Christoph Peters

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

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.

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

‘Panel reports’ reflect a particular category of submissions that can be made to the Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS). As stated online, panel reports differ from traditional research papers in that “CAIS is open to publishing reports of panels, debates, symposia, workshops and similar events. Such reports have to clearly position the matter of discussion at the event, highlight the relevance of event and topic and outline the different views on the topic that emanated at the events.” (https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/panel_reports.pdf). While this definition has persisted for some time and still holds true, it leaves room for interpretation what constitutes a contribution and how one knows that a particular paper has made enough of one. The purpose of this editorial is to provide interpretation and elaboration of these principles based on our collective experience with such reports.

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.