Publications

This article explores platform governance in established companies that face unique challenges when adopting platform strategies because of their complex organizational structures, diverse product ranges, legacy systems, and existing networks of partners. It analyzes four established companies’ governance strategies and proposes a multi-layered governance model that addresses the varying needs of internal business units, core partners, and third-party developers. This model highlights the importance of custom governance strategies tailored to specific ecosystem actors and their relationships. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of platform governance in established companies and present practical recommendations for managers embarking on digital transformation.

Big Tech companies such as Alphabet (Google), Apple, Meta (Facebook), Alibaba, and Tencent have repeatedly demonstrated their capability to integrate multiple digital platforms successfully. However, the grasp of how multi‐platform integration strategies are articulated and the potential benefits they bring forth remains limited. Previous research has predominantly focused on launch, growth, and competition strategies for single platforms, prompting us to develop a typology of four multi‐platform integration strategies: collection, consolidation, symbiosis, and assemblage. For each strategy, we examine what complementarities are generated and provide real‐world examples. Subsequently, we delve into a discussion of the limitations and implications associated with the integration of multiple digital platforms. We conclude by proposing avenues for future research on multi‐platform integration strategies.

The notion of business ecosystems is gaining prominence among academics and practitioners. Scholars advise that business ecosystems are inherently fluid, unbounded and amorphous and thus that their boundaries can shift. Practitioners further suggest that business ecosystems are characterised by inter‐network – as opposed to inter‐firm – competition, and, moreover, that they are mainly driven by technological advancements. And yet few studies examine the role of information technology (IT) in driving boundary practices that enable the formation and transformation of business ecosystems. Through an in‐depth case study of technology‐enabled transformations within the Korean pop music (K‐pop) industry, our study examines how the digital transformation of business ecosystems unfolded. Our study contributes to the emergent body of knowledge on business ecosystems in a number of ways. Our investigations uncover the conditions under which the constituent firms operate and analyse the role of IT and its implications on new organisational forms. From our analysis, we present a framework that reveals insights on critical boundary practices and formative strategies for digital business ecosystems. We illustrate how these boundary practices drive industry change, from a largely linear content delivery system resembling a value chain to a new value network of co‐specialisation and self‐organisation among firms in a new digital business ecosystem.

Mobile network operators have long played an essential role in the Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile payment ecosystem. In most implementations, the SIM card has been the main technical component to secure payments. Currently, mobile payment providers are increasingly planning to place the Secure Element (SE) for authentication in the handset or cloud, rather than on the SIM card. This paper unveils factors that influence stakeholder preferences for the SE location. To structure the analysis, we use a multi-level framework based on concepts borrowed from multi-sided platform theory. Using interviews with stakeholders, we elicit themes and preferences for each level of the framework (provider, technology, and user). Our findings explain why mobile network operators, despite their superior technology, will likely lose the battle for control in the mobile payment ecosystem.

This article aims at assessing the progress of mobile payment research over the last 8 years. A previous literature review (Dahlberg et al. 2008b), covering articles published between 1999 and 2006, showed that the majority of research had only focused on a few topics. In order to address this issue, a research agenda was formulated to encourage researchers to explore new topics. Almost a decade later, our review reveals that researchers have continued to focus on the same topics (especially consumer adoption and technology aspects) with a limited accumulation of new knowledge and similar findings. In addition to reviewing the literature, we discuss the possible reasons for the lack of research diversity and propose new recommendations to enhance future mobile payment research.

A multi-sided platform can only succeed if a critical mass of users can join. This is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a platform's success. However, there is a limited understanding of the factors that contribute to reaching such critical mass. In this study we identify ways to determine the market potential of a platform and to reach critical mass. We particularly enrich past studies by exploring how the openness of a platform influences market potential. We examine openness at three levels – provider, technology, and user level – and ask the question: to what extent can opening (or closing) each level increase or decrease a platform's market potential? The provider level recognizes the strategic involvement of key stakeholders that provide a platform. The technology level is concerned with the interoperability of a platform across different technologies. The user level relates to what extent a platform discriminates different segments of the customer base. On the basis of analytical modeling and theoretical analysis, we formulate four propositions concerning the effects of openness on platforms’ market potential. We illustrate the strength of propositions through a confirmatory case study, which is informed by five theoretically sampled cases. The cases illustrate cogently the effects of opening different levels of a multi-sided platform. In conclusion, we propose a decision model that can assist decision making concerning the opening of a platform to catalyze its growth.

In this paper, we demonstrate the design and use of a foresight support system (FSS) combining two multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. Traditionally, foresight activities involves Delphi, focus group, or Estimate–Talk–Estimate techniques to collect opinions of an expert panel. Often, these techniques are not computerized and data visualization is rudimentary. Our highly-interactive FSS solves a number of inherent issues during the data collection, analysis, and results visualization processes. Despite that MCDM methods have been recommended for technology foresight, a validation with a real field experiment was still required. To evaluate our approach and FSS, we conducted a foresight exercise for the Swiss mobile payments market. Our research confirms that the use of MCDM methods supported with a computerized tool can enhance the foresight processes and results.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to outline a conceptual framework on mobile applications that support social interactions among users to warrant commercial viability of such applications. Design/methodology/approach – We build on the social network paradigm to propose an activity-based view on mobile application usage, and theoretically link the pertinent features of mobile social networking applications (MSNAs) to a set of measurement metrics concerning their commercial viability. Findings – The conceptual framework formulated highlights how MSNAs can be systematically designed and deployed to ensure their commercial viability. Research limitations/implications – A pertinent set of features that support social networking among the users, and their plausible mechanisms in facilitating the commercial viability of MSNAs, are explicated. This facilitates future research endeavours in systematically investigating the emerging form of mobile applications. The limitation lies in a lack of empirical data to validate the formulated propositions, which is beyond the scope of this paper and is directed for future research. Practical implications – A coherent set of measurement metrics are put forward for practitioners to measure the commercial viability of an MSNA. Also theoretically based insights are derived for how they can better derive commercial values from the emerging form of mobile applications. Originality/value – Most relevant previous research has focused either on the MSNAs’ technical design aspects or user behavioural issues. This research ties up the themes on technical design, user behaviour and business consideration in formulating a research framework for assessing the commercial viability of MSNAs.

Major software companies, such as Apple and Google, are disturbing the relatively safe and established actors of the mobile application business. These newcomers have caused significant structural changes in the market by imposing and enforcing their own rules for the future of mobile application developments. The implications of these changes do not only concern the mobile network operators and mobile phone manufacturers but also bring additional opportunities and constraints for current mobile application developers. Therefore, developers need to assess what their options are and how they can take advantage of these current trends. In this paper, we take a developer’s perspective in order to explore how the identified trends will impact the mobile application development markets. Our preliminary analysis leads us to suggest eight propositions which summarize our findings and can be the starting points for future empirical research.

With the growing popularity of mobile technologies and the increasing use of groups within organizations, it is important to understand the collaboration contexts where mobile collaboration technologies (MCTs) are essential. This is especially critical given the high cost associated with the acquisition and implementation of MCTs and the need to make an informed decision regarding the appropriateness of MCTs. In this paper, the authors address this issue by first drawing on real life-based collaboration scenarios and examining the technology requirements of groups; second, comparing the features offered by MCTs with those of FTF and two types of CMCTs; third, proposing a collaboration environment-technology fit perspective in realizing optimal usage of a collaboration technology; and fourth, creating the Group Collaboration Technology Repertoire Grid, which maps the “ideal” collaboration technology(s) repertoire for each type of collaboration environment. The grid highlights the collaboration environments that would need MCTs and provides managers or organizational group leaders the ability to map their collaboration environments into a specific category and thus more easily decide on the particular collaboration technology repertoire that would be most beneficial.

In this paper, we present an assessment of near field communication (NFC) in the context of a payment market. During these past years, we have been witnessing a number of mobile payment trials based on NFC. Early experiences are already quite encouraging and many expect NFC to become a highly efficient and effective technology for mobile payments. The objective of our research is to evaluate in a systematic manner the potential of NFC as an upcoming technology for mobile payments. In order to ensure the rigor of our research, we used a formal and structured approach based on multi-actor multi-criteria methods. Our research provides one of the first assessment of NFC and a realistic picture of the current Swiss situation as we involved numerous mobile payment experts. Our findings show that Swiss industry experts are quite enthusiastic about the future of NFC.

The mobile payment services markets are currently under transition with a history of numerous tried and failed solutions, and a future of promising but yet uncertain possibilities with potential new technology innovations. At this point of the development, we take a look at the current state of the mobile payment services market from a literature review perspective. We review prior literature on mobile payments, analyze the various factors that impact mobile payment services markets, and suggest directions for future research in this still emerging field. To facilitate the analysis of literature, we propose a framework of four contingency and five competitive force factors, and organize the mobile payment research under the proposed framework. Consumer perspective of mobile payments as well as technical security and trust are best covered by contemporary research. The impacts of social and cultural factors on mobile payments, as well as comparisons between mobile and traditional payment services are entirely uninvestigated issues. Most of the factors outlined by the framework have been addressed by exploratory and early phase studies.

In this paper we present a study that unveils the technological and organizational preferences of various industries for mobile payment developments in Switzerland. Despite the expected success, mobile payments remain at an early stage of development in most countries. At this point, there is a real need for better understanding of the factors hindering the deployment of mobile payments. We conducted several series of interviews involving key Swiss experts to elicit the preferences of the different industries involved in the mobile payment market. The findings indicate that card‐based solutions are still preferred to mobile phone‐based solutions from an industry point of view. However, in terms of industrial settings, the situation is not as clear for determining the dominant actors who would lead mobile payments solutions in the future. At this stage, this study already reveals some weak market signals concerning the future developments of mobile payments in Switzerland.

As mobile technologies and services are in constant evolution, many speculate on whether or not mobile payments will be a killer application for mobile commerce. To have a better understanding of the market, there is a need to analyze not only the technology but also the different actors that are involved. For this purpose, we propose to conduct two disruption analyses to draw the disruptiveness profile of mobile payment solutions compared to other payment instruments. Then, we try to discover what factors have hindered the technical and commercial development by using a DSS based on a multi-criteria decision making method called Electre I.

In this paper, we propose a layered model of multi-platform firms, that is, organizations that operate multiple digital platforms within their ecosystem. We thereby model the linkages that are established among devices, platforms, and services. Multi-platform firms operate across three layers: entry, passage, and consumption. By operating platforms across these levels, they can offer holistic consumer journeys and keep consumers within their ecosystems. We suggest that multi-platform firms leverage the sharing of resources and capabilities across platforms and the steering of consumers to outcompete single-platform competitors. We illustrate the layered model by interpreting the competition between Apple and Spotify in the music streaming market as a competition between a multi- and a single-platform firm and showcase the competitive advantages of multi-platform firms.

Chapter 7 begins by setting out the nature and importance of corporate purpose. The power and effect of corporate purpose depend on its authenticity and way in which it is specified. Striking a balance between breadth and vision, and specificity and precision determines its relevance and impact. Authenticity involves living the corporate purpose and translating it effectively into corporate actions. It should not be preserved in aspic but instead evolve steadily over time to promote its relevance. The chapter suggests that it is not only the internal organization of a company that should be aligned with its purpose but so too should its external ecosystem. Ecosystems include other businesses, non-profit organizations, local communities, and governments. Ecosystem orchestration ‘redefines a stakeholder’s “stake” in the corporate purpose as a forward-looking opportunity to co-create value, instead of a backward-looking opportunity to capture value created by the corporation on its own.’

The mobile telecommunication market has recently been shaken by the arrival of new actors, such as Apple and Google. As a consequence, the relatively well-established mobile network operators (MNO) have to rethink their position in the market if they want to participate in the growth of mobile telecommunication revenues. Mobile applications and services are being seen as great opportunity of new revenue sources. However, with the current market structure, MNOs do not hold a privileged position compared to mobile platforms providers such as Apple with iTunes. In this paper, we assess whether or not there is still space in the mobile application market for MNOs. In order to do so, we examine different roles in the mobile application value chain and determine how MNOs can position themselves in this turbulent new market. Our analysis shows that MNOs will have to focus on their core business as network provider and establish alliances with platform providers.

Major software companies, such as Apple and Google, are disturbing the relatively safe and established actors of the mobile application business. These newcomers have caused significant structural changes by imposing and enforcing their own rules for the future of mobile application development. The implications of these changes do not only concern the mobile network operators and mobile phone manufacturers. This changed environment also brings additional opportunities and constraints for current mobile application developers. Therefore, developers need to assess what their options are and how they can take advantages of these current trends. In this paper, we take a developer’s perspective in order to explore how the structural changes will influence the mobile application development markets. Moreover, we discuss what aspects developers need to take into account in order to position themselves within the current trends.

The fast ever-growing number of newly introduced mobile technologies makes the development of mobile information systems a somewhat complex activity. Decision makers - providers, merchants, and consumers alike - have to face great uncertainty and complexity regarding the acceptance of mobile technologies. Therefore, we stress that the selection process of an enabling technology for mobile commerce should be preceded with the use of a structured assessment methodology. With different available alternatives and various criteria for technology evaluation, multi-criteria decision making methods seem to be appropriate to support this selection process. Moreover, the success of introducing a new technology in a mobile information system depends on the preferences of varied involved actors in the market. We also consider in our approach the existence of multiple actors for the search of a technological consensus. As an illustration, we apply our approach to the mobile payment industry.

From 2017 to 2022, the Internet Crime Complaint Center documented an increase of 266% complains for online scams. The complexity and constant evolution of these scams pose a challenge for the existing legal system, which appears ill-equipped to effectively combat them. A new movement emerged known as “scambaiting”, individuals who autonomously take on the responsibility of advocating for others and fighting against scammers. Leveraging online platforms, these individuals champion causes and educate the public, preventing further victimization. Scambaiting techniques range from entertaining activities, like wasting scammers’ time, to illegal ones, such as hacking. This form of cyber-vigilantism represents a novel and under-explored research, especially in term of human-infrastructure. Through the analysis of ten transcripts of discussions involving a sample of scambaiters, we aim to explore the social dynamics and activities of scambaiting; giving insights on collaboration, actors, and challenges within the scambaiting community. Additionally, we present suggestions for future research.

Online climate change activism is growing. However, its effectiveness is not yet firmly established. One of the challenges is for citizens to make sense of the vast amount of data to understand the impact of specific behaviors. The aggregation of publicly available information in a comprehensible and playful manner could potentially trigger effective evidence-based activism. However, it is not yet clear if and how such an intervention works. In this paper, we make a preliminary analysis of a use case of such an approach by investigating the @CelebJets phenomena, which automatically tracks and shares the private jet flights of celebrities on Twitter. Our analysis demonstrates that this approach can elicit user engagement and provide pertinent material for the press, potentially leading to a shift in behavior, particularly among celebrities who are promoting sustainability.

Digital platform ecosystems—sets of organizational actors that form around one or more digital platforms—have become hugely successful. However, there is still confusion about what digital platform ecosystems are and how they can be governed successfully by their orchestrators. What seems to be clear is that the most successful digital platform ecosystems such as the ones driven by Google, Apple, and Tencent include many digital platforms and not just one. To better under-stand digital platform ecosystems, we suggest breaking them down into three building blocks: (1) exchange platforms, (2) innovation platforms, and (3) community platforms. While only one of those could be enough to form a digital platform ecosystem, most successful digital platform ecosystems combine all three. This has implications for the orchestrator’s approach to platform governance, which no longer addresses one digital platform but needs to consider the various digital platforms—a phenomenon we term inter-platform governance. By using the example of Tencent, we illustrate how breaking down the overall digital platform ecosystem into a system of inter-linked digital platforms helps to get a better understanding of platform governance.

Hikikomori refers to a mental disorder that manifests as an extreme form of social withdrawal. Those afflicted (i.e., the Hikikomoris) may not go to work or school or leave their home at all, and they may not engage in face-to-face communication with anyone, including their own family members. Information Technology (IT) has been identified as one of the key catalysts of Hikikomori development. And yet, there remains a lack of knowledge on the precise mechanisms through which IT drives the development of this disorder. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a case study of the Yokayoka Hikikomori Support Center based in Fukuoka, Japan. Our findings reveal that IT influences Hikikomori development by presenting three forms of escapes – the Relational, Emotional, and Spiritual Escapes. Moreover, each escape is more important in a specific stage of Hikikomori development and impacts the social life of the afflicted differently.

In this study, we examine the profound relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT) and the socially reclusive Hikikomori people in Japan. Adopting an ecosystem approach and through the lens of boundary spanning practice, we reveal the collective actions of stakeholders in an increasingly digital ecosystem and dynamic landscape to uncover how ICT enables the conditions and treatments of the Hikikomori. Our ongoing investigations and contribution shed new light on the significance of a digital ecosystem and the action of its stakeholders to support the rehabilitation and employment of the socially reclusive. The findings on ICT and pervasive social phenomena in Japan have wide implications. For theory and practice, this empirical investigation reveals lessons on the ambivalent impact of ICT and societal challenges including mental health and employment.

While Singaporean citizens are keen on using e-payments in retail shops, they still prefer cash payments in hawker centers and coffee shops, i.e., traditional open-air complexes selling inexpensive cooked food. A government-led initiative seeks to tackle the situation, known as status quo bias. The key actors involved in this initiative are public agencies, the central bank, and a private Singaporean electronic payment service provider. Working with these partners, we investigate the process designed to nudge citizens to use e-payments for micropayments in hawker centers and coffee shops. We employ a design ethnography methodology and adapt an existing nudging framework. Early findings reveal contingency factors that shape the nudging approach. Through this study, we expect to contribute to the theoretical development of nudging theory to overcome status quo bias in government-led digital transformation initiatives.

This short paper investigates how value is co-created by various actors in a digital content ecosystem without a focal platform provider. The exponential growth of digital entertainment is creating value both culturally and economically at a global scale. A case study of the content-centric phenomenon of “Hallyu” (Korean Wave) is utilized to explore the process of value creation in an ecosystem without a focal platform provider. As the understanding of value co-creation has become a pre-requisite to stay relevant in a competitive market, this research further answers how value co-creation is enabled by digital platforms in digital content ecosystems by proposing three typologies of value co-creation formulated from empirical data.

The growth of the information security industry reflects the global threat of cybercriminal activities. Cybercriminal activities impose significant costs on the global economy. Yet, although cybercriminal activities are underpinned by information systems (IS), research is scarce on how digitalization facilitates cybercrimes. To understand, anticipate and control successful cybercriminal modi operandi, crime researchers need to understand the capabilities inherent in cybercriminals. We analyze the case of the WannaCry attack, a global unprecedented ransomware attack, from an IS capability perspective. Our preliminary analysis suggests a three-phase process model of the dynamic environment of WannaCry consisting of cybercriminals and counterparties. During each phase, cybercriminals relied on different types of IS capabilities to continue their operations within a changing context.

Innovation Ecosystems are transforming the way organizations are creating value within an innovative landscape. Although Innovation Ecosystems are heavily supported by Information Systems (IS), there is currently a lack of research on how IS capabilities facilitate the development of these ecosystems. The lack of knowledge in this domain may account for uncertainties faced by organizations in pursuing breakthrough innovations. To address this gap, we conducted a pilot case study of the Hallyu phenomenon, a term describing Korean entertainment products that are globally popular, to derive a process model of Innovation Ecosystem development from an IS capabilities perspective. Our findings suggest that the development of Innovation Ecosystems can involve three successive phases: Developing the means of generating content, laying ground rules, and establishing an in-group mentality. Moreover, each phase is aligned with different values rooted in the philosophy of Korean business management, which is facilitated by different types of IS capabilities.

Due to two-sidedness and network effects, digital platforms face a coordination problem to attract producers and consumers upon launch. Scholars have suggested launch strategies for solving this problem with only limited empirical evidence. In this paper, we relate to the strategies of sequential and simultaneous entry of consumers and producers. We conducted a qualitative study interviewing 14 founders and CEOs of digital platforms. We used an analysis of 1st and 2nd order concepts to relate the emerging data to existing theory. We observe that the ability to switch between the producer and consumer side, (i.e., being producer in one transaction and consumer in another one), has so far remained unexplored in the platform literature despite its importance for the implementation of launch strategies.Our findings suggest that digital platforms with switching sides implement a simultaneous entry strategy, whereas digital platforms without switching sides implement a sequential entry strategy. We conclude by providing implications for researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors and by giving directions for future research.

This paper explores how the control over the Near Field Communication (NFC) secure element could provide platform leadership in the mobile payment ecosystem. During a decade of trials, firms from different industries struggled to launch proximity mobile payment platforms to pay at physical point-of-sales. Mobile payments platforms are complex socio-technical systems that need to combine an array of resources and capabilities from different firms. The implementation of NFC platforms requires to store financial credentials of consumers in a secure element (SE). The industry designed several competing platform architectures for the secure element: SIM-centric, device-centric, SD-centric, and Host Card Emulation (HCE). Each of these alternatives gave more or less control to the different firms involved in the mobile payment ecosystem. For years, firms promoted the architecture which would give them more control. Over the time, this struggle just hindered the emergence of successful mobile payment platforms. The recent emergence of new actors (e.g., Google, Apple, Samsung) raised optimistic prospects for future developments. This paper provides a strategic analysis of the mobile payment ecosystem by studying the relationship between SE architectures and the establishment of platform leadership by incumbents and emerging actors.

Despite on-going efforts over the past decade, mobile payments are yet to take off successfully. Repeated failures show that mobile payment platforms are complex to launch. The objective of this paper is to unveil factors explaining the failure of past mobile payment platforms. The use of a multi-level framework aims at enriching the variety of issues investigated. In order to explore the reasons of failure, we selected four cases from different countries happening at different times. Our results show that these cases share many of the same failure factors: lack of collaboration between the stakeholders, no technology standard, and low value-added for consumers and merchants compared to existing payment solutions. Even though the list is not exhaustive, the uncovered factors in our study seem to be necessary (but not sufficient) for the further developments of mobile payment platforms.

A dynamic student-teacher interaction during class is an important part of the learning experience. However, in regular class settings and especially in large classrooms, it is a challenging task to encourage students to participate as they tend to be intimidated by the size of the audience. In this paper, in order to overcome this issue, we present SpeakUp, a novel context-aware mobile application supporting the social interactions between speakers and audiences through anonymous messaging and a peer rating mechanism. Context-awarness is achieved by bounding interactions in space and time using location-based authorization and message boards with limited lifetime. Anonymity is used as an icebreaker, so students dare writing down any question that pops in their heads. Peer rating is used to make it easy for teachers to access the most relevant ones and address them. We performed an evaluation with 140 students over five four-hour lessons that indicate that SpeakUp is easy to use and is perceived as useful.

The mobile application market has generated significant interest in the business community. One major issue when developing mobile applications is the fragmentation of the mobile device market. This fragmentation and the fierce competition between the different mobile platforms (e.g., iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry) preclude mobile application portability between operating systems. Therefore, companies have to evaluate what development strategies are suitable for them: i) mobile native apps, ii) web apps, or iii) hybrid apps. In order to address this issue, this short research-in-progress paper presents the first steps towards the design of a decision support system (DSS) to evaluate these different mobile application development strategies. Using a design science approach, this research effort establishes a list of relevant criteria to differentiate the current strategies. As each strategy has benefits and drawbacks, we provide a preliminary step towards the creation of a prescriptive model to enable better decision-making while making trade-offs possible.

Markets in developed countries have witnessed the launch of a number of mobile payment initiatives over the last years. Even though the emergence of mobile payments may still hold high promises, most of these initiatives have seen stagnation or failure. Traditionally, dominant firms from various industries had to negotiate the exchange of their complementary resources and capabilities in order to provide a mobile payment platform. Indeed, significant efforts have been made to design a satisfying business model to enhance this essential collaboration. However, the struggle for these inter-dependent firms to form coalitions just hindered the emergence of successful mobile payment platforms. As firms have difficulties to self-orchestrate their efforts to shape sustainable ecosystems, different industry architectures solving the inter-dependency issue remain to be investigated. In certain architectures, the importance of the banks' role has been questioned. This paper takes a resource-based view on banks to explore how resources/capabilities bestow upon banks a competitive advantage in the mobile payment ecosystem. The analysis leads to the identification of strategic assets, owing to which it can be argued that the banks still have an essential role to play in the industry architecture.

Today, we operate in a networked world, where organizations frequently resort to offshoring, such that work gets accomplished by a globally distributed workforce, whether inside or outside the organizational boundaries. Much of the past research on offshoring has focused on economic rationale and benefits as well as risks associated with offshoring. Offshoring leverages human capital in different parts of the globe, and the issues of WLC (WLC) faced by offshoring workforce issues can have substantial impact on the effectiveness of the offshoring arrangements. In spite of this, WLC in the context of offshoring has not received the attention it deserves. In this paper, based on responses from global software development (GSD) professionals based in Europe and India, we examine the key individual-based, family-based, and organization-based factors that can potentially have an impact on IT workers’ WLC. Further, we investigate the impact on WLC on outcome variables such as the workers’ job satisfaction as well as valence regarding working in offshoring environments in the future. Some interesting differences in factors relevant to workers in Europe and India emerge from our analysis.

In this paper we assess developments in the mobile payments in light of new technologies (e.g., NFC) and solution frameworks (e.g., Android). With the recent announcements of Google and other players to enter the mobile payment markets the already dynamic arena of mobile payments is getting more complex and competitive. Everyone is jockeying to new positions by announcing novel payment solutions based e.g. on NFC systems. We argue, however, that significant and recurrent social, institutional, and business challenges remain to be solved for successful mobile payment platforms to emerge. In order to get these multi-sided platforms to diffuse multiple stakeholders have to be simultaneously convinced for related value propositions and more workable economic arrangements need to be forged.

La recherche en SI a déployé des efforts considérables pour mesurer le succès de l’implémentation des technologies de l’information (TI). L’utilisation des TI (Davis 1989), l’infusion des TI (Zmud and Apple 1992), l’essai d’innovation avec les TI (Ahuja and Thatcher 2005) ou la satisfaction des utilisateurs (Doll and Torkzadeh 1988) sont quelques unes de ces mesures qui aujourd’hui permettent à la recherche et à la pratique des systèmes d’information de mieux comprendre les bénéfices des TI implémentées. Dans un contexte ou les individus utilisent de nombreuses TI au travail et/ou à leur domicile, un problème majeur mais qui demeure insuffisamment étudié est bien celui de la productivité personnelle des utilisateurs de cette myriade de TI. Cette question est d’autant plus importante que les Directeurs des systèmes d’information se questionnent au premier chef sur les gains en productivité qui suivent l’implémentation des TI (Luftman and Ben-Zvi 2010). L’objectif de cette recherche est double. Il s’agit 1) d’explorer les questions auxquelles les individus doivent répondre lors de leur interaction avec de multiples TI et 2) d’identifier les facettes de la productivité personnelle et de définir un cadre d’analyse permettant de mieux comprendre ce concept.

The mobile telecommunication market has recently been shaken by the arrival of new actors, such as Apple and Google. As a consequence, the relatively well-established mobile network operators (MNO) have to rethink their position in this market if they want to participate in the growth of mobile telecommunication revenues. Due to fierce competition on price, mobile voice and data transmission cannot be considered as sustainable revenue streams. Mobile applications and services are being seen as great sources of revenues. However, with the current market structure, MNOs do not have a privileged position compared to the mobile platforms providers such as Apple with iTunes. In this paper, we assess whether or not there is still space in the mobile application market for MNOs. In order to do so, we examine the different roles in the mobile application value chain, point out market trends and assess how MNOs can position themselves in this turbulent new market. Our analysis shows that MNOs will have to focus on their core business as network provider and establish alliances with platform providers.

Design science is slowly but surely establishing itself as a recognized paradigm for conducting research in information systems. Researchers in the IS field have tried to study different aspects of design science. So far, it seems that the design activity, or "design reasoning" has not received much attention from the IS community. In this paper, we propose to use a theory developed in engineering fields in order to solve this issue. The C-K theory, or Concept-Knowledge theory, is considered to be a good candidate to deal with the design reasoning.

Despite optimistic expectations fast diffusion of mobile payments has not taken place after a decade of trials. Several explanations to this situation have been put forward using several theories and levels of analysis. Due to the complexity and dynamism of the diffusion we need multiple perspectives to account for diffusion challenge. We juxtapose three frameworks into a dynamic analysis framework. We apply the proposed framework to explain three failed introductions of mobile payments in the Swiss market. In particular, a recent ambitious trial is confronted with the proposed framework to detect roots of its failure. Our analysis suggests that market-level and behavioral facets need more attention in future in explaining mobile payment diffusion. To guide future efforts we propose several avenues for further research.

This paper presents and compares two original approaches for technology assessment and foresight based on opposite paradigm: a management science approach (Multi-Criteria Decision-Making) versus a participatory approach (Prediction Market). These approaches are intended to support the management of a technology portfolio and the assessment of new technology by an IT organization. In order to explore the relevance of the research, we conducted several experiments in real environments. The results demonstrated that the rigor of management science and the participation of the Web 2.0 approach are complementary strengths for technology foresight. Furthermore, a framework has been established to compare the two approaches.

This paper presents and compares two original techniques for disruptive technology assessment and foresight based on opposite paradigm: a management science approach (Multi-Criteria Decision-Making) versus a Web 2.0 approach (Prediction Market). These approaches are intended to support the management of a technology portfolio and the assessment of new technology by an IT organization. In order to explore the relevance of the research, we conducted several experiments in real environments. The results demonstrated that the rigor of management science and the participation of the Web 2.0 approach are complementary strengths for technology foresight.

In this paper, we present an assessment of NFC (near field communication) for future mobile payment systems. NFC is expected to become a very trendy technology for mobile services, more specifically for mobile payments. The objective of our paper is to evaluate in a systematic manner the potential of NFC as an upcoming technology for mobile payments. In order to ensure the rigor of our research, we used a formal and structured approach based on multi-actor multi-criteria methods. Our research provides one of the first assessment of NFC and a realistic picture of the current Swiss situation as we involved numerous mobile payment experts. Our findings show that Swiss industry experts are quite enthusiastic about the future of NFC.

The basic premise of this paper is that a multi-actor multi-criteria decision-making approach, supported by a highly-visual tool, is a strong candidate for assisting technology assessment and forecast. The analysis should involve multiple actors from different industries and embed various perspectives in order to have a more complete picture of the technology environment. To support this activity, we designed a GDSS that facilitates interaction with experts during the elicitation of preferences. Moreover, emphasis was placed on enhancing visualization of the input data and outcomes, which could be highly appreciated when conducting a distributed and unsynchronized Delphi study. In this paper we illustrate the application of this tool in the context of the Swiss mobile payment industry.

Despite the predicted success of mobile payments, the market remains immature in most countries. This can be explained by a number of technical and business issues. Mobile technology environments are becoming more complex, uncertain, and disruptive. As such, the strategic assessment of technologies remains a challenging activity. In this paper we present a systematic approach to analyze the mobile payment industry. To decompose the problem we identified two potential disruptions which could occur in this market. As we cover both the technological and the organizational aspects, we provide a more complete picture of the status of mobile payments in Switzerland. Moreover, this approach intends to unveil the factors delaying the deployment of mobile payments in Switzerland.

The mobile payment market is currently under transition with a history of numerous tried and failed solutions and a future of promising but yet uncertain possibilities with contactless RFID and other new potential technologies. At this point of the development we take a look at the current state of the mobile payment market, review prior literature on mobile payment services, analyze the different factors that impact the market, and give directions for future research on this still emerging field. To facilitate the analysis, we propose a framework of four contingency and five competitive factors, and organize the contemporary mobile payment research under the proposed framework.

As wireless technologies are becoming more mature for payment systems, the public transportation companies are facing great challenges in designing their next fare collection system. They have to decide whether they want to keep their legacy systems or innovate with the implementation of new mobile technologies for their upcoming payment instrument. Therefore, they need to consider various technical and business aspects during the design process. Moreover, in such an industry, a technological consensus between the stakeholders involved is desirable to eventually reach a global market. In this paper, we propose a multi-actor multi-criteria framework to facilitate the assessment of mobile payments for the Swiss public transportation industry. To compute our proposed model, we recently conducted a first set of structured interviews with Swiss key experts to collect data.

Mobile payment is a very promising service, which is still in an early stage of development. Various solutions have been proposed with disparate success. This can partially be explained by the immaturity of the market, by the inexistence of proven business models for the various actors, and by the presence of several unresolved technological and business issues. As these aspects are all relevant and interrelated, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of analyzing the mobile payment environment using multiple perspectives. We therefore present an original approach based on a technology environment assessment framework, which combines the appraisal of different perspectives: namely the market, the actors and the issues that characterize the environment.

Appraising the environmental context in which an organization deploys its activity is a necessity in order to make appropriate decisions and adapting strategies to a context in constant evolution, especially in a time where this context is increasingly complex, uncertain and disruptive. Decision makers therefore need more than ever better tools that aid them to analyze their environment, providing them the most pertinent information to take the most appropriate decisions. In this paper, we attempt to propose a set of reusable artifacts that would facilitate the development of decision support systems for assessing the organization's environment. In particular, we propose an ontology that defines the different elements that shall be taken into account in order to effectively and efficiently scan an environment. We then provide an overview of some analysis techniques and tools that could be useful to analyze, assess and visualize essential information about these elements. Finally, we present two decision support system prototypes that allow a partial analysis of the environment using appropriate interaction and visualization techniques.

Mobile payments are predicted to have a bright future as m-commerce becomes more popular. However, this promising application has not been as successful as anticipated. This can be partially explained by the infancy of the market and a lack of standards. Moreover, technological and business issues create a market uncertainty that mobile network operators and financial institutions have difficulties managing. Thus, the evolution of the mobile payment market is subject to many speculative scenarios. This paper analyzes two possible disruptions of the mobile payment market.

The growing prevalence of electronic commerce and the widespread use of mobile devices have made mobile payments an interesting alternative method of payment for customers and merchants. One major issue to be resolved is the integration of a real-time wireless means of payment within their current payment system. In this paper, we propose an architecture of mobile payment system to improve business processes and increase customer loyalty. An all-in-one device that enables mobile payments and also integrates a membership scheme would simplify and significantly accelerate the payment process at the point of sale (POS). Moreover, the deployment of an effective customer relationship management (CRM) system and an adapted data mining tool would allow retailers to propose a dynamic-generated website to their customers. This would follow a one-to-one e-marketing strategy and would improve companies’ ability to suggest customized offers and coupons.

Mobile computing (or m-computing) technologies have recently made sufficient progress making it possible to seamlessly integrate communications and data processing in m-commerce applications. Using telemedicine as an illustration of m-commerce, we propose a system analysis and design method to formulate communications, knowledge management and transaction processing requirements for each of the business processes in a mobile application workflow. We also discuss various technological supports to implement these requirements. We advocate the use and design of process-oriented software agents to support a highly distributed and loosely-coupled federation of wireless and legacy information systems to support decision, bargaining and negotiation in a real-time environment.