Keeping pace with the digital age: Envisioning information systems research as a platform

In this paper, we respond to Grover and Lyytinen (2022). We agree with them that the advent of the digital age is calling for a reconsideration of the role of theory and theorizing. We also think their proposal does not go far enough. The time is ripe to question the role of theory in our field more fundamentally. We propose to instead focus on establishing IS research as a platform through which we can collect, organize, and provide access to digital trace data from various sources to analyze contemporary socio-technical phenomena. We believe that such a move allows us to more fully unleash the unique socio-technical competences of our field in the digital age.

Digitalization of waste management: Insights from German private and public waste management firms

Policymakers, practitioners, and scholars have long-lauded digital technologies, such as smart waste containers or artificial intelligence for material recognition and robotic automation, as key enablers to more effective and efficient waste management. While these advances promise an increasingly digitalized future for collecting, sorting, and recycling waste material, little is known about the current extent of digitalization by waste management firms. Available studies focus on firms' digitalization intentions, largely neglecting the level of actual adoption of digital technologies, and do not differentiate the level of digitalization alongside different steps of the waste management value chain. Our study reports on a cross-sectional descriptive survey that captures current digitalization efforts and strategies of 130 public and private waste management firms in Germany. We analyze their levels of digitalization along with different steps of the waste management value chain, explore their different objectives, approaches, and transformational measures with regard to digitalization. Our findings reveal that while the perceived importance of digitalization in the waste management sector continues to grow, the actual adoption of advanced digital technologies falls notably behind intentions reported in 2016 and 2017. We explore the reasons for this gap, point out so far largely ignored research opportunities, and derive recommendations for waste management firms and associations.

Sustainable Energy Transition: Intermittency Policy Based on Digital Mirror Actions

The transition to renewable energy requires organizations and governments to formulate and enact new energy policies. This emerging energy era is characterized by higher levels of supply and demand intermittency, which requires information systems to manage the electricity grid. We propose key policy elements for managing intermittency based on information systems to implement digital mirror actions for managing the production, consumption, and transfer of electricity and market mechanisms for maintaining grid equilibrium. This article discusses these and their energy policy implications.

How Do Individuals Understand Multiple Conceptual Modeling Scripts?

Because most real-world domains intended to be supported by an information system are complex, practitioners often use multiple different types of conceptual modeling scripts to understand them. We performed two experiments to examine how two theoretical factors of multiple scripts— combined ontological completeness and ontological overlap—influence how users develop an understanding of a real-world domain from multiple scripts. Results of the first experiment show that to some degree, ontological overlap improves participants’ understanding of a domain, more so than combined ontological completeness. In the second experiment, we tracked the eye movement data of participants to understand how ontological overlap between scripts impacts users’ information search and cognitive integration processes. We found that some occurrence of semantically similar constructs between scripts helps individuals to identify and relate constructs presented in different scripts. Users, therefore, can identify and focus on script areas that are relevant to their problem tasks. However, a high level of ontological overlap decreases the attention paid by participants to relevant task-specific areas because they spend more time searching for relevant information. Together, our findings both refine and extend existing conceptual modeling theory. We clarify the dialectics between the full and parsimonious real-world representations offered through multiple scripts and the individual’s understanding of the domain that is represented by those scripts.

From Lock-In to Transformation: A Path-Centric Theory of Emerging Technology and Organizing

We offer a path-centric theory of emerging technology and organizing that addresses a basic question. When does emerging technology lead to transformative change? A path-centric perspective on technology focuses on the patterns of actions afforded by technology in use. We identify performing and patterning as self-reinforcing mechanisms that shape patterns of action in the domain of emerging technology and organizing. We use a dynamic simulation to show that performing and patterning can lead to a wide range of trajectories, from lock-in to transformation, depending on how emerging technology in use influences the pattern of action. When emerging technologies afford new actions that can be flexibly recombined to generate new paths, decisive transformative effects are more likely. By themselves, new affordances are not likely to generate transformation. We illustrate this theory with examples from the practice of pharmaceutical drug discovery. The path-centric perspective offers a new way to think about generativity and the role of affordances in organizing.

Development and validation of an instrument to measure and manage organizational process variety

Organizational processes vary. Practitioners have developed simple frameworks to differentiate them. Surprisingly, the academic literature on process management does not–it typically strives for one method to manage all processes. We draw on organizational information-processing theory to systematically develop a new, theoretically motivated classification model for organizational processes. We validate this model using survey data from 141 process practitioners of a global corporation. We derive three distinct types of processes and demonstrate that an understanding of process variety based on process dimensions can differentiate processes better than existing frameworks used in practice. Our findings can enable process managers to make informed decisions and serve as a basis for contingent process management.

Blockchains for Business Process Management - Challenges and Opportunities

Blockchain technology offers a sizable promise to rethink the way interorganizational business processes are managed because of its potential to realize execution without a central party serving as a single point of trust (and failure). To stimulate research on this promise and the limits thereof, in this article, we outline the challenges and opportunities of blockchain for business process management (BPM). We first reflect how blockchains could be used in the context of the established BPM lifecycle and second how they might become relevant beyond. We conclude our discourse with a summary of seven research directions for investigating the application of blockchain technology in the context of BPM.

How Agile Practices Impact Customer Responsiveness and Development Success: A Field Study

Agile information systems development methods have become popular; however, which specific agile practice to use remains unclear. We argue that three types of agile practices exist—for management, development, and standards—which affect the customer responsiveness of software teams differently. We examine this theory in a field study of a large organization. We find that agile practices improve software team response effectiveness or efficiency, but not both. Agile standards do not improve response mechanisms but are still important to successful information systems development. Our findings help discriminating agile practices and yield insights into how information development projects should be managed.