Towards simple rules heuristics for IT business value

The business value of IT (BVIT) has been a prominent and central research topic in the IS discipline. Due to continuous and unpredictable technology and business changes, a more dynamic perspective on IT business value that includes organizational learning is required. We suggest that simple rules heuristics can address this challenge. The simple rules heuristics approach has been introduced by Eisenhardt and co-authors (Bingham & Eisenhardt, 2011; Bingham, Eisenhardt, & Furr, 2007; Eisenhardt & Sull, 2001) to better understand strategic decision making for capturing superabundant, heterogeneous, fastmoving opportunities. They argue that explicit organizational learning can translate accumulated experience into increasingly effective heuristics for strategic processes in highvelocity environments. We make three main contributions by exploring the suitability of a simple rules heuristics approach for the creation of IT business value: (1) we propose six types of simple rules heuristics for capturing IT-based opportunities in dynamic environments, including synergy heuristics as specifically relevant in an IT context, (2) we show how a simple rules heuristics approach can advance our understanding of dynamics and organizational learning for BVIT, and; (3) we introduce the strategic logic of opportunity to BVIT.

Business process management as the 'killer app' for Petri nets

Since their inception in 1962, Petri nets have been used in a wide variety of application domains. Although Petri nets are graphical and easy to understand, they have formal semantics and allow for analysis techniques ranging from model checking and structural analysis to process mining and performance analysis. Over time Petri nets emerged as a solid foundation for Business Process Management (BPM) research. The BPM discipline develops methods, techniques, and tools to support the design, enactment, management, and analysis of operational business processes. Mainstream business process modeling notations and workflow management systems are using token-based semantics borrowed from Petri nets. Moreover, state-of-the-art BPM analysis techniques are using Petri nets as an internal representation. Users of BPM methods and tools are often not aware of this. This paper aims to unveil the seminal role of Petri nets in BPM.

Authorisation management in business process environments: An authorisation model and a policy model

This thesis provides two main contributions. The first one is BP-TRBAC, a unified authorisation model that can support legacy systems as well as business process systems. BP-TRBAC supports specific features that are required by business process environments. BP-TRBAC is designed to be used as an independent enterprise-wide authorisation model, rather than having it as part of the workflow system. It is designed to be the main authorisation model for an organisation. The second contribution is BP-XACML, an authorisation policy language that is designed to represent BPM authorisation policies for business processes. The contribution also includes a policy model for BP-XACML. Using BP-TRBAC as an authorisation model together with BP-XACML as an authorisation policy language will allow an organisation to manage and control authorisation requests from workflow systems and other legacy systems.

'Black international business': Critical issues and ethical dilemmas

In this chapter, we explore the 'darker' faces of international business (IB). Over a decade ago, Eden and Len way (2001) raised the need for examining both the 'bright' and the 'dark' side of globalization in order to achieve a better understanding of the concept and of its impact on IB activities. In doing this, they posited the multinational enterprise (MNE) as the 'key agent' and 'f.1ee' of globalization and discussed, primarily, the relationship between MNEs and nation-states as the central interf.1ce of its impact. Additionally, they posited that, by and large, the community of IB scholars positioned themselves at the bright end of the globalization spectrum, seeing it as essentially positive, whilst most non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international political economy (IPE) academics set themselves at the dark end. Whilst they acknowledged their own 'bright side' tendencies, they called for a more nuanced consideration of MNEs as what they referred to as the Janus bee' of globalization.

Business Innovation and Disruption in the Music Industry

Over the past fifteen years the music industry has experienced a disruptive process of digital transformation that has reshaped most aspects of the industry; in 2015 the contours of a “new music economy” have begun to emerge. The structure and mechanics of these evolutionary processes vary considerably between continents, and this book examines these processes within Europe, America and Asia. The contributors offer a range of theoretical perspectives, as well as empirical findings from the social sciences and business, as well as the media industries. They offer a holistic understanding of the forces shaping the new music economy, and shed some light on the impact of these forces on the ways in which music is created, aggregated and distributed, and on the economic and social consequences for industry producers and consumers.

The role of the website in a magazine business: Revisiting old truths

This paper explores consumer behavioural patterns on a magazine website. By using a unique dataset of real-life click stream data from 295 magazine website visitors, interesting behavioural patterns are noted: most importantly, 86 % of all sessions only visit the blogs hosted by the magazine. This means that the visitors short-circuit the start page and are not exposed to any editorial content at all, and consequently not to any commercial content on those pages. Sessions visiting editorial content, commercial content or social media links actually represent only one (1) per cent or less of all sessions recorded. Consequently, the online platform gives very limited support for the business model. Our data questions the general assumption that online platforms are key components of a contemporary magazine’s business model.

Introduction to "Business innovation and disruption in the music industry"

Similar to most other creative industries, the evolution of the music industry is heavily shaped by media technologies. This was equally true in 1999, when the global recorded music industry had experienced two decades of continuous growth largely driven by the rapid transition from vinyl records to Compact Discs. The transition encouraged avid music listeners to purchase much of their music collections all over again in order to listen to their favourite music with ‘digital sound’. As a consequence of this successful product innovation, recorded music sales (unit measure) more than doubled between the early 1980s and the end of the 1990s. It was with this backdrop that the first peer-to-peer file sharing service was developed and released to the mainstream music market in 1999 by the college student Shawn Fanning. The service was named Napster and it marks the beginning of an era that is now a classic example of how an innovation is able to disrupt an entire industry and make large swathes of existing industry competences obsolete. File sharing services such as Napster, followed by a range of similar services in its path, reduced physical unit sales in the music industry to levels that had not been seen since the 1970s. The severe impact of the internet on physical sales shocked many music industry executives who spent much of the 2000s vigorously trying to reverse the decline and make the disruptive technologies go away. At the end, they learned that their efforts were to no avail and the impact on the music industry proved to be transformative, irreversible and, to many music industry professionals, also devastating. Thousands of people lost their livelihood, large and small music companies have folded or been forced into mergers or acquisitions. But as always during periods of disruption, the past 15 years have also been very innovative, spurring a plethora of new music business models. These new business models have mainly emerged outside the music industry and the innovators have been often been required to be both persuasive and persistent in order to get acceptance from the risk-averse and cash-poor music industry establishment. Apple was one such change agent that in 2003 was the first company to open up a functioning and legal market for online music. iTunes Music Store was the first online retail outlet that was able to offer the music catalogues from all the major music companies; it used an entirely novel pricing model, and it allowed consumers to de-bundle the music album and only buy the songs that they actually liked. Songs had previously been bundled by physical necessity as discs or cassettes, but with iTunes Music Store, the institutionalized album bundle slowly started to fall apart. The consequences had an immediate impact on music retailing and within just a few years, many brick and mortar record stores were forced out of business in markets across the world. The transformation also had disruptive consequences beyond music retailing and redefined music companies’ organizational structures, work processes and routines, as well as professional roles. iTunes Music Store in one sense was a disruptive innovation, but it was at the same time relatively incremental, since the major labels’ positions and power structures remained largely unscathed. The rights holders still controlled their intellectual properties and the structures that guided the royalties paid per song that was sold were predictable, transparent and in line with established music industry practices.

European audiovisual production companies adapting to strategic challenges

These are turbulent times for audio- visual production companies. Radical changes, both inside and outside the organizations, reach across national markets and different genres. For instance, production methods are changing; the demand from audiences and advertisers is changing; power relations between the actors involved in the value chain are changing; and increasing concentration makes the market even more competitive for small independent players. From a perspective of the structure–conduct– performance paradigm (Ramstad, 1997) it is reasonable to expect that these changes on a structural level of the industry will cause the production companies to adapt their strategic behaviour. The current challenges for media companies are a combination of rising complexity and uncertainty in the market (Picard, 2004). The increasing complexity can for instance be observed in the growing number of market segments and in the continuing trend towards cross- media strategies where media companies operate in multiple markets and on multiple platforms...

Introduction to "International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in the Creative Industries Film, Video and Photography"

The creative industries are particularly fecund empirical fields for investigating the processes of business innovation and disruption. The creative industries are some of the fastest growing sectors in many economies (European Commission, 2001; OECD, 2006; United States Census Bureau, 2010) and thus are worthy of study in their own right. Additionally, the study of the creative industries affords insights into how we understand the current economic transformation towards knowledge- based economies more broadly. The transformation toward knowledge- based economies has been foreshadowed by the transformation of creative industries such as publishing, film, video, photography, music and so on...

Introduction to "Business Innovation and Disruption in Publishing"

This is the first volume in a book series examining how organizations in the creative industries (see preface for extensive discussion of creative industries) respond to disruptive change and how they themselves generate business innovations. The papers included in the volume examine the processes of disruption and transformation due to the technology of the Internet, social forces driven by social media, the development of new portable digital devices with greater capabilities and smaller size, the decreasing costs of new information, and the creation of new business models and forms of intellectual property ownership rights for a digitized industry...

The business implications of consumers’ behavioural patterns on a magazine website

This paper explores consumer behavioural patterns on a magazine website. By using a unique dataset of real-life click stream data from 295 magazine website visitors, individual sessions are grouped according to the different sections visited on the websites. Interesting behavioural patterns are noted: most importantly, 86 % of all sessions only visit the blogs. This means that the visitors are not exposed to any editorial content at all, and choose to avoid also commercial contents. Sessions visiting editorial content, commercial content or social media links are very few in numbers (each 1 per cent or less of the sessions), thus giving only very limited support to the magazine business model. We noted that consumer behaviour on the magazine website seems to be very goal-oriented and instrumental, rather than exploratory and ritualized. This paper contributes to the current knowledge of media management by shedding light on consumer behaviour on media websites, and opening up the challenges with current media business models. From a more practical perspective, our data questions the general assumption of online platforms as supporter of the print business.

Media business studies as we see it: Why does it matter, for whom, and how do you get published? [editorial]

To the delight of the renewed editorial team, the Journal of Media Business Studies (JOMBS) receives an increasing number of submissions every week. Given the growing interest in the study of media business, whether from the angle of economics, management, strategy, organisation studies, marketing, consumer behaviour, innovation and entrepreneurship or other contributing disciplines, this editorial aims to clarify how we look at the field and wish to move the journal forward. In particular, we want to address a few questions that we believe are central for those who wish to publish their research with us and thereby contribute to the academic discussion. This article gives a more elaborate explanation to the aims and scope of JOMBS.

Birth and expansion of innovation ecosystems: A case study of copper production

Despite the growing attention innovation ecosystems have received from scholars and practitioners, rather little is known about the crucial birth and expansion phases that these ecosystems experience. Through a single case in the complex product system (CoPS) environment, this paper investigates the development of an innovation ecosystem between 1980 and 2007. The findings demonstrate that the ecosystem’s birth phase includes sub-phases, namely, invention and start-up, where the ecosystem is reconfigured to find the appropriate form and the proper actors to satisfy the first customer’s requirements. Moreover, the duration of the expansion phase is found to be remarkably long, suggesting that within the CoPS setting, expansion may also include two or more sub-phases.

Exploring aged care business models : A typological study

Australian providers of aged care are facing a rapidly ageing population and growth in demand for services. Beyond a sheer increase in consumers and major regulatory changes from Federal Government, many customers are becoming progressively discontented with a medically dominated model of care provision. This period of turbulence presents an opportunity for new entrants and forward-thinking organisations to disrupt the market by designing a more compelling value offering. Under this line of inquiry, the researchers conducted a qualitative content analysis study of over 37 Australian aged care organisations, clustering providers into six business model typologies. The study revealed that providers of aged care are becoming increasingly aware of emerging customer needs, and, in addressing these needs, are seeking to establish innovative models of care provision. This paper therefore presents a future model of care, along with implications for practice and policy.

Designing innovative business models with a framework that promotes experimentation

Purpose – Business models to date have remained the creation of management, however, it is the belief of the authors that designers should be critically approaching, challenging and creating new business models as part of their practice. This belief portrays a new era where business model constructs become the new design brief of the future and fuel design and innovation to work together at the strategic level of an organisation. Design/methodology/approach – The purpose of this paper is to explore and investigate business model design. The research followed a deductive structured qualitative content analysis approach utilizing a predetermined categorization matrix. The analysis of forty business cases uncovered commonalities of key strategic drivers behind these innovative business models. Findings – Five business model typologies were derived from this content analysis, from which quick prototypes of new business models can be created. Research limitations/implications – Implications from this research suggest there is no “one right” model, but rather through experimentation, the generation of many unique and diverse concepts can result in greater possibilities for future innovation and sustained competitive advantage. Originality/value – This paper builds upon the emerging research and exploration into the importance and relevance of dynamic, design-driven approaches to the creation of innovative business models. These models aim to synthesize knowledge gained from real world examples into a tangible, accessible and provoking framework that provide new prototyping templates to aid the process of business model experimentation.