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PublicationFaster, Better, Happier – Internal Crowd Work as Form of Structural Empowerment for Employee Empowerment and Success( 2022)ICW is gaining increasing importance as an innovative concept of digital work organization. This study examines ICW and its role as a structural empowerment tool driving the psychological empowerment of employees. This is done by means of a case study on a telecommunications company that has been successfully using ICW for more than ten years. Using a mixed-method approach, a model for an in-depth understanding of empowerment in ICW is exploratively developed based on qualitative data. Furthermore, organizational enablers in ICW are identified as important prerequisites and success factors. Additionally, the study shows how ICW as structural empowerment promotes psychological empowerment and can lead to higher speed, increased synergies, and higher employee satisfaction. A quantitative deep-dive provides additional figures on the structural empowerment mechanisms in ICW as well as on employee perceptions.Type:Journal:Volume:Issue:
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PublicationConquering the Challenge of Continuous Business Model Improvement Design of a Repeatable Process(Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, 2018)In an atmosphere of rapidly changing business environments and intense competition, adequate and timely business models are crucial for companies. Current research mainly focuses on business model development that often neglects the legacy of established companies. The paper at hand addresses this research gap by a process design which allows established companies to rethink, improve, and continually innovate their business models. Following a design science research approach, requirements for improving business models are identified by the analysis of existing literature and by expert interviews. Collaboration Engineering and a multilevel evaluation are applied to create a continuous and implementable process design for business model improvement – including specific activities, instructions, and tools. The process design represents a nascent design theory in form of an “invention” type of knowledge contribution. Moreover, going beyond existing literature, the importance of collaboration between participants in a business model improvement project is highlighted. From a practical perspective, the developed process design enables companies for continuous and recurring business model improvement without the ongoing support of professional moderators or consultants.
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PublicationWhy the Agile Mindset Matters( 2021-08-03)Volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity (VUCA) are drivers in today’s business world. Therefore, an increasing number of organizations implement agility (agile methods) to cope with the rapid and accelerating change. However, these agile transformations do not succeed unhindered, and some fail. One reason for that is the employees lacking an agile mindset and they do not support or participate in the transformation. So far, knowledge of the agile mindset is in its infancy. A conceptualization for developing a measuring instrument on the individual level is lacking. Furthermore, the relevance of the agile mindset regarding organizational performance in a VUCA world is still unclear. Our study aims to close this gap. To do so, we examine the agile mindset with 15 qualitative interviews and conduct an online survey (N=449) to predict organizational agility and organizational performance based on the agile mindset. As for results, we conceptualize the agile mindset as an attitude that comprises four dimensions: ’learning spirit’, ‘collaborative exchange’, ‘empowered self-guiding’, and ‘iterative value creation’. We have found an indirect effect of the agile mindset affecting organizational performance towards organizational agility. These findings contribute to the agility and management research by providing both a conceptualization and a measuring instrument for the agile mindset. Furthermore, the agile mindset´s relevance in agile transformation is explained and its relation to organizational performance outlined. For successful agile transformation, executives must focus on the agile mindset of their employees and foster this by e.g. being a role model.
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PublicationDoing Agile vs. Being Agile - Understanding Their Effects to Improve Agile Work( 2020-12-16)Companies show a growing demand in corporate agility. The effects of so-called doing and being agile are the key for positive outcomes in agile work. Scrum is used by companies to make them more agile. The present study examines the interaction of doing agile (leadership, work design) and being agile (individual characteristics, empowerment) in relation to satisfaction and commitment based on an online survey of 129 Scrum development team members. The results show that work design and leadership impact empowerment and that the latter leads to both job satisfaction and commitment. Team orientation has no effect. Openness for new actions moderates the relationship between work design and the outcome variables. The results can be used in practice to increase the satisfaction and commitment within Scrum. They provide an insight into the impact structure within Scrum and are thus also the basis for future research.
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PublicationLeaders, Empower Your Workforce! Analyzing Leadership in Internal Crowd Work.( 2020-07-29)New digital and agile forms of work organization require new leadership styles and competencies. Still, the understanding of leadership in these new forms of work is in its infancy. We select internal crowd work (ICW) as one, clearly defined new form of work and increase understanding of leadership in this context by analyzing four distinct cases of ICW. Based on qualitative interviews, we describe how employees perceive psychological empowerment and develop workforce agility through different leadership styles in ICW. As our main contribution, we detail and extend existing research regarding ICW and empowerment by identifying structural antecedents that affect psychological empowerment of ICW as well as consequences of an empowered workforce in ICW. Thereby, we indicate that an empowered workforce is an important factor for the implementation of workforce agility in ICW. Moreover, regarding leadership, we explain the design and changes of leadership in ICW in detail and explicate a new requirement for leaders in agile and digital form of work organization: the flexible handling of different context-specific situations, projects and tasks. For this purpose, we develop a theoretical model that describes the effects of shared leadership, empowering leadership and e-leadership on workforce agility mediated by an empowered workforce
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PublicationInternal Crowd Work as a Source of Empowerment - An Empirical Analysis of the Perception of Employees in a Crowdtesting Project( 2019)
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PublicationHow to Empower the Workforce – Analyzing Internal Crowd Work as a Neo-Socio-Technical System( 2019-01-08)
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PublicationSystematic and Continuous Business Model Development: Design of a Repeatable Process Using the Collaboration Engineering Approach( 2017-02-12)Due to permanent changes, companies constantly need to contend with new challenges. Developing and improving business models can help to adapt to constantly changing environmental conditions and to achieve competitiveness. Because most innovative developments are not the result of a single inventor, we used Collaboration Engineering to elaborate a systematic process design for business model development. To ensure an effective process design, we turned to existing knowledge by including theoretical and practical requirements of business model development. Additionally, in order to guarantee the high quality of the process, we evaluated the systematic process on the basis of a multilevel and iterative evaluation. Our evaluation clearly indicates results equivalent to expert-based business model development. Accordingly, the process design enables a continuous and recurring business model development without the ongoing support of professional facilitators.
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PublicationFuture Organization Report 2021(Institute of Information Management at University of St.Gallen and Campana & Schott Business Services GmbH, 2021)What are the attributes of successful organizations? This is the question addressed by the Future Organization Report 2021. It focuses on the idea of “Organizational Excellence” and what organizations can do to achieve this goal.
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PublicationFuture Organization Report 2020(Institute of Information Management at University of St.Gallen and Campana & Schott Business Services GmbH, 2020)
