Jörg Mayer

With Ansoff's article about weak signals as a flagship example, a substantial body of knowledge about environmental scanning systems exists. However, these concepts often go unused in practice. The 2008/2009 economic crisis provided a strong, ongoing impulse for redesigning such information systems (IS). This article develops six guidelines for the conceptual design of environmental scanning systems that are more applicable than those specified by previous research. We start with literature research, which reveals three gaps in existing approaches. Then we develop design guidelines to fill these gaps with the help of modern IS. To address the lack of sound requirements analysis, our first design principle proposes 360-degree environmental scanning systems for executives and suggests how to select the most important scanning areas. Three further findings cover weaknesses in the IS model perspective, focusing on more effective implications of weak signals. In terms of method, we propose incorporating scanning results more closely into executives' decision-making processes. Applying the design guidelines at a raw materials and engineering company, we arrive at a prototype we call the corporate radar. It includes an IS-based tree with economic value added at risk on top. The resulting lessons learned help to evaluate our findings and the research method presented here, as well provide concrete starting points for future research.

As the environment for companies becomes increasingly volatile, scanning systems gain in importance. We propose a hybrid process model for such systems information gathering and interpretation tasks that combines quantitative information derived from regression analyses and qualitative knowledge from expert interviews. For the latter, we apply Bayesian networks. We derive the need for such a hybrid process model from a literature review. We lay out our model to find a suitable set of business environment indicators to forecast a companys key financials. Deriving lessons learned from a prototype in the industrial sector, we evaluate the utility of our model following the design science research paradigm. We find our model to especially convince in completeness, transparency and transportability when compared with pure mathematical models.

The ‘right' configuration of Management Control Systems (MCSs) is still challenging. Aligning reporting, planning, and consolidation from a functional, organizational, and IT perspective needs systematic guidance. The empirically grounded MCS maturity model guides such a development by outlining an evolution from a basic, mandatory/external-driven MCS (level 1), to a balanced MCS (level 2), and a comprehensive MCS (level 3). Ultimately, MCSs show a strong strategic focus (level 4) and leverage the potentials of modern IT (level 5).

Corporate management in today's international companies has become increasingly complex. To cope with these growing challenges, information technology (IT)-based management control systems (MCSs), reporting, planning, and consolidation systems have been deployed. Despite their tradition in management research, the right configuration of MCSs is still challenging. Maturity models (MMs) are an established instrument to identify strengths and weaknesses of certain domains. As existing MMs focus on single MCSs, neglect an IT perspective and miss a sound methodical foundation, this paper outlines an empirically and algorithmically constructed MCS-MM. The model consists of three partial MMs for reporting, planning, and consolidation, which are integrated into one holistic MCS MM. The five levels of the MCS MM guide MCS evolution from a financial and corporate center-centric MCS (level 1) to a basic corporate MCS (level 2), and a comprehensive corporate MCS (level 3). Additionally, the MCS recommends a strong strategic orientation (level 4) and the leverage of potentials of modern IT support (level 5).

In addition to using executive information systems (EIS) in a fixed location, executives increasingly want mobile access, even when they are offline. Based on a framework for EIS use situations and on findings from an expert focus group with participants from multiple industries, we have identified the most important EIS use situations for executives. We classify executives as either Consumer (those who primarily consume EIS information) or Analyst (those who primarily work more interactively with EIS information). To evaluate the relevance of our findings, we participated in a project at Continental AG, a large European automotive supplier. We worked with Continental as it rose to the challenge of selecting the right mobile devices and appropriate software components for its executives' online and offline mobile EIS use preferences. Based on our research, we provide five recommendations for EIS design that will help CIOs in other companies to embrace their executives' growing need to access EIS from mobile devices. Some of these recommendations are generally applicable and will ensure executive buy-in. For Consumer executive use, we recommend first focusing on reducing reliance on paper-based reports, and for Analyst executive use, we recommend first focusing on increasing mobile EIS navigation functionality.

Digital natives increasingly populate organizations management. This new generationof managers more naturally accepts management support systems (MSS), but also hashigher expectations about how information systems (IS) should accommodate their individualuser preferences. As a result, they question MSS that have been developed without configurationmechanisms to accommodate their working style, at a time relevant MSS use cases,and different MSS access modes. This article proposes a configuration model for tailoringMSS to managers different use situations, which are defined as distinct classes of user-grouppreferences. We first apply findings from a literature review to cluster managers user preferencesinto 36 use situations. Second, we propose that the selection of appropriate end-userdevices can serve as a main lever for MSS configuration. Third, we complete the configurationwith a MSS user-interface design that accommodates both managers use situation andselected end-user devices. To avoid incoherent single-case solutions, configuration mechanismstailor generic MSS to managers user-group preferences and, thus, generate situatedMSS designs. Finally, we show the utility of our configuration model by presenting andevaluating a prototype.Keywords: Management Support Systems; Digital Natives; IS Analysis and Design; User-Group Preferences; Use Factors in IS Design; Requirements Analysis; IS Configuration

Digital natives increasingly populate organizations’ management. These new-generation managers more naturally accept management support systems (MSS), but also have higher expectations about how they should accommodate their individual user preferences. As a result, managers question MSS that have been developed without configuration mechanisms to accommodate their working style, relevant MSS use cases, and different MSS access modes. The objective of this article is to reveal managers’ different MSS use situations and propose levers for tailoring (conceptual) MSS design to them. Use situations generalize classes of similar user-group preferences. We first apply findings from a literature review to cluster managers’ user-group preferences into 36 MSS use situations. Second, we propose that the selection of end-user devices can serve as a main lever for MSS configuration. Third, we complete the configuration with a MSS user-interface design. Finally, we demonstrate utility of our configuration model by presenting and evaluating a prototype.