Crafting a viable business model for an organization requires profound knowledge, good decision making skills, and intuition. Scientific literature provides business model designers with a spectrum of supporting techniques: cases, component-based approaches, taxonomies, conceptual models, causal loop diagrams, and design patterns. However, these techniques only provide valuable support during specific steps of the design process. There is also a tendency towards focusing on model-internal consistency, while neglecting the organization's internal dynamics and external business environment. Against this background, this study proposes a more integrated approach which spans the entire design process and comprises assumptions about the organization's specific business situation. This six step approach is based on the principles of networked thinking. It has the potential to help decision makers, business model designers and entrepreneurs to structure the business model design process and visualize, communicate, discuss, and evaluate different business model designs.

Due to the lack of research at the intersection of IT and behavioral health economics we investigate results-based incentives for health promotion in organizations by questioning (1) whether and why employees accept them, (2) which functional affordances of IT enable their implementation and, finally, (3) whether they have positive effects on the health promotion behavior of employees. The current presentation addresses the first two research questions and describes a first build-and-evaluate cycle according to design-science research methodology. For that purpose, the delay of gratification framework is used as justificatory knowledge to inform the design of results-based incentive models for health promotion in organizations (RIMHPO) and their enabling IT artifacts. In a second step, an empirical study was conducted to assess one particular RIMHPO-based program and to gather further feedback on the design principles. The expected results of the current work are finally discussed with regard to policy implications.

The increasing pervasiveness of digital technologies, often referred to as the "Internet of Things" (IoT), offers a wealth of new services and business model opportunities across an ecosystem of partners - and so it forces companies to rethink their current business models. To date, literature does yet not provide actionable, field-tested model theories for capturing, visualizing and analyzing firms' business models in digitally intensive business environments. The present paper (research in progress) therefore addresses the need for a business model type for the Internet of Things, which recognizes the affordances and impacts of digitization in order to allow companies to truly tap into new business model opportunities. We describe the design and evaluation of a type model, which enables researchers and practitioners alike to capture, visualize and analyze firms' current and future business models in IoT in a structured and actionable way. For our study we elected an iterative design science research approach, which prioritizes the utility of prototype artifacts. We feel confident of reaching at an empirically tested business model type, drawn from both Strategic Management and Information Systems research.

Purpose of this paper This paper explores the role of dynamic and operational capabilities in the formation of value networks in the context of public transit services. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical argumentation is substantiated by qualitative data on the formation of four value networks in the Swiss public transportation system. Findings There are two different types of intentional value-network formations in the public transit sector: (1) incremental improvement in established value networks, and (2) radical leaps in emerging value networks. Both value-network formations entail differences in the coevolvement of dynamic and operational capabilities. Sensing as a new business opportunity and as a dynamic capability is evident across various network actors for incremental improvement. For radical leaps, sensing is restricted to one central network actor. Research limitations/implications Research limitations are mainly due to the nature of the qualitative research approach. Practical implications The public transport operators could use the described organizational capabilities as guidance for either improving incrementally their existing value network or radically leaping into an emerging value network. Social implications Public transit supports environmental sustainability. However, governments should not only seek to increase transport capacity. Instead, they should think more about value networks for providing transportation experiences. Originality/value This study applies value-network thinking to public transit services. It offers a comprehensive framework to help organizations manage the value-network formation process. The results provide testable propositions, which are able to guide future research activities.

Introduction: There has been limited research investigating whether small financial incentives can promote participation, behaviour change, and engagement in physical activity promotion programs. This study evaluates the effects of two types of small financial incentives within a physical activity promotion program of a Swiss health insurance company. Study Design: Three-arm cluster-randomized trial comparing small personal financial incentives and charity financial incentives (10 Swiss Francs, equal to $10.4) for each month with an average step count of at least 10,000 steps per day) to control. Insurees' federal state of residence was the unit of randomization. We collected data in 2015 and completed the analyses in 2018. Setting/participants: We invited German-speaking insurees of a large health insurer in Switzerland. Invited insurees were aged ≥ 18 years, enrolled in complementary insurance plans and registered on the insurer's online platform. Main outcome measures: Primary outcome was the participation rate. Secondary outcomes were steps per day, participant days that more than 10,000 steps were achieved and non-usage attrition over the first three months of the program. Results: Participation rate was 5.94% in the personal financial incentive group (OR: 1.96; 95% CI: 1.55 to 2.49) and 4.98% in the charity financial incentive group (OR: 1.59; 95% CI: 1.25 to 2.01) compared to 3.23% in the control group. At the start of the program, the charity financial group had a 12% higher chance to walk 10,000 steps per day than the control group (OR: 1.68; 95% CI: 1.23 to 2.30), but this effect dissipated after three months. Steps per day and non-usage attrition did not differ significantly between the groups. Conclusions: Small personal and charity financial incentives can increase participation in physical activity promotion programs. Incentives may need to be modified in order to prevent attrition and promote behaviour change over a longer period of time.

Successful innovation not only requires valuable new ideas but also their successful implementation into the market place in the form of resulting new products or processes. This diffusion is fuelled by technology acquisition decisions on the company level. The goal of this paper is to develop a conceptual comprehensive managerial model for these decision processes. The model is developed and verified based on empirical data collected during a research project together with six European high-tech companies in the field of machine tools. The NanoSteel project deals with the industrialization and market introduction of a new machining technology consisting of ultrasonic assisted turning (UAT) with mono-crystalline diamond tools. The foundation for the developed model lies in a generic company model for organizational change. Relevant factors are distinguished to enable a thorough look at the process of technology assessment encompassing quantitative (financial and technological) and qualitative (intangible) benefits. Research results show that several aspects (e.g. functional, economical, social, environmental factors) have to be considered in order to develop specific managerial guidelines for this acquisition process for new technologies.

The apparel retail industry is on the one hand facing challenges from increasing competition, consolidations, and thus increasing pressure to reduce costs. On the other hand, customers are getting more demanding, resulting in shorter fashion cycles, and demands for new customer experience. RFID technology is supposed to raise efficiency and to enable innovative customer service offerings. Besides cost savings, benefits are expected to arise from newly designed RFID applications and customer insights from analyses of shop floor data. Recently, apparel retailers started to investigate this technology, resulting in several trials and pilots world-wide. However, the business case of RFID in the apparel retail industry is not clear. Based on the findings of a real-world deployment, our contribution presents a cost-benefit calculator that is specifically designed to meet the requirements of apparel retail industry RFID implementations

Despite various initiatives over the recent years, the number of traffic accidents has been steadily increasing and has reached over 1.2 million fatalities per year world wide. Recent research has highlighted the positive effects that come from educating drivers about accident hotspots, for example, through in-vehicle warnings of upcoming dangerous areas. Further, it has been shown that there exists a spatial correlation between to locations of heavy braking events and historical accidents. This indicates that emerging accident hotspots can be identified from a high rate of heavy braking, and countermeasures deployed in order to prevent accidents before they appear. In order to contextualize and classify historic accident hotspots and locations of current dangerous driving maneuvers, the research at hand introduces a crowd sensing system collecting vehicle and video data. This system was tested in a naturalistic driving study of 40 vehicles for two months, collecting over 140,000km of driving data and 36,000 videos of various traffic situations. The exploratory results show that through applying data mining approaches it is possible to describe these situations and determine information regarding the involved traffic participants, main causes and location features. This enables accurate insights into the road network, and can help inform both drivers and authorities.

Digital health interventions (DHIs) have the potential to help the growing number of chronic disease patients better manage their everyday lives. However, guidelines for the systematic development of DHIs are still scarce. The current work has, therefore, the objective to propose a framework for the design and evaluation of DHIs (DEDHI). The DEDHI framework is meant to support both researchers and practitioners alike from early conceptual DHI models to large-scale implementations of DHIs in the healthcare market.

Marketing research has identified several benefits of dynamic pricing strategies in the retail industry. However, today's retailers are limited to apply them in real-time to customer needs as corresponding pricing services provided by smart product infrastructures have not been adopted so far. In addition, dynamic pricing strategies rely on a business service ecosystem of retailers, suppliers, customers and regulatory bodies and thus, interoperability is required. Because unprecedented, our objectives are therefore to propose, implement and evaluate a design model for pricing services that rely on explicit semantics and rules, denoted as knowledge-based pricing services (KPSs). In this work, we propose a design model for KPSs and empirically evaluate their utility from a customer perspective with the help of a web-based application. We finally draw implications for business models in the retail industry and discuss tools that already exist to adopt KPSs in the near future.