessment of hand hygiene behavior and by placing digital interventions, but such systems are used only in a small number of healthcare facilities. Barriers that limit their large-scale adoption include high costs, privacy concerns, and usability. In this paper, we present a novel real-time feedback system that aims to overcome the existing barriers and supports hand hygiene on a personal and organizational level.

City centers and resident retail businesses have to react to the continuous growth of online retail. However, some city centers are far more successful concerning the total turnover in relation to its inhabitants. Using machine learning and data analysis methods, we investigate the types and locations of retail businesses inside the city center, comparing successful and unsuccessful city centers. Our results show that success does not come with particular types of shops, but rather with centrality and bundled shopping areas. We provide insights for planning and developing successful retail in city centers to compete and interact with online retail.

The digitalization of retail also affects the luxury industry. The integration of digital components in local retail stores can be one way to attract customers and stay competitive. One novel in-store technology for jewelry stores could be a digital sales desk intended to support the watch-advisory service. This work proposes a conceptual design for a digital sales desk comprising various e-service touchpoints. It conducts an ex-ante evaluation to investigate the aspects of the digital sales desk that influence customers’ perceptions of quality and their re-use intentions toward the digitally enriched advisory service. Therefore, an online survey was conducted. The survey results indicate that some e-service touchpoints are more popular than others. The participants’ quality and value perceptions also directly impacted their intentions to re-use the service. The results shed light on the digital sales desk’s potentials and provide orientation regarding the most promising e-service touchpoints.

The digital transformation is threatening the local stationary retail sector. Local Shopping Platforms (LSPs) were considered as a promising approach to support local owner-operated retail outlets (LOOROs) with their digitalization, but they struggled in utilizing the special characteristics, like e.g., the locational advantages of the affiliated retailers. In this study, we assess the current state of LSPs in Germany in 2020 with the help of a structured content analysis and semi-structured telephone interviews, addressing also the impact of the Covid-19 crisis. Our results show that the preferential platform type has changed. The lockdown has significantly boosted the number of Store Locator Platforms as one type of LSP. Furthermore, it turned out that LSPs with a “Strictly Local Approach” introduce more location-based services than LSPs with a “Scaling Local Approach”.

E-commerce, digital platforms, and digital transformation (DT) pose major challenges to offline businesses in the retail industry. To offset the benefits of the data available to online businesses, stores must digitalize their stores and rethink their value proposition to customers. In a digitalized world, this value is no longer provided by single companies—leveraging a set of companies in the retail ecosystem to jointly create value is now necessary. Therefore, this research project provides an overview of the roles and value flows in Germany’s retail industry in the form of an e3-value model that can be used by scholars for future research on the digitalization of the retail industry. For practitioners, it provides guidance for forging new partnerships to co-create value in interconnected, digital ecosystems.

With the rise of new technologies, consumers have gained new ways of purchasing goods and services through digital channels. A variety of determinants of channel choices have been assessed in previous studies. Still, the role of the individual consumer characteristics (i.e. personality traits and gender roles) in channel choices remains particularly unclear. Yet, better understanding their role would be beneficial to increase the use of digital channels. In this study, we extend an existing decision-making model by adding individual consumer characteristics as antecedents of the model. We test the proposed hypothesis by analyzing data collected in a lab experiment. We find that certain personality traits and gender roles have a significant effect in the extended model of channel choices. Practitioners can use this knowledge to adapt digital channels to their target groups by addressing personality-specific concerns or motivators.

For the manufacturing industry, exploiting the opportunities of digital transformation often implies the strategic development from being a manufacturer of pure physical products to one providing Product-Service Systems (PSS). In literature, PSS can be distinguished in different types, which differ substantially in their configuration of the underlying business model. However, since distinct PSS types require different organizational capabilities, the transformation toward a PSS provider is a challenge for managers. To provide guidance, scientific and professional literature mostly focuses on selected aspects. Though, a holistic consideration of relevant capabilities for the respective PSS type remains untapped. Against this backdrop, we developed a PSS Maturity Model (PSSMM) to guide organizations in developing appropriate capabilities. To provide an integrated view, the PSSMM refers to 5 focus areas, 20 capability dimensions, and associated capabilities. To develop and evaluate our model, we used the well-known approach of Becker et al. [1].

Exploiting digital technologies for innovative service offerings as part of the digital transformation has been under discussion for several years. As recent research has shown, practitioners struggle with the systematic design of digital services. Along with the progress in the understanding of digital service systems, academia has proposed various processes and methods which are contributing to a methodology for Service Systems Engineering. However, such methods are rarely applied in practice. In our study, we utilize Action Design Research to evaluate how existing methods can be applied in a project that aims to design a service for predictive costing. Our findings are formalized as a combination of methods and their links. It shows how these methods can be employed to guide the innovation process. Although the generalizability of the results is limited through the single case study approach, the proposed combination of methods provides evidence-based knowledge on Service Systems Engineering, which is relevant for practitioners and researchers alike.

Numerous service design tools, techniques, and methods have been developed in science and practice alike (e.g., Persona, Service Blueprint, Stakeholder Map). Some of these tools build on each other, e.g., different developed Personas can be positioned and placed in a broader overall context within a Stakeholder Map. Digitisation of the design process can generate significant benefits; for instance, results can be transferred between different digital tools and devices using a common or standardised file format. However, there are few digital tools to support the service design process and most of them are not interoperable. This prevents the design of services using digital technologies from achieving their full benefits. To address this problem, an ecosystem is needed that can foster the development of digital-enabled service design tools. The paper follows a design science approach to create a framework involving five design objectives as necessary steps towards such a software ecosystem.

Augmented reality (AR) is widely acknowledged to be beneficial for services that have exceptionally high requirements regarding knowledge and simultaneous tasks to be performed and are safety-critical. In such services, AR enables to augment service provision by delivering seamless integration of information in the field of view while enabling hands-free usage in the case of head-mounted displays. This study explores the user-centered requirements for AR solutions in the operations of a large European maritime logistics hub. Specifically, it deals with the process of soil sounding. Based on eleven think-aloud sessions during service delivery, two expert interviews, and two expert workshops, we derived five core requirements for AR in soil sounding. Thus, we present the first study on the applicability and feasibility of AR in the maritime industry and identify requirements that impact further research on AR use in safety-critical environments.

Digital platforms (e.g., Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platforms) are on the rise aiming to foster value co-creation in business-to-business (B2B) ecosystems. However, we often observe actors to only hesitantly engage, and activity levels that fall short of expectations. Arriving at a sound understanding of why and how actors decide to engage in co-creation practices is a crucial first step to further promote and facilitate value co-creation in B2B platform ecosystems. This work builds upon the concept of actor engagement, which offers an actor-centric microlens on the hitherto vague theoretical idea of value co-creation. By pursuing a qualitative approach to theory development based on interviews with platform complementors, we identify factors influencing the formation and extent of actor engagement. Eventually, our research aims to contribute to a refined conception of value co-creation in B2B platform ecosystems by understanding the emergence and nature of actor engagement.

During the 2020 pandemic crisis, state surveillance measures violated citizens’ privacy rights to track the virus spread. Rather little civic protest resulted—“safety first”? Indeed, many state measures were implemented during the crisis without ever having been discussed in advance of the event of a crisis, which may raise ethical considerations, as individual consent to data disclosure may change while experiencing fear. This paper investigates citizens’ consent to voluntary and legally obliging data disclosure to the state and what drives their consent. Results from an online survey conducted with 1,156 respondents during the onset of the crisis in Germany in mid-March show that (1) fear increases consent to voluntary data disclosure, (2) fear increases consent to legally obliging data disclosure directly and indirectly by fostering distrust in others, and (3) trust in the government increases voluntary and legally obliging data disclosure.

In March 2020, many organizations requested their employees to work from home to reduce their employees’ risk of a COVID-19 infection. Research has suggested that working from home increases perceived stress due to blurring boundaries between work and private life. We examine whether this finding also holds for “enforced working from home” (EWFH) due to COVID-19 based on a four-week diary study in April and May 2020 with 37 participants from a German university. We suggest psychological detachment and communication overload as explaining variables for the relationship between EWFH and perceived stress. Our data show that EWFH leads neither to an inability to detach nor to communication overload. Similarly, EWFH does not increase participants’ stress level. The findings show that working from home is a viable option for the future and that specifics of the EWFH setting, such as wide organizational support, can improve the working from home experience.

Museums preserve the cultural heritage and aim at providing study and education as well as enjoyment for the general public. In pursuing their missions, museums are increasingly concerned with making these experiences digitally available. Therefore, they start to use online platforms that make cultural objects publicly accessible, and therefore allow discussing cultural issues and provide cultural and educational participation. However, as there is little consolidated knowledge on features of such platforms and limited resources of museums, they face challenges in achieving their missions through a platform. In order to overcome this, we (1) review and synthesize related literature and online platforms and (2) present a taxonomy of how online offers leverage cultural participation and education. In doing this, we seek to enable platform designers and museum professionals in making informed decisions in terms of how the ‘museum experience’ can be supported/complemented through online platforms.

Digital transformation (DT) describes technology-based improvements in business processes, business models, and customer experience. It promises efficiency gains for industrial enterprises. Nonprofit organizations also expect advantages from DT. However, barriers hinder realizing all its possible advantages in both sectors. If decision-makers recognize the potential barriers, they can reflect upon these challenges and take well-coordinated countermeasures. Orienting towards a Straussian grounded theory approach, a framework of barriers is developed with data of two diverse sectors: industry and nonprofit. According to the framework pre-conditions such as profit-orientation and size shape the possibilities to tackle different barriers. In general, the DT process in the industry-sector has been slowed down by barriers. Whereas, nonprofit organizations often take the view that they are not in a DT process at all. This might be due to limited individual and organizational perspectives. Especially, NPOs have to work on their recruitment of skilled volunteers to challenge this view.

Although dashboards are already widely used in humanitarian crises, various corporate reports and other fields, the specific success factors for the respective application areas often remain unclear. Especially in the current severe corona pandemic, dashboards are crucial to get an overview of the dynamic infection development. This motivated us to investigate how to successfully design dashboards capable of mitigating crises such as serious pandemics. By means of a systematic literature analysis, we identified scientific success factors of crisis and in specific of pandemic dashboards. Further, we assessed currently used corona dashboards and compared them with our success factors of the literature. In this way, we could discover whether corona dashboards are based on previous crisis dashboards and which specific success factors of current corona dashboards can be worked out for future pandemic dashboard development.

The high reliance of refugees on digital tools has been the motor of digitization, which includes not only mobile applications, but also digitization of human aspects, namely, social capital (networks). Refugees tend to rely on their social capital (networks) to make well-informed decisions, especially related to the migration journey. An ideal supporting tool here has been Social Networking Sites (SNS). To investigate this topic, we have followed a qualitative approach and conducted 15 interviews with Syrian refugees in Germany. The analysis of our interviews has revealed four typical streams of utilizing social networks through SNS in the context of migration: (1) information gathering, (2) service consumption, (3) understanding the relevant procedures and systems, and (4) content creation and service provisioning. Our goal is to discuss the impact of digitized social networks on refugees aiming at maximizing the benefits, e.g., information gathering, and avoiding the risks, e.g., frauds.

The process of urbanization has caused a huge growth in cities all over the world. This development makes the organization and infrastructure of an individual city increasingly important. In this context, the idea of a smart city is growing and smart city projects are beginning to appear. As the amount of data is growing with connected technologies, such projects rely on data as a key resource. However, current research does not provide an overview on these projects and which constructs are involved in data-driven smart city projects. Therefore, this research begins the building of a taxonomy on such projects through the establishment of a common language among researchers in this new field through eleven dimensions. Additionally, it develops a concrete conceptualization of data-driven smart city projects for practitioners as an initial guidance for the field of smart cities.

Global urbanization for decades has led to unprecedented levels and growing demands for urban logistics. Thus, problems such as congestion, environmental noise, and urban sprawl are growing. As a result, many cities face problems of optimal decision-making regarding green and sustainable smart transportation systems and infrastructures. However, various possible measures and logistics concepts are available to improve urban logistics, while effects are unclear and difficult to predict. To meet the growing need for future-oriented decisions by city authorities, we developed a decision support system prototype that allows a strategic simulation-based evaluation of different logistics concepts regarding defined targets, e.g., pollutant emissions, traffic flow, space requirements, or economic efficiency on a city district level. An expert system for the strategic evaluation of logistics concepts on a city district level is integrated to achieve transferability and scalability.

For example, because of the demographic change, the fast pace of technological advance, and changing citizen habits (e.g. in buying behavior), cities face fundamental challenges and lack orientation in approaching their (digital) transformation. Especially cities in rural areas struggle in this situation which makes it necessary to reconsider predominant structures in city management. The use of scenario management can support decision-making processes by broadening the perspective through thinking in future scenarios. This paper elaborates on a scenario planning project that was conducted with 25 cities from South Westphalia (Germany) in 2020. Eight scenarios have been developed in a multi-stakeholder process with participants from different city domains. Both, the process of scenario planning and the developed city scenarios for 2030, aim to support city managers and other city stakeholders expand their focus, triggering a future-oriented examination of cities.

Information Systems research acknowledges the importance of identifying requirements to ensure the artifact’s relevance. However, many research articles addressing blockchain technology for e-government capture the requirements that need to be fulfilled only implicitly by defining system objectives or evaluation criteria. Furthermore, focusing on specific use-cases encompasses the risk of overlooking those requirements, which are not as obvious but equally important. This procedure causes uncertainty regarding the requirements a blockchain-based e-government service needs to fulfill. Therefore, we conducted a systematic literature review on blockchain-based government-to-citizen (G2C) e-government services. On this basis, we categorized the requirements as we find that they address either the data of the system, the user, or the system itself. Our categorization provides a structured overview supporting researchers in conducting research on blockchain technology in the public sector and giving practitioners input to develop, test, and evaluate new blockchain-based G2C e-government services.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer significant potential for public administrations which – in Germany – are likely to face considerable skills shortages in the next few years. AI systems can especially support the automation of processes and thus disburden administrative staff. As transparency and fairness play a major role in administrative processes, explainable AI (XAI) approaches are expected to enable a proper usage of AI in public administration. In this article, we investigate the potential of XAI for the support of tax authority processes, especially the selection of tax audit target organizations. We illustrate relevant tax audit scenarios and present the potential of different XAI techniques which we currently develop in these scenarios. It shows that XAI can significantly support tax audit preparations resulting in more efficient processes and a better performance of tax authorities concerning their main responsibilities. A further contribution of this article lies in the exemplary application of XAI usage guidelines in the public administration context.

Recent years have seen an increasing emphasis on IT-enabled crowdsourcing for innovation in organizations. However, information systems literature has so far paid little attention to the role of information systems in idea crowdsourcing, including its relation to organizational culture. To address this research gap, we conducted a quantitative study with IT and innovation managers from various organizations (N = 81) to explore whether culture influences the implementation of idea platforms. Our key findings show that idea platform implementation is facilitated by a culture that emphasizes policies, procedures, as well as information management (hierarchical culture). Although a culture of creativity should be stimulated in the front-end of innovation, the results indicate that idea platforms are predominantly used in conjunction with a strong internal focus and set of values.

Data are a key driver of the digital era. They shift the strategic landscape of organizations and change how companies approach their business. Nevertheless, existing approaches on data strategies vary vastly and little common ground is visible. Therefore, we develop a comprehensive taxonomy for data strategy tools and methodologies in order to identify characteristics and relevant properties of data strategy. We derived the taxonomy inductively by analyzing existing data strategy tools and methodologies offered in the current economy and deductively by conducting a structured literature review on the existing body of knowledge in the scientific literature. It serves as a scientific instrument to profoundly assess and create data strategies and work towards a consensus in the respective research field.

Empathy is a fundamental competency for daily communication, interaction, and teamwork, and thus most relevant for future jobs. Nevertheless, educational organizations are limited in providing the necessary conditions for students to develop empathy skills, due to traditional large-scale and distance-learning scenarios. In this paper, we present insights on how to design an adaptive learning tool that helps students to develop their ability to react to other people’s observed experiences through individual feedback independent of an instructor, time and location. Based on theoretical insights of 110 papers and 28 user interviews, we propose preliminary design principles for an adaptive empathy learning tool. Moreover, we evaluate the design principles as an instantiated prototype in a proof-of-concept evaluation with 25 students. The results indicate that an empathy learning tool based on the presented design knowledge seems to be a promising approach to help students to improve their empathy skills in different learning scenarios.

Graduates of Business Informatics (BI) have excellent job perspectives. The ongoing digital transformation entails the fascinating opportunity for our students to participate in designing future organizations. At the same time, enrollment statistics for German universities indicate relatively low first-year-student numbers in BI bachelor’s degree programs. Personal experience additionally suggests that many first-year-students have no clear idea about BI and their future role in practice. Hence, we assume that the perception of BI by secondary schools students is already biased by substantial misconceptions. This paper intends to contribute to the debate on how to raise the awareness of upper secondary school students for study programs in BI. Based on an exploratory survey and practical experience through a case study teaching program employed by “school ambassadors”, we propose critical success factors for designing initiatives to disseminate a realistic and attractive image of BI and the professional perspectives it enables.

The role of 3D models has substantially changed for companies that focus on the creation of consumer goods. For manufacturing and retail firms, virtual objects are today the predominant medium for product development and customization while virtual world and game developers not only build their entire products based on 3D models but found that selling virtual goods in games and virtual worlds can be more lucrative than selling the actual virtual environment. The objective of this study is to emphasize the role of 3D models in the product development processes and to identify similarities and differences between both domains based on a literature review. The results imply that 3D models are today prevalent in the entire value chain of both domains, while non-functional attributes of 3D models are of increasing value. A commonality is the growing importance of the user as source of knowledge for and creator of 3D models.

The scarcity of resources means that recycling is becoming increasingly important to minimize environmental damage and to compete in the global marketplace. However, recycling rates are still relatively low, especially for plastic products. This is mainly because there is an information gap between the product design and end-of-life phases. We want to develop a decision support tool that provides the designers of plastic products with important information and supports design decisions based on ecological, but also economical and functional criteria. To achieve this, we apply a design science research approach and rely mainly on expert interviews results.

Internet of Things (IoT) applications and ecosystems rely on the integration of numerous sensors and devices. One of the challenges of integration is the broadness of standards and protocols used by the sensors. At the same time, systems generally only support a limited amount of protocols, essentially limiting the choice of sensors and devices for a given scenario. In this paper, we propose a research methodology for building a tool that acts as middleware between sensors and systems, translating standards while maintaining their respective advantages.

Morphological Taxonomies are a widely popular tool in Information Systems to systematically deconstruct an artifact into designable dimensions and characteristics. Subsequently, these taxonomies have engraved in them knowledge about the design of artifacts, i.e., descriptive design knowledge. Most studies producing morphological taxonomies refrain from giving prescriptive advice about the design, i.e., the specific morphological configuration of an artifact, but rather stay descriptive. The paper proposes a framework for knowledge and artifact transformation originating in morphological taxonomies and ending in design principles. We develop a framework that assists researchers and practitioners by showing clear paths on transforming descriptive design knowledge engraved in taxonomies to prescriptive knowledge as design principles.

Conversational Agents (CAs) have become a new paradigm for human-computer interaction. Despite the potential benefits, there are ethical challenges to the widespread use of these agents that may inhibit their use for individual and social goals. However, besides a multitude of behavioral and design-oriented studies on CAs, a distinct ethical perspective falls rather short in the current literature. In this paper, we present the first steps of our design science research project on principles for a value-sensitive design of CAs. Based on theoretical insights from 87 papers and eleven user interviews, we propose preliminary requirements and design principles for a value-sensitive design of CAs. Moreover, we evaluate the preliminary principles with an expert-based evaluation. The evaluation confirms that an ethical approach for design CAs might be promising for certain scenarios.

Researchers often face challenges already in the early stages of a literature review, and thus, struggle in getting started with the search and in organizing the process. This starting point is however of great relevance because design decisions such as in terms of corpus creation have impacts on the entire results of the review. By following the design science paradigm, we present the ‘Search Canvas’, a generic framework that aims at supporting the (creative) process of exploring, specifying, and visually representing a literature search strategy. In doing this, we contribute to the understanding of what components need to be considered when deriving a search strategy and provide an instrument that enables researchers to iteratively plan and communicate such strategies.