Jan Marco Leimeister

In August 2011 the Wall Street Journal published an essay by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen titled “Why software is eating the world”. He argues that “more and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. … Companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming.” (Andreessen 2011). By pointing at examples in various industries from automotive and banking to defense, healthcare, music, retailing, and telecommunications, he illustrates the transformational power of information technology (IT) and software in particular. The discussion is not new and dates back to the early 2000s. For example, Power and Jerjian (2001, p. 99) mention for Heathrow airport that “software is the thing that runs the airport” and in a biological analogy they consider software to be the nervous system. Meanwhile, the large “big tech” software companies (e.g., GAFAM, BATX) have impressively confirmed this development: their digital platforms have spread over many industries with an impact on processes (e.g., interaction and transaction), on products (e.g., app stores and services) as well as on business models (e.g., streaming and as-a-service models). The recent tech-portmanteaus (e.g., Fintech, Insurtech, Regtech) also reflect the attitude of these startup businesses, which perceive themselves rather as IT (tech) companies than as representatives of the industry they are aiming to transform (Meijer and Kapoor 2014). In the same vein, the high valuation of Tesla Motors since early 2020 spurred an intense debate of whether the company is in the automotive or the tech business (e.g., Klebnikov 2020). Obviously, these developments have numerous implications for the field of IT management, which were discussed during a panel at the 82nd Annual German Business Researcher Conference on March 18, 2020. The panel builds on prior discussions regarding the impact of digitalization on IT management. For example, a BISE discussion section in 2017 addressed the implications of the broad trend of digitalization for the field of Business Information Systems Engineering and pointed out new topics, such as digital innovation and transformation, which complement existing competencies (e.g., in modeling and managing enterprise IT). The discussion revealed strong arguments for the strategic role of IT and that business and IT departments as well as academia and practice need to collaborate more closely (Legner et al. 2017). While these statements adopted a rather broad perspective, another discussion section focused on “the impact of digitalization on the IT department” (Urbach et al. 2019). It mentioned important and intricate challenges: On the one hand, IT departments need to move closer to the business units and, on the other hand, they need to constantly update their technological skills in an environment with a high pace of technological innovation. In a world “eaten by software” these developments are equally prevalent and lead to the question how businesses address these challenges, in particular, how they assess the dominant role of software, how activities in managing the software lifecycle should be organized, and what the implications are for the BISE community.

Gamification has taken the world by storm. Regardless of where one stands on gamification, it can aptly be described as interesting but also galvanising and controversial. We are pleased to write a provocative editorial to kick off this special issue on gamification in the European Journal of Information Systems. Our position is that the information systems (IS) discipline has the opportunity to play an outsized role in navigating the discourse of gamification-an increasingly influential, interdisciplinary discourse in research and practice. We assert that active engagement in the gamification discourse is a compelling IS research opportunity, given the growing, globalised platform-based economy. Consequently, we frame our editorial with the knowledge we have gained as IS researchers who engage in gamification research in an effort to share what we have learned about artefacts and original theorisation with both IS and gamification scholars. We do so by proposing a pragmatic path forward for gamification and IS researchers who wish to contribute to these related discourses, both individually and in the form of the combined IS-gamification discourse. We propose a framework of three practices that we are confident can more systematically generate the key theoretical artefacts needed to generate native theory in the IS-gamification discourse and hence to improve the associated research and practice. Foundational to this framework is our paradigm, which advocates active engagement with IS-gamification research and practice, as bridged by a strong focus on design thinking and generating artefacts that are foundational to theory generation.

In this research, we explore the unique case of JumpStartFund, a new crowdfunding platform that is used to develop the Hyperloop project. To this end, we employ an in-depth single case study to examine the participation architecture of the platform as well as the Hyperloop campaign content, based on which we derive a new crowdfunding model. The derived crowdfunding model differs from existing crowdfunding models in that it allows entrepreneurs to develop their business with the crowdmore actively. Our research has important implications for research and practice. First, we introduce a new crowdfunding model that expands the boundaries of existent models. Second, we explain how our model helps to more efficiently leverage the potential inherent in the crowd thereby redefining entrepreneurial success within crowdfunding. Third, we discuss how our findings contribute to existent research within the context of crowdsourcing.

In this research, we explore the unique case of JumpStartFund, a new crowdfunding platform that is used to develop the Hyperloop project. To this end, we employ an in-depth single case study to examine the participation architecture of the platform as well as the Hyperloop campaign content, based on which we derive a new crowdfunding model. The derived crowdfunding model differs from existing crowdfunding models in that it allows entrepreneurs to develop their business with the crowdmore actively. Our research has important implications for research and practice. First, we introduce a new crowdfunding model that expands the boundaries of existent models. Second, we explain how our model helps to more efficiently leverage the potential inherent in the crowd thereby redefining entrepreneurial success within crowdfunding. Third, we discuss how our findings contribute to existent research within the context of crowdsourcing.

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.

We present an electronic data capture (EDC) system based on Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC is an easy way for self-reporting of health status information. As traditional paper-based questionnaires are time- and cost-consuming and may be affected by low patient compliance, our EDC system allows patient monitoring and electronic data acquisition directly from the patient's home. It enables real time representation and analysis of patient data and thus allows direct medical intervention by physicians. The results of a field test indicate that NFC is almost as simple as filling out a paper-based questionnaire. During the study patients used the prototype autonomously and with minimal errors. Further, NFC technology was perceived as very intuitive and the information quality of each patient's health status could be improved. Based on the findings we derive recommendations for future research and applications of NFC based electronic data capture systems.

Crowdsourcing marketplaces emerged in the internet and enable the integration of customers in various tasks along the innovation process. Marketplaces such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk install a member base for third parties, where they can offer small, highly structured paid tasks which can hardly be solved automatically with information and communication technology (ICT) which we call Pico Jobs. In this paper, a new method for systematically utilising the creative potential of the users of these marketplaces for new product development is illustrated. First, an analysis of related work offers an overview of existing methods for integrating customers into innovation processes and classifies crowdsourcing marketplaces according to existing methods. Second, the characteristics of Pico Jobs are elaborated by reviewing leading crowdsourcing marketplaces. Third, our real-world case with OSRAM pinpoints the features of Pico Jobs for idea generation and validation such as the speed and the dynamic of involving customers into innovation processes. The article concludes with a discussion of potentials and limitations for companies applying Pico Jobs in order to accelerate the integration of customers. Overall, this article contributes a new concept for utilising crowdsourcing and points out opportunities for future research in this area.

As educational organizations face difficulties in providing personalized learning material or individual learning support, pedagogical conversational agents (PCAs) promise individualized learning for students. However, the problem of conversational breakdowns of PCAs and consequently poor learning outcomes still exist. Hence, effective and grounded communication between learners and PCAs is fundamental to improving learning processes and out-comes. As understanding each other and the conversational grounding is crucial for conversations between humans and PCAs, we propose common ground theory as a foundation for designing a PCA. Conducting a design science research project, we propose theory-motivated design principles and instantiate them in a PCA. We evaluate the utility of the artifact with an experimental study in higher education to inform the subsequent design iterations. We contribute design knowledge on conversational agents in learning settings, enabling researchers and practitioners to develop PCAs based on common ground research in education and providing avenues for future research. Thereby, we can secure further understanding of learning processes based on grounding communication.