Christian Engel
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Engel
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Christian
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christian.engel@unisg.ch
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+41 71 224 3363
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Publication

Stairway to Heaven or Highway to Hell: A Model for Assessing Cognitive Automation Use Cases

2023 , Christian Engel , Edona Elshan , Philipp Alexander Ebel , Jan Marco Leimeister

Cognitive automation (CA) moves beyond rule-based business process automation to target cognitive knowledge and service work. This allows the automation of tasks and processes, for which automation seemed unimaginable a decade ago. To organizations, these CA use cases offer vast opportunities to gain a significant competitive advantage. However, CA imposes novel challenges on organizations’ decisions regarding the automation potential of use cases, resulting in low adoption and high project failure rates. To counteract this, we draw on an action research study with a leading European manufacturing company to develop and test a model for assessing use cases’ amenability to CA. The proposed model comprises four dimensions: cognition, data, relationship, and transparency requirements. The model proposes that a use case is less (more) amenable to CA if these requirements are high (low). To account for the model’s industry-agnostic generalizability, we draw on an internal evaluation within the action research company and three additional external evaluations undertaken by independent project teams in three distinct industries. From a practice perspective, the model will help organizations make more informed decisions in selecting use cases for CA and planning their respective initiatives. From a research perspective, the identified determinants affecting use cases’ amenability to CA will enhance our understanding of CA in particular and artificial intelligence as the driving force behind CA in general.

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Publication

Structuring the Quest for Strategic Alignment of Artificial Intelligence (AI): A Taxonomy of the Organizational Business Value of AI Use Cases

2022-01 , Engel, Christian , Schulze Buschhoff, Julius Constantin , Ebel, Philipp

The deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in businesses is said to provide significant benefits to organizations. However, many businesses struggle to align single AI use cases with the overall strategic business value contribution. Thus, we investigate the strategic characteristics that determine the business value contribution of AI use cases at an organizational level. We draw on academic literature and 106 AI use cases to develop a conceptually sound and empirically grounded taxonomy of the organizational business value of AI use cases. With the developed taxonomy, decision-makers are presented with a tool to systematically align AI use cases with strategic objectives. Moreover, our findings reveal how an AI use case can generate different business value contributions in different contexts, which provides researchers with a conceptual frame for informing their empirical research endeavors at the organizational level.

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Publication

Empirically Exploring the Cause-Effect Relationships of AI Characteristics, Project Management Challenges, and Organizational Change

2021-02 , Engel, Christian , Ebel, Philipp , van Giffen, Benjamin

Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides organizations with vast opportunities of deploying AI for competitive advantage such as improving processes, and creating new or enriched products and services. However, the failure rate of projects on implementing AI in organizations is still high, and prevents organizations from fully seizing the potential that AI exhibits. To contribute to closing this gap, we seize the unique opportunity to gain insights from five organizational cases. In particular, we empirically investigate how the unique characteristics of AI – i.e. experimental character, context sensitivity, black box character, and learning requirements – induce challenges into project management, and how these challenges are addressed in organizational (socio-technical) contexts. This shall provide researchers with an empirical and conceptual foundation for investigating the cause-effect relationships between the characteristics of AI, project management, and organizational change. Practitioners can benchmark their own practices against the insights to increase the success rates of future AI implementations.

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Publication

Data-Driven Service Innovation: A Systematic Literature Review and Development of a Research Agenda

2019-06 , Engel, Christian Thomas , Ebel, Philipp

The potential created by ongoing developments in data and analytics permeates a multitude of research areas, such as the field of Service Innovation. In this paper, we conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to investigate the integration of data and analytics as an analytical unit into the field of Service Innovation – referred to as Data-Driven Service Innovation (DDSI). Overall, the SLR reveals three main research perspectives that span the research field of Data-Driven Service Innovation: Explorative DDSI, validative DDSI, and generative DDSI. This integrated theoretical framework describes the distinct operant roles of data analytics for Service Innovation, and thus contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of DDSI by providing three unified lenses, which researchers can use to describe and locate their existing and future research endeavors in this ample field. Building up on the insights from the SLR, a research agenda is proposed in order to trigger and guide further discussions and future research surrounding DDSI. Ultimately, this paper aims at contributing to the body of knowledge of Service Innovation in general and Data-Driven Service Innovation in particular by presenting a three-dimensional research space model structuring DDSI towards its advancement.

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Publication

Cognitive automation

2022-01-27 , Engel, Christian , Ebel, Philipp , Leimeister, Jan Marco

Facilitated by AI technology, the phenomenon of cognitive automation extends the scope of deterministic business process automation (BPA) through the probabilistic automation of knowledge and service work. By transforming work systems through cognitive automation, organizations are provided with vast strategic opportunities to gain business value. However, research lacks a unified conceptual lens on cognitive automation, which hinders scientific progress. Thus, based on a Systematic Literature Review, we describe the fundamentals of cognitive automation and provide an integrated conceptualization. We provide an overview of the major BPA approaches such as workflow management, robotic process automation, and Machine Learning-facilitated BPA while emphasizing their complementary relationships. Furthermore, we show how the phenomenon of cognitive automation can be instantiated by Machine Learning-facilitated BPA systems that operate along the spectrum of lightweight and heavyweight IT implementations in larger IS ecosystems. Based on this, we describe the relevance and opportunities of cognitive automation in Information Systems research.

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Publication

Opening the Black Box of Music Royalties with the Help of Hybrid Intelligence

2021-01 , Elshan, Edona , Engel, Christian , Ebel, Philipp

The ever-increasing complexity of the music industry and the intensified resentment of artists towards collecting societies call for a transformation and a change of behavior within the music ecosystem. This article introduces a hybrid intelligence system, that ameliorates the current situation by combining the intelligence of humans and machines. This study proposes design requirements for hybrid intelligence systems in the music industry. Using a design science research approach, we identify design requirements both inductively from expert interviews and deductively from theory and present a first prototypical instantiation of a respective hybrid intelligence system. Overall, this shall enrich the body of knowledge of hybrid intelligence research by transferring its concepts into a new context. Furthermore, the identified design requirements shall serve as a foundation for researchers and practitioners to further explore and design hybrid intelligence in the music industry and beyond.

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Publication

Moving Beyond Rule-Based Automation: A Method for Assessing Cognitive Automation Use Cases

2021-12 , Engel, Christian , Elshan, Edona , Ebel, Philipp

Facilitated by Artificial Intelligence technology, cognitive automation means to front and back offices what the pervasive automation through physical machinery and robots meant to production plants. Thus, we can automate tasks and processes that were unimaginable to be automated one decade ago. However, organizational adoption of cognitive automation is way below its possibilities, as this novel class of automation technology is perceived to be risky by organizations. This demands structured approaches for assessing the suitability of use cases for cognitive automation. Following the Design Science Research paradigm, we develop a method for assessing cognitive automation use cases. This enables practitioners to make more informed decisions on selecting, specifying, and embedding cognitive automation use cases in their organizations. For researchers, the method serves as a conceptual frame, which they can adapt to guide their empirical research or to use it for developing future decision support to shape the future of work.

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Publication

Assessing the Reusability of Design Principles in the Realm of Conversational Agents

2022-06 , Elshan, Edona , Engel, Christian , Ebel, Philipp Alexander , Siemon, Dominik

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Publication

Deploying a Model for Assessing Cognitive Automation Use Cases: Insights from Action Research with a Leading European Manufacturing Company

2021-01 , Engel, Christian Thomas , Elshan, Edona , Ebel, Philipp

Cognitive automation moves beyond rule-based automation and thus imposes novel challenges on organizations when assessing the automation potential of use cases. Thus, we present an empirically grounded and conceptually operationalized model for assessing cognitive automation use cases, which consists of four assessment dimensions: data, cognition, relationship, and transparency requirements. We apply the model in a real-world organizational context in the course of an action research project at the customer service department of ManuFact AG, and present unique empirical insights as well as the impact the application of the model had on the organization. The model shall help practitioners to make more informed decisions on selecting use cases for cognitive automation and to plan respective endeavors. For research, the identified factors affecting the suitability of a use case for cognitive automation shall deepen our understanding of cognitive automation in particular, and AI as the driving force behind cognitive automation in general.

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Publication

Towards Closing the Affordances Gap of Artificial Intelligence in Financial Service Organizations

2020-03 , Engel, Christian Thomas , van Giffen, Benjamin , Ebel, Philipp

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is considered being a disruptive force for existing companies and a promising avenue towards competitive advantage. A myriad of companies started investing in AI initiatives. However, a significant number of AI projects is not successfully deployed. Taking a closer look at financial service organizations, we aim at contributing to closing the gap between understanding the potential of AI and proactively leveraging the latter. We draw on affordance theory and socio-technical systems (STS) theory to identify the required socio-technical changes to actualize affordances of AI in financial service organizations. We present preliminary findings from a multiple case study approach with five financial service organizations based on rigorous interview coding that yields first insights into AI affordances. Building up on this, we will prioritize and structure future in-depth case studies to investigate how to orchestrate AI-induced changes in STS for actualizing AI affordances.

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