Jan Marco Leimeister

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) are drivers in today's business world. To perform amid this accelerated change and the digitalization progress, organizations are implementing agility. However, such an implementation does not happen without stumbling blocks and some fail. One reason for this is actors’ agile mindset (AM), which is necessary to deal succefully within a VUCA environment. Knowledge of the AM is in its infancy and conceptualization and measuring tools for it are lacking. Furthermore, the relation of the AM in terms of strategic agility and performance is still unclear. Our study aims to close these gaps. We examine AM through 15 interviews and a survey (N = 449) to predict strategic agility and performance. As a result, we conceptualize AM as an attitude that comprises four dimensions: attitude towards 1) learning spirit, 2) collaborative exchange, 3) empowered self-guidance, and 4) customer co-creation. Furthermore, we describe how actors with an AM deal with new technologies. We found that AM affects organizational performance mediated by strategic agility. These findings contribute to the agility and management research by providing a conceptualization and measuring instrument for AM. Furthermore, its relevance for strategic agility is explained and its relationship with organizational performance outlined

Based on insights from an engineering design project conducted by Airbus and Local Motors, we describe how companies can leverage hybrid working by interlinking external crowds and internal employees, to increase the agility, quality and speed of product development. We identify the benefits and risks of hybrid working and describe the different ways of interlinking external crowds and internal employees. Finally, we provide recommendations for company executives who want to explore the use of hybrid working

Purpose While scaling is a viable approach to respond to growing demand, service providers in contactintensive services – such as education, healthcare, and social services – struggle to innovate their offerings. The reason is that the scaling of contact-intensive services – unlike purely digital settings – has resource limitations. To help ease the situation, the purpose of this article is to identify and describe the practices used in scaling contact-intensive services to support ICTenabled service innovation. Design/methodology/approach The research draws on an in-depth analysis of three contact-intensive services to examine service innovation practices. The analysis informs model development for service scaling. Findings The analysis uncovers three practices for service scaling – service interaction analysis, service pivoting, and service validation – and their related activities that are applied in a cyclic and iterative logic. Research limitations/implications While the findings reveal that the scalability of contact-intensive services is limited and determined by the formative characteristic of personal interaction, this study and its findings describe how to leverage scalability in contact-intensive services. Practical implications The insights into the practices enable service providers of contact-intensive services to iteratively revise their service offerings and the logic of creating value with the service. Originality/value This research identifies and describes for the first time the practices for the scaling of contactintensive services as an operationalisation of ICT-enabled service innovation.

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.

The Internet has affected and partially radically changed the business models of traditional industries. Crowdfunding as a new concept of funding over the Internet by a large crowd has especially gained maturity. Crowdfunding offerings range from funding charitable projects or innovative gadgets to a funding alternative for start-ups or small businesses. Therefore, crowdfunding represents an innovative way to provide liquidity for illiquid markets. With regard to the banking crisis and the growing skepticism toward banks, crowdfunding is seen as a more transparent, democratic, and entertaining way of funding, which makes it highly attractive for banks. A senior innovation manager of The Bank of Switzerland (TBOS), one of Switzerland's largest and most traditional banks, recognized the disruptive and beneficial potential of crowdlending. By facing strong resentments, he developed the idea of TBOS engaging in crowdlending by collaborating with a start-up by bundling competencies in a service system.

Telemedicine services may improve the quality of life of individuals while also reducing the costs of service provisioning. They represent an important but as yet understudied type of complex services that integrates many stakeholders acting in service value networks. These complex services typically comprise a combination of information technology (IT) services and highly person-oriented, non-IT services, and are characterized by long service delivery periods. In such an environment, it is particularly difficult to generate successful and sustainable business models, which are necessary for the widespread provision of telemedicine services. Following a design research approach, we develop and evaluate the CompBizMod framework, a morphological box allowing for: (1) the analysis, description, and classification of telemedicine business models, (2) the identification of white spots for future business opportunities, (3) and the identification of patterns for successful business models. We contribute to the literature by presenting a specific business model framework and identifying three business model patterns in the telemedicine industry. We exhibit how business models for complex services can be decomposed into their constituent elements and present an easy and replicable approach for identifying business model patterns in a given industry.

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.

In today’s VUCA world, that is characterized by high volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, service provisioning is required to realize flexible and adaptable reconfiguration of service delivery systems and its stakeholders’ resources. However, services are often embedded in greater service systems and the context information of both customer and service provider form both its boundary conditions the suitable solution service. To capture the complexity and leverage the dynamic of service systems, we propose the formal service system model (SSM) method. Following general systems theory, we define boundaries for service delivery and show SSM’s applicability for ad-hoc service operations. We show its usefulness for structuring a service system for service operations, specifically scheduling, planning, and pricing of service provisioning. We contribute to service systems engineering by applying one generalizable mathematical model for both structuring and operationalizing service systems and provide insights in-to capturing the complex relationships of its components